Knit Flix

Sunday, February 17, 2013

11 lemons in 3 days

Our Meyer lemon tree was shaded by Texas privet trees and it was really struggling for the past few years. We finally cut down those pesky privets and after 18 months of good air circulation and exposure to sunlight, the lemon tree has made a nice come back. We have beautiful lemons again!

Meyer lemons
Meyer lemons

Yesterday, Joanne posted a link to a Meyer lemon muffin recipe that uses 2 lemons, peel and all. Perfect! I baked up a batch and 4 disappeared before I could snap a photo. I moved this recipe from my "I'm hungry" board to "I tried it and I liked it" on Pinterest.

Meyer lemon muffins
Meyer lemon muffins

They weren't too lemony, in fact I thought they would have a stronger lemon taste. But now that I think about it, I was comparing the muffins to cakes and other baked goods that were probably enhanced with extracts or artificial flavors. No, these muffins are naturally good with whole lemons. I'm going to make these again.

2 lemons down, 9 to go.

When the lemons are pretty and beautifully ripe, they want to be marmalade. They need to be marmalade. If you haven't made marmalade before, you probably don't know that a batch of marmalade can't be made in a day. It's a 2 day process so it requires a little bit of prep and planning. I usually don't think about canning until Sunday, so this 3 day weekend worked in my favor. 8 lemons were picked, washed, sliced, and dumped into a pot of water for 1/1/2 batches of Meyer Lemon Marmalade.

Marmalade prep
Marmalade prep

After 24 hours, I'll add sugar and heat to transform this pot of citrus and water into bright, yellow, delicious Meyer Lemon Marmalade.

Long weekend marmalade
Long weekend marmalade

That's 10 lemons. Where did the last one go? We had barbeque beef sandwiches for dinner and had cole slaw on the side. The juice of the last lemon went into that big bowl of cabbage and carrots.

Do you have an awesome Meyer lemon recipe to share? Let me know about it, I'd love to give it a try.

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Saturday, September 22, 2012

Sparkling Lemonade? The fixin's are in the fridge

We had a few Meyer Lemons on the tree that weren't nice enough for marmalade.

Meyer Lemons
Meyer Lemons

So I made sparkling lemonade. Refreshing!

Sparkling Lemonade
Sparkling Lemonade

I started with the recipe from The Fannie Farmer Cookbookand increased the amount of juice & simple syrup for a stronger lemon flavor.

Sparkling Lemonade
3 tbsp lemon juice
2-1/2 tbsp simple syrup
1 c sparkling water

The ingredients are at the ready in the fridge.

Lemonade fixin's
Lemonade fixin's

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