Adventures with lemons

We visited Italy some time ago and stayed with friends of my parents, who served us some delicious homemade limoncello as a digestif. On the same trip, we visited Slovenia and bought a lovely set of limoncello glasses, which I have been dying to put to use! So I figured it was time to try making some limoncello myself.

I am generally following this recipe I found online.

You start with a bunch of lemons! I used 16. (The recipe calls for 15 but evidently I miscounted at the store.) Scrub them with a brush under hot water to remove any dirt, wax, etc. Then rinse well and pat dry.





Then you zest the lemons, removing only the bright yellow part of the peel (not the white pith underneath), and place the zest in a large glass jar with a bottle of 100-proof vodka. I learned that it takes a long time and a lot of effort to zest 16 lemons.



Then you close the jar tightly, place it somewhere cool and dark, and basically leave it alone for awhile (10-40 days) before proceeding with the rest of the recipe. I stashed the jar on the top shelf of our closet and will check on it in a few weeks.

So now I am left with 16 unpeeled lemons. I love the pattern that the zester leaves behind on the lemon.



What do you do when life hands you 16 naked lemons? Yup, you make lemonade! So I squeezed the juice out of all 16 lemons. This also takes a substantial amount of time and effort. I ended up with 3 CUPS of lemon juice!



I strained it through coffee filters to remove the pulp etc (this took way longer than I was expecting because the filters kept getting clogged). Then I used about half of it to make some lemonade (super yummy) and poured the rest into an old glass bottle that used to have syrup in it (I cleaned it thoroughly first) to use later for cooking. (Hopefully it keeps well.)



All in all, quite an adventure for my day off. Plus, my whole apartment smells like fresh lemons. Can't beat that!