Imported perfection

I'm an advocate for local foods, but I don't know of anyone growing lemons around here. Since I don't want to live without lemons, I've worked out ways to love every part of the imported lemons I get... that is, using and appreciating every part of the fruit.

Why Lemons

Flavor. Concentrated flavor. Versatile, concentrated flavor. It goes with anything. Sweet or savory. Wet or dry. Lemon is stimulating and invigorating, without jitters or crashes. Cleansing, yet gentle enough for daily consumption. Lemons are unlike any other fruit and I just love them.

Buying your Lemons

Aquire your lemons without plastic if you can. My goal is to appreciate the whole fruit, so if you would rather buy lemon juice or candy or some plastic wrapped finished product, this report may not be relevant to you. I like to look for loose lemons that were shipped in cardboard boxes. Sometimes I'll buy lemons in a mesh bag, because that plastic mesh is really useful for one of my favorite things to do with lemon parts, which is make homemade household cleaner.

Have some standards: look for organic, fair trade, and in season. If lemons don't grow where you are, figure out where and when they are abundant nearest you. (For me and everyone else East of the Mississipi in North America, lemons are abundant in Florida from December until May). This is the most economical and sustainable time to cultivating your relationship with lemons.

Lemon Zest

I occaisionally use lemon zest for special occasions and recipes, but zesting lemons is not my go-to. On average, I zest probably one out of every 20 lemons in my life. A microplane makes the best lemon zest, but you can use the finest part of your cheese grater if you don't have a microplane. There is no need to get meticulous when zesting lemons. A little bit goes a long way. Just get some good zest and move on... don't zest to deep.

Lemon Juice

The juice is the best part of lemons. If you don't want lemon juice in your life, you probably don't need lemons in your life. 

I advocate for processing whole lemons, all at once. Some peple like to cut off a wedge here, and a slice there, picking away at the fruit slowly over the course of meals or days. This is tedious, messy, and makes it hard to use all the parts of the lemon efficiently. Don't get me wrong, a lemon wedge garnish from time to time is great, but if you are as serious as I am about using every part of a big batch of lemons, juicing them whole is the best way to go.

Actually, juice them halved. Slice them in half, and then juice both halves using your citrus juicer of choice. My personal favorite lemon juicing tool is solid glass hand juicer with a cute little handle and pour spout. I found mine cheap at a thrift store, and I bet you can too.

My other favorite tool for juicing lemons is actually a garlic press. I don't use my garlic press for garlic, I use it to quickly strain the seeds & pulp from my freshly squeezed lemon juice. The seeds and pulp clog up most strainers too fast; a garlic press has the perfect size wholes for straining lemon juice.

The Lemon Pith & Pulp

After you juice your lemons, slice off weird spots and peel out the pith. Take the time to get a nice, clean seperation of fleshy pith, from the oily peel. If the lemons you are processing are perfectly ripe (not to early/hard, not too late/mush), the peel will seperate easy from the pith. I compost the pith, and use the peel to make household cleaner. If these two parts don't want to seperate, just compost everything but your juice, and move on with your life. You probably don't want to add too many lemon peels to your compost pile, so try to process lemons when they are at the perfect ripeness. The pupl is easily composted, and this inner mush will break down faster than you can add it to your pile. It adds great minerals to your compost too. 

Lemon Peel

To get the most of your lemon peels, process your many lemons at once while they are still in good shape. Mushy, moldy, or soft peels can be composted, but this is cetainnly not the highest potential for a lemon peel. Don't let lemons go soft! Use them first. 

You can turn lemon peel into "lemon zest" to be used in cooking. If you zest a lemon, do so before halving and juicing it. I don't zest much lemon myself. Click here to learn all about zesting lemons from a woman who does.

You can extract the cleansing property of lemon oil directly into vinegar, to make an all natural household cleanser. This is what I use most of my lemon (and other citrus) peels for. This is an easy process that, by popular request, I look forward to everexplaining in the future. 

Lemon peels can be dried or used fresh for tea, beauty treatments, or added to a bath. You can dry them for potporri. They hold crafting potential. There is no "wrong" way to use a lemon peel, so long as it is appreciated. They smell so good. Just remove as much pith as you can before you dry them. Lemon peels are dry and oily enough, you can usually just air dry them in your home. Rub your hands on the peels for an invigorating scent experience. 

Lemon Seeds & More

Remember when you strained your lemon juice? Seeds came out! Can you get them to grow? Lemon seeds aren't too tricky to start. They like it warm and humid to germinate... the right plastic bag can turn any pot into a mini-greenhouse. Lemon seeds can turn into fruiting trees! But that doesn't have to be the point. Turning some lemon seeds into live plants enriches my relationships with lemons, even though I've never gotten so far as growing a lemon flower. But that's okay. Even if they only make it to be a few inches tall, lemon plants smell good, and are pretty, and can be used in cooking too. I love soaking fresh, green lemon leaves in olive, to use in dressings and such. Yum! If you grow a lemon plant big enough, you can get some lemon bark and lemon wood out of the deal too. I grew a whole stick. Start lemon seeds on a warm sill in the winter. Keep them in a pot forever, or transplant them outside on the first day of summer and treat them like an annual. Watch them grow. See them die. How big can you get a lemon tree to grow in one northern summer?