Help! My new house has a lemon tree!

[estherschindler]

I'm delighted to be a homeowner, at long last. I'm painting the rooms with non-rental colors (such as bright blue), I've installed a serious closet system, and we've emptied and are re-filling the diving pool (all 25,000 gallons).

Among the things I love about the house is the large yard and mature landscaping -- which includes two citrus trees. At least one is a graft of multi-fruits, but most of it is lemons... and they're all ripe.

We can make lemon meringue pie, but that only uses two or three lemons. So does chicken roasted with lemon and herbs (there's a huge rosemary bush in the front yard). I can make Moroccan preserved lemons (and maybe give some of them away to my more adventurous friends). But that's still going to leave me with a lot of lemons.

Any suggestions for recipes that use lemons? LOTS of lemons?

[KatieLoeb]

I'm delighted to be a homeowner, at long last. I'm painting the rooms with non-rental colors (such as bright blue), I've installed a serious closet system, and we've emptied and are re-filling the diving pool (all 25,000 gallons).

Among the things I love about the house is the large yard and mature landscaping -- which includes two citrus trees. At least one is a graft of multi-fruits, but most of it is lemons... and they're all ripe.

We can make lemon meringue pie, but that only uses two or three lemons. So does chicken roasted with lemon and herbs (there's a huge rosemary bush in the front yard). I can make Moroccan preserved lemons (and maybe give some of them away to my more adventurous friends). But that's still going to leave me with a lot of lemons.

Any suggestions for recipes that use lemons? LOTS of lemons?

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Go to THIS thread. That ought to get rid of at least some of your excess crop. Makes for lovely gifts as well.

And welcome to the Landed Gentry.

[andiesenji]

Make a large batch of lemon curd and jar it up in quart jars and process as you would any canned fruit (hot water bath).

You can use this for pies or mixed half and half with heavy cream that has been whipped with just a tiny bit of sugar for stabilization, served as a mousse or airy pudding in a margarita glass (or just a bowl).

Remove the zest, allow it to dry a bit, then freeze it.

Freeze the juice in ice cube trays and store them in ziploc freezer bags (doubled).

I buy lemons by the box when the Mexican market has them at a super sale price (5 pounds for a dollar), and do all of the above.

Preserved lemons are of course an option and very good to use in may dishes, not just the Moroccan.

I recently cut one into quarters and put it in with my onion confit (removed the seeds first) and the confit was very good, just a bit different, not quite as sweet.

[Gastro888]

Lemoncello? Lemon Vinegar? Lemon Sorbet?

I'd just take some pretty wicker baskets and put some lemons in them, tie it with some netting and offer them as gifts to neighbors/friends/coworkers.

Gosh, I wish I had your problem. It's snowing and like 15 degrees here in DC. Boo!

[Rachel Perlow]

Here's a link for threads with lemon in the title, and here's one for lemons, unfortunately the lemon search does not bring up the lemons result, so you should look at both.

Off the top of my head, I think you should make lemonade, lemon marmelade, preserved lemons, and lemon bars (that recipe uses the entire lemon). When you tire of making lemony things, break out an ice cube tray and freeze the juice 2 tablespoons at a time. You'll be glad to have it when your tree isn't bearing.

[Rachel Perlow]

Among the things I love about the house is the large yard and mature landscaping -- which includes two citrus trees. At least one is a graft of multi-fruits, but most of it is lemons... and they're all ripe.

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Does this mean one tree has different kinds of fruit on it all at once? A picture of that would be cool.

[melkor]

Lemon sorbet is always good. Lemonade as Rachel suggested is also a good plan. Lemon curd is absolutely required - few things are better.

Lemon juice works pretty well to stop the burning feeling you get from working with hot peppers. You could always buy a truck full of peppers...

[melkor]

Among the things I love about the house is the large yard and mature landscaping -- which includes two citrus trees. At least one is a graft of multi-fruits, but most of it is lemons... and they're all ripe.

←

Does this mean one tree has different kinds of fruit on it all at once? A picture of that would be cool.

←

Home Depot here sells these grafted multi-citrus trees. We had a lemon/orange/lime tree which after a couple of years living in a wine barrel on the patio turned into a lemon/orange/lime stick.

[FL Heat]

Be sure to ask your neighbors if they want any. . . .or collect them, set them out front with a sign that says, "Ripe Lemons, Please Take Some" (not too many at once though, or you'll get people who take 30 and sell them to someone else).

Our next door neighbor has two tangerine trees, and told us not to even ask anymore, just to take some. The other neighbor has a lemon tree, and she sets them on our porch when she collects them and we aren't home :)

Oh! And they hold up well in the mail, so send some to your snow-bound friends.

And congratulations on your new home!

Diana

[ludja]

A great lemonade variation is as follows:

for 1 glass

juice of half a large lemon

2 Tbs sugar ( or to taste)

pinch of salt

add some water to dissolve

add ice cubes and fill to top with club soda

The pinch of salt is key; this makes a wonderfully addictive 'lemon soda'

It's similar to Vietnamese drinks that use preserved salty lemons.

[Jaymes]

which includes two citrus trees. At least one is a graft of multi-fruits

Does this mean one tree has different kinds of fruit on it all at once? A picture of that would be cool.

Home Depot here sells these grafted multi-citrus trees. We had a lemon/orange/lime tree which after a couple of years living in a wine barrel on the patio turned into a lemon/orange/lime stick.

When I lived in Tucson, I actually did a bit of investigation before buying one of these "Fruit Cocktail" (as they were called) trees.

They take branches of various citrus trees, and graft them onto mature stock. I was told that the best thing to do is to buy one with only two varieties, because grafting more than one additional variety puts a lot of stress on the original tree, and they are not usually long-lived. Also, I was told that one should first pick what kind of tree they would prefer over the others, and choose that one for the stock, with the second choice the one that you have grafted onto the first. The reason for that, I was told, is that after several years, the graft is more likely to die than the original stock tree.

We selected oranges grafted onto pink grapefruit stock. That tree did spectacularly well for us for the six years we lived in Tucson. We left there some twenty years ago, but this past summer, when I drove through Tucson and went to our old house, the tree was still there, and still performing spectacularly, and still bearing both pink grapefruit and oranges.

Edited January 19, 2005 by Jaymes (log)