The Joy Of Lemons - Use your Resources

I have been learning how to use my resources - what do you do when you have too many lemons?

1. Make Lemonade: The obvious first thing you think to do with lemons. I looked online and found a recipe on www.epicurious.com. First, make simple syrup. Next, add in the lemon juice and water to your personal taste. Learning Tip: taste the raw lemon juice first to see how sweet or tart the juice is. You may want to adjust the amount of simple syrup or water based on the taste of the juice you get. We made our first batch too sweet because we did not realize the lemons we had were really sweet.

2. Preserve the juice/zest: Make frozen cubes of lemon juice so you don't need to purchase the juice at the grocery store (or lemons). We use lemon juice in so many things (cooking, baking and even cleaning). If you freeze it, you can wait until you are ready to get to that resource. Once the cubes are frozen, place them in large ziplock freezer bags with a label and date.

Also, the zest is often used in baking, but it does not keep as well when just frozen. Learning Tip: A friend gave me a wonderful suggestion to put some juice with the zest in a ice cube tray. That way you keep a little bit in a container and the juice keeps the rind from getting dried out.

3. Cleaning: Hard water stains on glass are hard to keep up with...especially in the shower. I found out from an awesome video on YouTube by ehowhome. It shows how you can take an opaque water-stained shower door and make it clear again.

Take the lemon juice, poor it on a sponge and rub into the glass. After you have let it sit for a while or rubbed it in good with the sponge, spray the area with white vinegar water. It is so much friendlier then the store purchased product that requires gloves and scared me to use.

4. Share with your neighbors: It is always nice to share what you have and so bring the lemons to those around to your neighbors. It is also nice to share the blessing to those around us.

There are more things to learn about this wonderful fruit but that is what I have been learning so far. I never knew lemons could be such a blessing.