When life gives you lemons....

............giant, Mother of All Lemons......you make Limoncello!

Deborah and the Giant Lemon!

Next to a Valencia orange for scale:

"That's as big as my head!" ~Danger

Many thanks to my aunt and uncle, Susan and Don Taylor of Fernandina Beach, FL.

They picked this mutant Meyer lemon this weekend for me out of their backyard. ONE Mega lemon has enough zest to make a liter of limoncello! There is enough juice in one of these to make a pitcher of lemonade!

Here is the recipe I like to use for Limoncello, thanks to Giada De Laurentiis

I do, however, make it as "Florida" as possible. I am not aware of any vodka being made in Florida, so I usually use Stolichnaya.

I'm going to make another batch this weekend with Firefly Straight Vodka, from Wadamalaw Island, SC. This delight from Capri is going to be as Southern as it can be!

Modifications to the recipe for a superior product:

I use organic Florida Crystals granulated sugar, and I use 1/2 the water, and 1/2 the sugar that this recipe calls for. The final product is sharper, tangy and just sweet enough.

I also zest the lemon with a microplane instead of peeling it.

I find I get a better final product when I let the lemon zest steep in the vodka at room temperature for 3-5 days instead of overnight. The alcohol has more time to extract the delicious essential oils of the lemon, according to another recipe.

Don't let this stuff sit at room temperature for too long once the simple syrup is mixed in, otherwise bacteria and fungi will move in!

You can use regular lemon zest for this too, in case you don't have access to home-grown Chernobyl lemons!

Chill the final product for at least overnight before serving. It is so refreshing on a warm summer day! (If it lasts that long)

Getting ready for spring....Compost!

Did you know that 40% of the fruits and vegetables produced in the USA is thrown away un-used and un-digested in American kitchens? A lot of these foodstuffs are "kitchen scraps", while others are items that we buy and have intentions of eating...but they go bad first.

So what do you do with all of this waste that ends up needlessly in the landfill?

COMPOST!

A lot of people think that compost is.....yucky. After all, it is decomposing organic matter. But it really does not smell that bad, and is easy enough to do even in an apartment.

Many cities in the US, like Seattle, provide commercial composting opportunities, alongside traditional trash and recycling services. It was exciting and inspiring to go to a small "taco stand" near the University of Washington (the "Dub") that requires it's patrons to separate compost-ables from recycling and regular waste. It was easy! Scrape your food waste and paper napkin into one bin, put your glass beer bottle in the recycling, and put the plate/flatware in the stack to be washed and used again. Minimal waste!

Compost is also good, inexpensive organic fertilizer. The commercial composting in Seattle provides organic gardeners and farmers with a product that makes good economic and environmental sense.

If you don't live in a town like Seattle that provides curbside compost pick-up, do not fear! You can do it EASILY at home, never smell it, and it won't drive your neighbors crazy. It also helps prevent you from having to buy that expensive Miracle-Gro stuff for your flower beds.

Please take a look at my photos below of my backyard composting operation. Doug and I have a 3-bin system in our home. One for compostables, one for landfill trash, and one for recycling. Yes, you have to buy two more trash cans, and its a little more work, but its worth it! We empty our compost bin in the kitchen every 2 days or so....and we keep the lid on! :)

We want to prevent contamination of E. coli and Salmonella in our compost, so we only compost vegetables, fruits, paper products and egg shells. NO MEAT, NO FISH, NO CHEESE

The commercial composters do allow ALL waste, including meats. But their methods allow the compost to reach temperatures that help to "sterilize" the compost

(think Black Kow manure compost).

So......our process of making beautiful, useful compost! The final picture below is the finished product, ready to go on the garden. It is a 50-gallon trash can full of about 8 months of composting: shredded junk mail, paper napkins, egg shells, and fruits/veggie waste. I also added in some chicken fecal matter from our yard chickens and their used wheat straw bedding.

Our chickens are very healthy and do not live in cramped conditions, so I trust their feces more than I trust the surface of raw commercial meat products.

First photo: "young" compost, made up of shredded paper, soiled chicken bedding.

Second photo: "young" compost, made up of kitchen waste.

Third photo: these two combined into 50-gallon composter #1, where it is turned, and soil from my backyard is added for 3-4 months. It is then transferred to "mature" in the second 50-gallon composter.

Fourth photo: The final product. Once the stuff at the bottom of the "young" compost starts to look like dirt, its ready to be in the "finisher" composting bin. I then let it continue to "mature" and I turn it once a month.

It's really not that hard. Two 50-gallon trash cans, with lids, with holes drilled in the sides for air flow. Turn the "young" compost once a month, and excavate the stuff on the very bottom once a month and put it in to the "mature" compost bin. It is a WORKOUT to do it this way. I work up a sweat with the shovel every time.

Please try composting the way my Mother does it:

There are larger commercially available composters from Rubbermaid, like the one my mother has. It makes things MUCH easier; one bin, and you take out the "mature" stuff from the bottom every few months. The "new" stuff is put into the top, and you turn it with a shovel or pitchfork every month or so. Someday....I will have one!

Composters can be made very easily with old trash cans, wooden boxes, etc. If you live in an apartment, you can have a worm-box that you can put kitchen waste into. The worms really love coffee grounds and tea leaves!

Next blog.......getting the garden ready for planting, I'm planting everything this week now that the compost is all put out! I did have to buy some extra Black Kow compost since my little kitchen didn't produce enough to cover the whole garden. I do what I can!