When Life Gives You Lemons...

The economy is sinking, and I am between jobs right now. But that's not what this posting is about. This posting is about real lemons. 19 of them. In fact, this past weekend will forever be remembered as the weekend of 19 lemons.

My friend Katharine gave me these lemons. We don't one know exactly where they came from, she says a neighbor gave them to her. At any rate, since most recipes don't require very many lemons, except for lemonade which I'm not crazy about, I decided to store them. I did this according to The Best Way to Store and Use Fresh Lemons. On Saturday, I zested all of them. This took about an hour and half so luckily there were a bunch of Chris Farley movies on TV that I could watch while doing this. What is zesting? It's using a fine grater to get all of the yellow peel only, none of their white rind, off. On Sunday, I juiced them. I put one tablespoon of juice into each part of an ice cube tray. I am going to pop them and put them in a bag and put them back in the freezer. Before juicing, always roll the lemons on the counter to soften them up, or put them in the microwave for a minute. This took about an hour as well, since I only have a small, old-fashioned citrus juicer. Good thing Prairie Home Companion was on. I also made some low-fat lemon muffins that didn't come out very good. I plan to make a lemon meringue pie soon!

All of these lemons kind of soured me a bit, so I didn't end up going to the Chocolate Salon in Pasadena. Ce'st la vie!