Lemons

As I mentioned in my New Year's post, I'm getting interested in preserving summer's bounty and in my neck of the wood's its really any time of year's bounty. I'm not sure I can pinpoint any one reason why it interests me, but all sorts of things seem to be conspiring to say, "this just makes sense". Environmental reasons, self sufficiency, health benefits of homegrown food, frugality, preserving quality ingredients for cooking. Heck, even novelty! So with winter in Northern California we have Meyer lemons! Now, I don't actually have meyer lemons, despite the fact that I have a meyer lemon tree. Its sadly neglected from being in a pot and not receiving suitable attention. I have plans of putting it in the ground, but haven't done it yet. No, my in-laws in Chico have come through with LOADS of beautiful lemons. So good. If I'm going to be processing foods in bulk for preserving I need to find out what exactly a bushel is, because I suspect I had one of lemons. If not one then at least a large fraction of one. So I cut these guys in half, juiced 'em by hand and then froze them in ice cube trays to create 1 tablespoon servings or approximately half a lemon. And then stored them in a ziploc bag. I have 8 dozen cubes which should last me for quite some time. I'm not sure what my lemon using frequency is, but 8 dozen is roughly equal to 1 lemon a week. Not too shabby. They will probably get freezer burned before then, so I'll try to use them up a bit faster.