Monday's Food Tips: More Ways to Use Those Lovely Lemons and Limes

If you followed our food tip from Saturday (scroll down to see tip) and bought citrus fruit to create a striking centerpiece for your kitchen or dining room table, by the end of the week or so you’ll be looking for ways to use those lovely lemons and limes in your cooking.

Over the weekend I replenished my own citrus centerpiece (a big basket of fresh limes) which had been on the kitchen counter for over a week. I took the older limes out of the basket and replaced them with ones fresh from the farmer’s market. Then I washed and dried each of the older limes thoroughly. To get my money’s worth from all this fruit, I removed the zest and the juice from each of the older limes.

ZESTING THE FRUIT

The zest is the colored part of the citrus peel and makes a flavorful addition to all sorts of beverages and baked goods. The easiest way to zest a lemon or lime is with a citrus zester. But I just run a whole lemon or lime diagonally across the side of my grater, making sure I don’t apply so much pressure that the grater cuts down to the pith (the white and bitter part of the peel – you don’t want that).

Once I have all the zest from each piece of fruit, I put the zest into a plastic storage bag and seal it, then pop it into the freezer, where it will keep for up to 6 months. Whenever I need some citrus zest for a recipe I just dig out the bag of zest from the freezer.

JUICING THE FRUIT



If you have an electric juicer, follow the directions that came with it for juicing lemons and limes. If you don’t have one of these nifty machines, roll each piece of fruit along the kitchen counter with your hand for a couple of seconds to loosen the juice. Then cut each lemon on lime in half. Use one of those charming old glass juicers to juice the fruit, or simply squeeze the fruit to extract as much juice as you can into a bowl or glass jar.

Use the juice immediately to make lemonade or limeade, or refrigerate the juice in a clean jar (tightly sealed) for up to 5 days.



EASY LIMEADE

Juice of 3 limes

2/3 c. granulated sugar

2 qts. cold water

Put the lime juice into a 2 quart pitcher. Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Fill pitcher with cold water. Stir thoroughly, then put the pitcher in the refrigerator until the limeade is cold. Serve with ice and garnish with fresh lime, lemon, or orange slices.

For extra pizzaz, add a splash of Grenadline syrup or maraschino cherry juice to the limeade and garnish each glass with a maraschino cherry.

Here are a couple of other ways to use those lovely lemons and limes:

Lemon/Lime Gelato

Lime Marmalade