I love to make 50 / 50 cordial for the family . It's made with 3 oranges and 3 lemons. So to have the cheap Winter fruit available for cordial in Summer, I zest and squeeze the oranges and lemons into a container and freeze. I also make a whole orange cake that uses one orange. I just blend the whole orange ( minus the pips ) in the food processor and freeze it in a container for all year round baking.
Lemons are coming into season too. With supermarkets selling them at 80 cents each, I'm very grateful that my lemon tree is in it's sixth season of bearing a good amount of fruit. To make the most of the "free" lemons, I zest them and freeze the zest for lemon slice, lemon and pistachio biscuits, lemon chicken and savoury chicken or salmon flan. Then I juice them and pour the juice into ice cube trays and freeze. The ice blocks are stored in an airtight container to be used on fish , pancakes, to make lemon butter, jam. lemon slice etc, etc. This year I'm planning on slicing some lemons and freezing the slices to make lemon chicken.
It's great to have these items on hand in the freezer. It stops the need to run to the supermarket for one lemon. I'll bet it would be out of season and you'd be paying premium prices.
If you haven't thought about it before, growing a lemon tree is great. It looks good, the blossoms and fruit smell divine and a bowl of lemons on the kitchen bench is a little ray of sunshine in the middle of Winter. It can be grown in a pot too. Best of all, you'll get your money back from the cost of a tree in no time.
So if anyone offers you a bag of lemons, or your neighbour has a tree with too much fruit for them to use, you'll know what to do with it.
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| Lemon butter |
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| Orange cake and muffins |
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| Freezing the juice. |
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| Lemon butter for presents |
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| Getting ready to make 50 / 50 cordial. |
I had a thriving lemon tree, it was a few years old and bearing well, then it started showing signs of disease, I threw everything at it that I could think of to no avail, then in desperation I thought maybe it needs some lime...it didn't...the lime finished it off good and proper! I've left it in the ground until Spring comes around, just in case, but I'm not hopeful, because I've gone and bought a replacement, which I'm still to plant out, come to think of it, I should do that today. But yes, I believe every Aussie backyard should have a lemon tree, they are so useful, not just for eating, but for cleaning with as well!
ReplyDeleteHi Wendy,
ReplyDeleteI really do love Oranges and Lemons. I only just Mooed your homemade 50:50 cordial last Friday as we were having guests and I didn't have any soft drink, they loved it.
I'll be buying up big and freezing for summer.
Thanks, xxx
Hi Wendy. We are going crazy for citrus at my house at the moment, especially the navel oranges which are so juicy and sweet. We are taking an orange to work each day and our little one is eating one everyday too. Your 50/50 cordial sounds amazing and I'll give it a go. Unfortunately I do have limited freezer space to juice a large amount and store for summer. Hopefully if I play tetris with my freezer enough I might be able to fit a little bit in there!
ReplyDeleteAmy
Lemon trees grow really well in a decent sized pot. Rather than an expensive pot from the Nursery pop into your local tip shop. Look around and see what will do the same job. A 44 gallon drum, cut in half makes two brilliant pots for growing small fruit trees in. I have a Lemon tree in the pot and one in the ground. The one in the pot is doing better than the one in the ground.
ReplyDeleteI've just juiced a heap of oranges for juice, this can be poured into plastic bottles and frozen too. I had a bag of lemons given to me and made lemon butter last week and will make ginger beer as well. I have an orange and mandarin trees in my garden and love them. Free fruit!
ReplyDelete