Friday, February 11, 2011

Making lemonade



Kansas is not exactly known for its lemon harvests. We have a little greenhouse that houses the lemon tree that I bought about 6 years ago for a fun little potted house plant.  We moved it out in the summer and inside in the winter, finally banishing it to the spare bedroom for the winter, as the sweet, sweet smell of the blossoms was almost sickening (to me, my mother loved sleeping in that room when the lemon tree was inside), but, we were lucky in that we didn't kill it by neglect, and it quickly outgrew the largest pot that we could find, and the guys hated hauling it in and out because it was so big, and it has thorns!! I wondered if it would even bear any fruit this year, as the little propane heater that we use in the winter to keep it above freezing, went out without our knowledge, and it was below freezing in the greenhouse before we knew it.  The lime tree (yep, had to have one of those, too), dropped every single little gem and every single leaf that it had, and the lemon tree dropped about half of its leaves and fruit, but it must have been a little warmer in that corner of the greenhouse, because we picked a whopping 6 gallons of fruit during Christmas break!!
This is just a small sampling of the lemons, this was a three gallon bucket, notice that it is mounded over, also picked a two gallon and a five gallon bucket full! I was so excited. These are Meyer lemons, and we have found out the hard way, that once we pick and bring these in the house, they get very soft very fast, so, we juiced almost all of them. This brought just under two gallons of juice!! Now, I love fresh made lemonade, and home made sweet and sour mix, and lemon in my Blvd. Unfiltered Wheat Beer, but am not really a fan of lemon bars or pie! I did start out making a lemon cream pie for my hubby, as that is one of his favorites, and then started looking for other lemon recipes.  I found a lemon tart recipe on allrecipes.com, and it was very good, not too tart, not too sweet. Then I proceeded to make some lemon curd for my mother, who made sure to tell me that she loved fresh lemons!!
The crust is a little ugly, but it covered nicely with some fresh made whipped cream!! To keep me from eating too much, I took this to our neighborhood Super Bowl party. Have a sunny day.

1 comment:

  1. Holy Mackerel those are some beautiful lemons and they are Meyer lemons too!! I didn't know lemon trees had thorns. You learn something new everyday. Wow. Your house must smell wonderful. Fresh lemons and limes beat out the store bought juice any day. Lucky duck!

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