well, i haven’t checked in regularly, but i have been busy. i want to tell you about something i did yesterday. this is prime citrus season–fresh and (relatively) cheap. i got 5 lbs of organic lemons, and went right to work to make the most of them. because they are organic, there is no pesticide residue on them. so i grated the yellow skins finely and spread them out to dry. they will add lemony flavor to desserts and fish all year. next, i cut them up and juiced them. i didn’t can all that juice as it would damage the vitamin c, which is heat sensitive. instead, i froze the juice in ice cube trays, each space in the tray holding about 2 tablespoons of juice. the frozen cubes were doubled bagged and put in the freezer. if i didn’t have a freezer, i would have canned them, because i would, at least, get the lemony flavor all year. next, i used a spoon to scrape the remaining flesh off the white part of the peel. the peel is used in 2 ways. first, i add some slices of the white pith to the white vinegar i use for cleaning and as a laundry softener replacement. it keeps just fine in the gallons of vinegar and adds a little cleaning power and fresh scent to all the places i use vinegar. the rest of the peel is chopped up and sprinkled around acid loving plants–especially blueberries and camellia sinensis (from which black tea is made). nothing left in my kitchen today but a slight scent of lemon. 🙂
