When Life Gives You Lemons... Celebrate!

That counter with the rotting grout, amirite?  Gotta love rentals.

About three weeks ago, my friend gave me a bag of lemons.  Why?  Well, she is super into a site called Freecycle, which is awesome in that it reduces waste and keeps things out of landfills by connecting people who need things with people who need to get rid of things.  I personally found the e-mail notification format annoying, so after unsuccessfully trying it in hopes of finding a china cabinet, and being dismayed by people actually trying to pawn off junk (deflated beach ball that won't reinflate?  WHY?), I unsubscribed.

Anyway, my friend has found a lot of neat things there, which takes determination and time to go pick up everything.  She has found everything from sod to a new couch!  To another new couch!  And someone was giving away a ton of lemons, so I got some!  Some things are just junk that take up space and you really need to be careful with what you allow in the door.  Lemons NEVER fit into that category.  They are always a good thing!

I received a tote bag full to the brim of lemons--probably 5 pounds?  I'm not good at estimating weight.  Now the task was to juice all those lemons.  But first, since I was busy, and most of the busy-ness was the result of guests, I offered lemons to some of those guests.  And some friends who I met up with.  Oh come on, who am I kidding?  Everyone likes lemons!

Now that the first phase of the project was done (that would be, reducing the amount of lemons I have to juice), I ignored the bag for a couple weeks because I was just lazy.  Finally yesterday, I was just bored and antsy enough to juice them.  This requires setting up a little station, I find.

1. cutting board
2. knife (any old knife--paring, or pictured above is one of my favorite steak knives)
3. measuring cup (or any bowl type object to collect the juice that has a spout)
4. strainer (so much easier to collect the seeds first)
5. juicer (this could be an old-fashioned bowl-style one, a reamer, or, your hands!)
6. empty ice cube tray (what the juice goes into) (you can put yer juice in there!)

It's so easy.  Just rinse all the lemons.  Then cut all the lemons in half.  Then juice.  Then pour into ice cube trays and freeze.  Once frozen, take out of ice cube trays and put into a gallon size Ziploc bag.  If all goes well, you will have a "squeeze" of lemon, or more, for recipes and tea year round.  Sometimes that's all a recipe needs to give it a little "oomph."

You can also zest the lemons, but the one time I did this, my husband said it didn't add anything to any dish, and it was a major PITA to do.  So, moving on.

If you live in California, doing this is so unbelievably easy.  Almost every yard has some sort of lemon tree.  I believe the ones above, with their lovely egg yolk-colored rinds, are Meyer lemons, my favorite variety.  They are a bit less tart than regular lemons, and are supposedly a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange.  They are super popular in California, but very hard to find in stores.  Happily, they are so easy to grow.  Maybe someone you know (a neighbor?) has a tree that is more of a burden and they don't use the fruit before it falls to the ground and rots.  Keep your eyes peeled and you too can have a boatload of lemons each year, that will last you many months.

I am growing a Meyer lemon tree which has just given fruit, and it is barely, slowly but surely, turning golden.  I hope to share updates on that and the rest of my garden soon.

For more information on the fun things to do with Meyer lemons, click here.  And have a great weekend!