Preserved Lemons

Sheryl gave me a ton of canning jars (Dave carried the big tub in and immediately said "where are you going to store these?" and then asked if she was hoping I'd return them filled with those highly addictive sweet dill pickles!! click here for that post - they are SO good!)...and a big box of Meyer lemons. I've never had preserved lemons before but after she told me about a friend that makes them and how good they are I had to try making them. This is very simple and easy, it's just lemons and salt layered in a jar. I googled a bunch of recipes and there are lots that also add some spices so I made one jar of plain with just salt and another with a cinnamon stick, a few allspice and peppercorn berries, and a bay leaf. You do not need to hot water process the jars, seems the acid and salt do the preserving.

I used a couple different sites for instructions (click here and here to see the recipes). You can either quarter the lemons or leave them whole (but cut a cross in them almost to the bottom). I found it easier to put the quartered lemons into the jars - depends on the size of your lemons. If doing quarters - add 1/2 Tablespoon to the bottom of a clean jar, put one layer in the jar and sprinkle with 1/2 Tablespoon salt, then continue layering and salting, pushing down pretty hard on the lemons in the jar so they release their juice. If you do whole lemons - open the lemon up between the cross you cut into them and put 1/2 Tablespoon salt inside the lemon. When you get to the top make sure there is enough lemon juice to cover (add fresh juice if the ones in the jar didn't produce enough) and top with 1 Tablespoon of salt. Put the tops on tightly and place in a dark place (mine are in the pantry) for at least a week to ferment, shake every day to mix up the juice, and then put in the fridge (The Epicurious site says to put in pantry for 30 days and they don't need to be refrigerated). When the peels turn translucent they are ready.  I read that you can take the top off every few days to release any gases that are building up but not everyone does that, I will just watch my lids and see if they are bulging, if so I will open them and then seal back up.  Use the peels in sauces, dressings, marinades - different comments about whether to use the flesh and juice or not, seems it's so salty and bitter not everyone uses that part. One commenter likes to use the liquid in Bloody Marys :)

I'll let you know in a couple weeks how they turn out - make some with me and we'll compare notes later!

look how many jars Sheryl gave me! Woohoo!

if using whole lemons cut a cross into the top of the lemon but don't cut all
the way thru. open the lemon up and add 1/2 T. salt before putting into the jar. 

now I just have to wait till they are ready!

Lemon Cream Pie

I love cream pies - not meringue, which I don't love, but cream...mmmmm... (except chocolate cream but that's another story). This recipe from Real Simple magazine for lemon cream pie has been in my file of recipes to try since April 2012 - 'bout time I tried it right? So glad I did, this turned out really good and I will definitely add this to my recipe book and make again. I used Meyer lemons from my friend Sheryl so the pie wasn't super tart lemon-y, everyone at dinner liked that it wasn't overly lemon-y tho...if you don't have Meyer lemons just use regular lemons and you'll probably get a stronger flavor that I bet is equally delish. My lemons were super juicy and it only took 3 of them to get 1/2 cup of juice.


I love the gingersnap crust, was tempted to just buy a graham cracker pre-made one but am really glad I didn't - the gingersnaps made an almost chewy/crisp crust that is SO good.

I crushed up the gingersnaps in a ziplock bag using a rolling pin to roll over the cookies till they became crumbs. These gingersnaps are seriously crunchy and it was harder to get them broken up than I expected. If you have a food processor I recommend using that instead of doing it yourself. It works doing it by hand but you'll have to keep at it for awhile - um, a little tip, make sure your ziplock bag doesn't break open while you're crushing it. Just sayin'. The crust got really brown in the oven during the first baking session (note I baked it for 15 minutes instead of the 16-18 called for), so I covered the edges with foil for the last 20 minutes of baking and it was perfect.

I just looked at the recipe and reviews onine (I made it from the magazine page and didn't check for the online recipe until  now so I can link it for you instead of typing it all out here!) and see that some people had issues with the crust. When I took it out of the oven after the first 15 minutes it was quite puffy and shrinking down on the sides a little bit - I carefully took the back of a spoon and patted it down and pushed it back up on the sides to shape it how I wanted. This worked just fine and after I put the lemon filling in it held it's shape for the final 20 minutes of baking.



Speaking of meringue - lemon meringue pie always makes me think of my grandmother and my brother. My grandparents were health nuts WAY before it was cool to be a health nut (I'm talking a lazy susan full of vitamins they took everyday, making her own yogurt, my grandpa walked miles everyday - people in town would say to me "oh, your grandpa is that walking man?"). We were visiting one day and my grandma offered us lemon meringue pie she had just made and my brother got super excited "oh boy, that's my favorite, I want a big piece please!" and took a huge bite. Did you guess where I'm going with this? Yep, she left out the sugar on purpose to make it "healthier". I can still see the look on his face - priceless. True story :)

 click here for the recipe - not my grandma's sugar free one, the yummy delicious cream version! Ha!