80-lbs of lemons are out on our deck. Why? You'll have to ask the boy what he was thinking when he filled up a bag (previously containing 50-lbs of Chandler walnuts) with lemons. He says he wanted to make hard lemonade since we had success with our hard apple cider, but I'm not sure how he's going to do this since the nothing I've fermented has had such high citric acid level. Various web searches come up with different solutions, and many require things like yeast energizers and nutrients. This picking frenzy is especially baffling since he hates lemonade. He's on his own for this one.
However, I've managed to use up 30 lemon peels for an infused vodka. My original plan was to make limoncello, but the amount of sugar that goes into limoncello is a little sickening, so I may make only a tiny bit of it. BTW, buying 100-proof vodka before noon at the store is going to earn you sideways glances, especially when you think you've swiped your credit card, but have not, and you have to stumble around to dig out your card again, then you don't know the correct phone number for the boy's discount card. At least I wasn't in my pajamas. The cashier strongly suggested I get my own discount card, hopefully because it's a company policy for him to ask and not because he thinks I like to take shots of 100-proof vodka before noon. At least I wasn't still wearing my pajamas.
10 lemons are also destined to be preserved lemons (pic at top of post). That only leaves me with, um, ONE MILLION LEMONS. Give or take a few.
I thumbed through my old school books, and one suggestion is that lemons can go whole into the freezer. That sounds a lot better to me than juicing one million lemons and freezing the juice in ice cube trays. Upon defrosting, the rind will be soft, but the pulp will still yield juice. One sacrificial lemon is in the freezer now to test this out.
So, taking into account that I'm not a sugar fiend (eliminating a lot of baking ideas), what else can I do with all these lemons? Anyone have any suggestions?
