Love Your Lemons!
Written by Sera Schwalger
Citrus season is wrapping up, but there’s still time to squeeze out every last drop!
We live in a country full of lemon trees. It even grows organically in our back yards without sprays and chemicals. Unfortunately due to their abundance they are taken for granted, unappreciated and mostly unused (most fruit ends up rotting on the ground).
Lemons are wonderful … packed with vitamin C, great for sore throats and inflammation during winter, sweet or savoury dishes and are also an excellent cleaning and disinfecting agent.
From left: 2 jars of Sera’s Lemon marmalade and Lemon vinegar cleaning spray, making use of those skins.
We’ve had some great ‘Love Your Lemons’ workshops this winter, and every year we find more great lemon recipes …. Times are tough! So fill your pantry with preserved lemons for stews, curries, fish. Jams, cakes, lemon cordial, lemon syrup and cleaning spray. You can just freeze lemon juice and slices too. Don't have a tree of your own? Knock on a neighbor's door and offer to share the batch—it’s a win-win for everyone! Collect second hand jars and make xmas gifts …..
PS: The team love the ‘Lemon Cake’, I love all of them but the ‘Lemon Cordial’ is my personal favourite with sparkling water and ice …mmwwhhaa!
We’ve rounded up our favourite recipes below and we challenge you to make as many as you can before the end of the season.
Give them a go and send us a photo on Facebook—we can't wait to see your creations!
Lemon Cordial
Made with the juice and zest of the lemon, delicious as a hot or cold drink. Will keep for 4 months in an airtight bottle or container and when open refrigerate for up to 2 years. Dilute 1:3 water or as preferred.
Ingredients
7-8 large lemons (2 cups of lemon juice & zest of all lemons)
2 cups of sugar
2 cups of water
Equipment
Wash bottles or containers and allow to dry naturally. No need to add a preservative as lemons contain citric acid and sugar is also a preservative.
Instructions:
Zest and juice the lemons.
Put sugar, water and ½ the zest in a saucepan and stir until sugar is dissolved.
Bring to the boil for a minute or so until sugar mixture has slightly thickened.
Add juice and rest of the zest, as it comes to a boil remove from heat and stir well.
Allow to cool slightly then strain to a bowl. Pour mixture into airtight bottle or container.
Salted Preserved Lemons
Great for seasoning stews, soups, curries, rice, red meat, chicken & fish dishes. Will be ready in a month after preserving and last for about 2 years in your fridge.
Ingredients
Lemons
Sea Salt (coarse or fine—avoid table salt as it's toxic)
Optional: Add peppercorns, coriander seeds, fennel seeds or bay leaf to jazz up the flavour.
Equipment
Clean Jars any size. Wash jars and lids and allow to air dry before you use it. This is sufficient as we are working with salt and lemon. Otherwise, heat the oven to 160 and put jars and lids (not plastic) in the oven for 15 mins (when taken out, place on a warm surface because jar will break on a cold surface).
Instructions: Lemons are cut at the tip then cut a cross into the lemon - almost to the base (so the squares stay together). Put your salt into the lemon segments and pack the lemons as tightly as possible into the airtight jar. The less space the better. As you pack the jar, the juice will release and cover the lemons. Once your jar is full, sprinkle a little salt on the lid and close it for 1 month
Lemon Drizzle Cake
(Alice Taylor eats – facebook)
Ingredients
½ cup of oil
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of yogurt
2 eggs
Zest of 3 lemons
2 cups of self raising flour (or 2 cups plain flour and 2.5 tsp baking powder)
A good pinch of salt
For the syrup:
½ cup of sugar
Juice of 3 lemons
Instructions:
In a bowl combine oil, sugar, eggs, yogurt and lemon zest.
‘Add flour and salt and stir until just combined.
Pour into a lined cake or loaf tin and bake at 170 for 40 minutes, or until a skewer when inserted in the middle comes out clean.
In the meantime make the syrup; heat sugar and lemon juice until the sugar has dissolved. Let it cool down slightly so it’s not super hot when poured over the cake.
Once the cake is out of the oven and is still hot, pierce lots of holes with a skewer, and pour the syrup evenly over the top. Let it sit for at least 10 minutes before eating!
Lemon and Ginger Marmalade
Ingredients
2 cups of lemon flesh and rind chopped
2 cups of lemon juice (includes whatever you get from chopped lemons)
2 cups of sugar
1/3 cup of Crystallised Ginger
Instructions:
Cut the lemons in half and scoop out the flesh, remove seeds and any other membranes and cut into small pieces.
Scoop the out the white pith from the rind and cut the rind into small longish pieces.
Put all the ingredients in a pot for 20 – 25mins, bring to a boil then simmer (scoop out any yellow foam during this process). Then pour into hot sterilized jars. Will take a day or two to set (natural pectin will set it). Refrigerate once opened.
Note: if you have Meyer lemons, just chop into pieces with the rind (as they don’t have much pith).
Lemon Syrup (Oleo Saccharum)
Uses sugar to extract the oils from citrus, for drinks, baking whatever you like! Bartenders have been making this since the 1600s…
While usually left for 24 hours, you can also leave for a few weeks in a cupboard to deepen the colour and break down the citrus flavour.
Ingredients
All your left over citrus
½ its weight in sugar
A jar (sterilized)
Instructions:
Once you have collected a few, cut smaller, put in a bowl add the sugar, massage briefly, put into a sterlised jar. If you are leaving it for longer, use a fermenting weight or add more sugar when it pokes out!
You can bottle the liquid and store in cupboard (because it has a high sugar content). You can dehydrate the remaining peel and blend as lemon sugar for drinks or baking!
Lemon Vinegar Cleaning Spray
Lemon has natural anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, insecticidal and deodorising properties. Vinegar on its own has antimicrobial properties so together they make a superb cleaning duo. You can use any citrus skins for this recipe!
Ingredients
Lemon peels
Vinegar
Equipment
Jar or a vessel with lid
Spray bottle
Wash jars and lids and allow to air dry before you use it.
Instructions:
Collect peels in a jar, add vinegar and submerge the peels, when full, leave for a minimum of 3 weeks to steep.
After 3 weeks, strain the peels and keep the concentrate to dilute into your spray bottle.
You can dilute with water (1:1) or if you want it stronger dilute (1:1/2 water)
Notes:
Keep jar in a room temperature place and shake now and then to encourage the infusion
Add rosemary, lemon grass, lavender, thyme or mint during infusion
Add pure essential oils to diluted spray to freshen a room
Use silicone muffin cups between the skins and lid to keep it submerged.