greenclogs

lemons, lemons everywhere

I promised a roundup of lemon recipes/uses that we use around here with all of our lemons. Lemon picking is going on in earnest around here - I can't even guess how many there are on the tree. Hundreds. 

See? I wasn't joking. 

Here's a list to get you started. I'll round up more as we try new things this year. 

Ina Garten's lemon yogurt cake - hands down my favorite lemon cake recipe. 

Lemon curd - tastes best if you also have farm fresh eggs. This one is all about the fresh ingredients. I like Alton Brown's recipe, but Martha Stewart's is good too. 

Limoncello - our quick and dirty way is to peel the zest off of about 10 large or 15 small lemons with a vegetable peeler. Pulse in the food processor to chop into small pieces. Add zest to 1 liter of vodka (we use Smirnoff - good but not expensive vodka) that you have split into 2 or 3 large mason jars. Put lids on and shake. Let sit for a week, shaking once a day. After a week, mix with simple syrup to taste (I think Jeff uses a cup of simple syrup but I'll check). Let sit overnight and store in the freezer before serving. Make sure you also juice the lemons and throw that in the freezer for when you have a need for lemons off-season. 

Lemon Bars - I use the recipe from the Grand Central Baking book. I sent an email to them to see if I can share it here. Regardless, I'd highly encourage you to buy this book. It's quite literally the only one I pull out. 

Lemonade, of course

Lemon ice cream

Lemon marmalade - I'm making this one tomorrow. 

Lemon sugar - zest several lemons and combine the zest in a food processor with 2 - 3 cups of sugar, depending on how lemony you like things. We keep ours in the refrigerator and use it in drinks, or in sweet recipes that want a lemony kick. 

for savory dishes, we like lemony grilled chicken (marinate in lemon juice, olive oil garlic and rosemary), lemony chickpea stir fry, lemon risotto, green beans sauteed with lemon zest and mint, shrimp marinated in lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and rosemary), and the list goes on. Pair it with fish and make a buerre blanc sauce. Pair it with garlic and oregano and lamb. Make hollandaise. 

Lastly, if you're lucky enough to have a bumper crop of lemons, just juice them and save the juice for later, along with the zest. You'll be forever grateful that you did. 

And because I know some of you are socked into winter with no lemon tree in your yard, I'm giving away a USPS large priority mail box full of lemons to a lucky reader. Just leave a comment on this post by Friday, January 7 telling me your favorite way to use lemons and have a chance to win. 

 

it's that time of year

It's lemon time! I know I teased you with their approach a couple of weeks ago, but it's for real now. They're rapidly turning chartreuse and then yellow and there are hundreds of them that luckily don't ripen all at the same time. We have eight on the counter right now that I think are becoming the first lemon bars of the season tomorrow. Or maybe some lemon ricotta pancakes. Or both. I'm thinking of something lemon-y for Thanksgiving dessert, thanks to my new book of lemon desserts. Yum. 

So is there interest in some lemon recipes? Because we have many that are tried and true and many more that we're itching to try. Lucky for us, lemon season lasts for half the year. I'm happy to share what we love. 

Those look like they want to be a lemon yogurt cake. Oh lemons. I'm happy you're finally back. We missed you. 

the gift of lemons

It's that time of year again. Lemon time. Our tree is covered in hundreds of lemons that are all in varying stages of ripeness. Luckily, they don't have to all be picked at once, so we'll spread out the lemon love through April. There are far too many lemons to just use in every day life, even with giving way as much as we can in the neighborhood citrus exchange, so we use them in all sorts of recipes that we can gift over the holidays. 

First up is limoncello, the gift that keeps on giving. There are recipes all over the web with varying steeping times, but here's the scaled down version of what we're doing. 

Limoncello

1 750ml bottle of vodka - apparently you can use rotgut and some recipes recommend Everclear, but we're going with our standby Smirnoff that is available in the big bottles at Costco.

10 lemons - again, we adjust a bit because our tree lemons can be 2-3 times larger than the ones in the store. 

After steeping: 1 cup water and 1 cup sugar made into a simple syrup (if you want it sweeter then make more syrup - the recipes vary)

Peel the lemons, making sure that you avoid peeling the white pith. Put into a sealable container (we use a half gallon canning jar) and pour the vodka over it. Mix thoroughly and close up. Let sit for 4 days to a month. Again - the recipes vary. We'll let ours sit for about a week. At that point, the peels have lost their color completely and seem to be devoid of their lemony goodness. 

Pour syrup into jar and let sit overnight at room temp. 

The next day, strain the liquid to remove the peels and any other solids. Pour into prepared fancy bottles. We're also pouring some into old school canning jars and adding a bootleg style label for that backwoods hick look. 

Refrigerate/freeze and enjoy.