Lemons and Limes, Oh My~!

My newest workplace seems to always have recipes that require customers to only use the zest of either lemons or limes. This means there are always clusters of half zested citrus fruit available, and, since none of the other staff or the owner have a use for them, I have been given permission to take them home.

I had been collecting them for almost a month long and pondering what one can do with so many of these little things sitting in their crisper drawer. If sitting too long, they will go bad- which some did indeed turn to the dark side- so I had to think of something to do with them other than always having a slice of them floating in my glasses of water each day.

So, in an effort to make them both functional and space efficient, I thought of the two things lemons and limes are used for: juice and zest. Simple enough. So I spent a good part of an hour last evening zesting and juicing both by hand. (A word of warning to those who may want to try this- after about fifteen minutes of hand juicing, your hands may get all wrinkled, much like when you take a long bath.) I then purchased some very cheap squeeze bottles and placed the juices into those, and left the fresh zest out on two large dinner plates over night. And, upon returning home from work today, I was overjoyed to see that the air did a wonderful job of drying out the zest- now I have something akin to the more expensive "granulated lemon/ lime zest" found in some specialty stores.

I can see this working well for any type of citrus fruit. So if you have a collection of grapefruit or maybe oranges, try this~ You can always make such zests into delicious drinks, quickbreads, or even a delightful curd.