Love in the Kitchen - making fast, healthy, homegrown meals you'll enjoy

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Lemon Juice - for Later

Lemons are in season right now.  That means great prices on lemons, as you'll find sales on in-season produce.  (Or if you are lucky enough to have lemon trees, this is the time you'll start to see your lemon trees producing.)

Either way, this is the wonderful time for lemons.  

You may want to buy a lot - but you might not want to use them all right now.  Here's a great way to save that lemony goodness for use later.

First, you need to make sure your lemons are clean.  I soak mine in warm water for a bit and them scrub them.


Now use a micro-grater to zest all of the lemons.  It is best to do this BEFORE juicing them.  Both the juicing and the zesting are easier.  Zest the lemons onto a parchment paper covered baking sheet.  Once all the lemons are zested, spread the zest evenly on the sheet and freeze.



After 30 minutes, remove from the freezer and place in a large freezer bag.  Break up the zest so that it is in individual strands (more or less) can easily be measure out later, and store in the freezer.  Be sure to label the bag so that you can remember when you put it in the freezer!






Now to juice them.  


I like to juice them into a large measuring cup - this makes it easy to pour into my containers.




Pour the juice into small freezer-safe containers.  I have 1 ounce plastic containers to use for this.  This is a pretty good size for use later.


Pop the tops on, and freeze.


I store these in large freezer bags (labelled with the date) too.  And now I can have fresh lemon any time!

And a nice side benefit?  The kitchen smells lemon-fresh!


Zentmrs
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2 comments:

  1. Such a great smell. Had never thought to freeze zest.

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  2. I have so many lemons growing right now so I'm definitely saving this! I live up in SLO, so I'd imagine that our weather is pretty close:) My lemon tree is actually a dwarf tree (the cutest in the world!). But, it's still producing so many lemons that I have a hard time using them all! Thanks for this info:)

    Kelly from Smart School House
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