Adding Some Zest to My Life....

In the only way I know how! :)

When we buy lemons, we usually purchase them in fairly large quantities and then before we can use them all, they start going bad. It's prudence to buy them in larger quantities since they're cheaper, but letting them then rot on the counter for want of use, is not prudence. We've tried different methods and I can't recommend freezing the whole lemon to zest and juice later. It being simply said, is a painful job to try to zest a frozen lemon. Your hands get very cold, especially if you try to do more than one. So I asked, can we not do that again?

So here is what we do (I use the term loosely - I would generally be more correct. Well, I have to do something around here.) Thoroughly wash and dry lemons. Zest all of them. Freeze lemons in the zested skins. When you need the juice, thaw in the refrigerator and then juice. On to the zest...

Take a 12" wide roll of plastic wrap and pull out 4" and place on a cutting board. Divide the strip into three squares with a sharp knife. Place 1 teaspoon zest on each square as neatly as possible. Fold plastic wrap into a little envelope. The way I do this is to fold one over the top towards me, then next fold up away from you overlapping the first fold, and then on the left side fold it towards the back of the packet and then repeat on the right side. Does that make any sense?

Freeze the envelopes, preferably in a sealed container, or not. When you need zest, thaw and use. I got almost exactly 4 teaspoons zest per lemon, which I'll bear in mind if a recipe calls for the zest of 1 lemon. Wiki says one lemon equals about 3 teaspoons. Now I don't know who to believe. Both? Is such a thing possible? The lemons I had were on the larger side, so I'll bear that in mind too. I already have so many things to keep track of, I don't know why I'm adding zest to the list. Next time I can't remember something I should say, "it's the zest." I'll be in touch from the institution where I'm sure to be sent if I try that.