Lemon Party!

When a friend's dad gives you 400 meyer lemons....

you break our all your Pyrex bowls (some of which you just purchased!)....

you invite over a lot of friends who think zesting and juicing 400 lemons is a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon....and have a LEMON PARTY!!!

 

Zac scrubbed...

While Erin, Lisa, Karen, and Marc zested their little hearts out...

Rich was the juice-man, using an old juicer I found for FREE at a church rummage sale!

 

That's 5 gallons of lemon juice and an entire bowl of lemon zest.  But what do you do with all these lemons?

How about my personal favorite, lemon curd (recipe in the link)?  I first had lemon curd, believe it or not, at the Ritz Carlton in Boston during college.  We went to "Tea at the Ritz" and they served this incredible concoction of lemons, eggs, sugar and butter (seriously, how could it NOT be good?) with their scones.

Or what about lemon bars (basically lemon curd on a shortbread crust- again, how could it NOT be good)?

 

Strawberry-lemon marmalade?  Check!

I've been wanting to make preserved lemons (basically lemons cured in salt for a month) ever since I saw a recipe for tagine that called for them.  I think I've got those covered as well, and I got to use my thrifted hinged jars:

Why, yes, that is a big bottle of vodka in the last photo- that's for limoncello, but I've got to wait a week for the lemon zest to infuse the vodka.  

The hearth in front of the fireplace is a great place to stage everything (especially hot jars right out of the canner) and frees up space in our small kitchen.

Finally, I made an oven full of lemon meringues to use up some of the extra egg-whites left over from the lemon curd.

I'm still got another batch of lemon curd to make yet, but for now it's Superbowl time!