Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Sunny Lemons

Today is all about Sunny Lemons, we have a small lemon tree in our vege garden area and it is full of fruit. I love anything lemon especially if its very tart. 



Drying lemon peel and what to do with it.


 First off i scrub the lemons with a small nail brush to remove any dirt. The water in the green tub will be tipped onto the garden when im finished instead of going down the drain.


I use a sharp knife to peel the skin off the lemon, you don't want too much of the pith [the white]. As you can see above most of the pith still remains on the lemon.


If the slices are too long cut or tear them so they sit flat-ish on the dehydrator tray. I ended up with 5 trays of peel from 16 lemons. When using your dehydrator you use the same amount power if you do 1 tray or 10 trays so if you can, fill up the other trays with other items.
This day i added one tray of parsley, one of pac choy and one of bread so all 10 trays are full. Those trays will go on top as they will finish drying quicker than the peel.


As you can see above, i also did two trays of orange peel as well.


Six hours at 55 degrease Celsius and this is the result, crispy hard peel. 


The peel was then put through my Tribest Personal Blender [i will do a review on this another day].


What do you do with all this peel you may ask, well it can be used in biscuits, slices, cakes, pies, ice cream just about anything you might like a lemon flavour to. 
Now i have 16 lemons that need to be juiced, some of the juice will go in recipes and the rest will be put in the freezer for future use.

Stay tuned for lots of lemon recipes.


Linked here Homemade Monday #91
and here Farm Blog Hop
and here Homestead Barn Hop #169
and here Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop #84
and here Homemaking Party
and here Maple Hill Hop #41
and here Backyard Farming Connection Hop #91
and here Tuesdays With A Twist #69
and here Home- Making Mondays #11
and here Homemaking Party

8 comments:

Meggie said...

I was just about to ask, "what do you do with all that lemon peel". This is such a great idea. Lemon meringue pie is one of my favorites....and I like it slightly tart.

Sally at Garden Valley Homestead said...

This is my first visit to your blog.
I like your idea to dry lemon peel. I can't believe I haven't thought about doing that. Do you make lemon salt or lemon seasoning for fish and chicken? I hope you get a chance to visit me too.

Vickie @ makingoursustainablelife.com said...

Such a great idea! I have a dwarf Meyer lemon tree that has lemons developing on it right now, so I can't wait to try this! Thank you so much for the tutorial. Have a great day!

daisy g said...

I love lemon on so many things-edible and otherwise! Thank you so much for sharing this on this week's Maple Hill Hop! Hope to see you next Tuesday!

Nicole and Andrew said...

Meggie, Lemon Meringue Pie is my all time favourite lemon dish but i like mine very tart.

Sally thanks for dropping by, i do make a lemon pepper season for chicken thats very tasty.

Vickie, you have the fancy lemon tree :o). let me know how you get on when your lemons come in and what you use them for.

thanks for popping by Daisy, ill be back for another round next week, there are just so many wonderful people out there and so many new things to learn.

JES said...

We enjoy drying our peels also for various things around the house. I am wondering though, does the bread have a lemon flavor or smell when you dry them together? I am always nervous to mix kinds in the dehydrator because of this... Thank you for sharing on the Art of Home-Making Mondays. I do hope you join us again this week :)

Nicole and Andrew said...

hey Jes, no the bread does not take on the smell. I dont mix things like garlic or onions with other things but every thing else i have not had a problem with smells.

Tania said...

WOW another great idea! So glad I visited your page :)