Far too many for me to use fresh, so I zested them all, then sliced the rest of the lemons. And froze the lot. I blessed the day I did it, since it enabled me to make real lemonade back there when I was sick, and the zest has flavored all kinds of foods, very simple, freezes well.
Today it came out again, when I made tomato, chickpea, yogurt and lemon zest soup.
Wonderful bright flavor over the tomato, so I thought I'd mention it. Lemons being the only citrus fruit I'm not deadly allergic to, they come in all the time for me, where oranges would be expected, great stuff. Used zest yesterday in those sugar cookies.
The soup is very easy: one can diced tomatoes, one big can chickpeas, though you can buy them dry if you think of it the day before and soak them and cook them for ages, one small container of leftover yogurt whey, seasonings you see on the counter. Aside from the usual garlic and onion, sizzled for a while in the olive oil base before adding the other seasoning items. They all cook a while before adding the vegetables and the liquid. I sometimes add in a can of chicken broth.
As to seasonings, to wit: turmeric, a big fave in this house, excellent health food as well as lovely color, fresh ground black pepper, see it in its little glass grinder, kosher salt, and the aforementioned lemon zest, of which I used a tablespoon or thereabouts.
This makes about six servings of soup.
And when there's a good price on lemons, I plan to stock up and freeze. I supposed you could squeeze and freeze the juice, but I didn't go that far.
Last year I discovered those lemons, crud, what's the name of them. Special bag. Meyer, that's it. Love them, but can't use up bag fast enough, the dog doesn't care for them. Next season if I'm still alive, should buy bags, slice/zest, freeze.
ReplyDeleteLemons are yummy indeed. This soup sounds super tasty. :)
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