Preserves All things Lemon Part One

I recently bought four baskets of Lemons from the Veg shop at £1 per basket.  There are approximately 12 Lemons in each basket, and so what to do to make these individually expensive fruits more helpful in my Pantry. I will need more Lemons, but at least I have a few projects to go at.

Fermented Lemon and Honey x 2 jars

Basically, take a clean sterilised jar and layer up Lemon slices within the jar.  Partially fill and then add runny honey, then add more slices continuing to the top of the jar.  This is a Ferment that does not go wild, but good for colds, drinks etc.  I have recycled a couple of large old Pickle jars and intend on using this in cooking, for teas, colds, with cider vinegar in the morning and hot water (a traditional daily intake that is meant to help with any kind of arthritis and helps to keep you moving).  It helped me when I was younger, it is though, something I have not used in a while.  On a recent sorting out session I discovered that it would appear that I have a fetish for Cider vinegar for pickling.  I had not realised that I had quite so many jars!  Now need to top up on the wine vinegar as I tend to use more of the wine vinegar.

Dried Lemon Slices

The first batch are in the Dehydrator.  This first batch is for making Lemon tea and/or for use in drinks like Mulled wines, Sangria, Lemon and Ginger tea.  I intend to do a lot more yet. Some may even end up being used in decorations, or to decorate gifted items with.

I am just letting the dried slices cool down before conditioning them and then packaging up.  I think the Dehydrator is going to be in use for a little while yet.  I will factor it in to what I do with the electricity this month.  The lemon slices do dry a deeper colour more an orangey lemon; I am pleased with the results, and they do smell lovely.  I will be doing a few more yet if I can get the lemons on reduction again.

Lemon Sugar

I have made some more of this as I can foresee that it will be very useful for dressing a Lemon Drizzle cake and other baking items.  

It is simple enough to make and will be yet another useful item for my Pantry shelf.  Basically, you zest your lemons and mix the zest with a quantity of sugar and then dry it gently in the oven. I zest my Lemons using a fine Microplane grater.  I kept breaking the sugar mixture up with a fork whilst it was drying as it does clump a bit.  You then leave it to go completely cold.  I then broke any lumps down with the back of a spoon and then filled a litre jar with the Lemon sugar. It does have the most delicate Lemon smell (which it should).  Might be a good one to make with Caster sugar, to make Lemon flavoured Meringues.  Just musing to myself aloud!

Will be very useful, to combine with a project where you are just using the juice so that you get the maximum return per Lemon and so that there is no waste.  Lemon shells will go straight into a new bottle homemade Lemon Vinegar for cleaning purposes only.  Never ever waste the zest.  If you have some going begging from another project, just do this and save to your Pantry storage.

At least am slowly getting back into things on the preserving front.  Still early days, and still there is loads of stuff to do.  There are more projects in the works.  At least it is a few practical projects out of the way with.  There are further Lemon projects to come.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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