An accidental glut of lemons

We have our own lemon tree, bought about 18 months ago from Aldi, and it has done remarkably well in a climate that doesn't really suit. In the winter months we bring the shrub into the conservatory. On the day I bought it, it was bearing one large ripe lemon, and since then it has flowered almost constantly and produced lots of baby lemons. Unfortunately, most of these fell off almost immediately (I think we were over watering and under feeding the tree at that time) but a few did survive. Finally, we have a second lemon that is almost ready to pick, and quite a few half grown lemons from this year’s crop. They take 8 to 10 months to ripen so we are hoping they will be ready next year. But this hardly constitutes a glut!

However, the recipe for the apple wine called for lemons and since I was multiplying out the recipe five times to get my 25 litres, I accidently multiplied the lemon quantity - my brain is not what it used to be, I’m afraid. I needed five lemons and bought 30! We made the apple wine on Monday and in the final stages I was cutting the lemons and Mike was squeezing them when it dawned on me that I’d made a mistake, fortunately before adding the lemon juice to the wine!

Thus, the accidental glut of lemons.

Having taken what we needed of the squeezed juice for the wine I used the rest to make some lemonade concentrate which sits in the fridge. Very nice, specially diluted with soda water. I love citrus peel and hated the thought of throwing away all those skins, so I trawled the internet for a preserve recipe and found one that soaks the peel (stripped off with as little pith as possible) in salt water for three days, wash, then boil in syrup for 10 minutes every day for three days, then drain, roll in extra sugar, dry and store in bottles. Yumm. Mine is still in the boil in syrup every day stage. The syrup has a lovely slightly salty flavour.

There are still ten lemons left, so now, of course, the Limoncello. 

(At this point you are probably thinking we are a bit too keen on our booze, but not really, it’s just that I like a little something different every now and again and I have friends and family members who like me to share these experiments. Mike sticks to wine and beer.)

I’ve had a recipe for Limoncello for years but never got around to making it. Now I have no excuse. I have bought the vodka and had hoped to find a zester. It is imperative here that no pith is used - only zest. I had no luck with finding a zester so I’ve done it with a sharp knife - very labour intensive. I hope it will be worth it.

And still in the citrus mood, I found an interesting looking recipe for preserved clementines in Mike’s favourite newspaper on Saturday. Clementines are available and reasonably cheap at the moment so why not? I made them last night. They look so glamorous in their bottles with the spices, I thought this would make a nice gift for someone special. There was some syrup left over which is lovely drizzled on ice cream.

* Update on the creature in the compost. It is all out war with Mrs Mouse I’m afraid. I’ve thrown all the carefully removed compost back in again and the bin is now thoroughly barricaded with scraps of slate and bricks and then sprayed with Febreze. Holding thumbs.