If you live in North Florida and you’d like to grow citrus, your best bet is to plant a satsuma. A satsuma is a type of mandarin orange that’s extremely cold tolerant and just plain tough. It’s also very productive, offering copious amounts of luscious, …
We’ve still got quite a few Rangpur limes left on our little tree, so on Sunday I decided to make something new with them—cupcakes piled high with icing. The Rangpurs have ripened to a brilliant, deep orange. They really do look like Christmas balls hanging …
This weekend was a very lemony weekend. On Saturday Rob and I picked 18 pounds of Meyer lemons off our very young tree. We hauled them inside in buckets, and pretty soon they were rolling around all over the counters. Since the lemons were looking a bit dingy, Rob scrubbed and polished them. When he was done, they literally glowed . . . and the kitchen smelled so lovely. Rob is very thorough with his lemon polishing.
We spent some time admiring our clean, buffed lemons, and then we squeezed them for juice. We sat at the kitchen table squeezing lemons and talking about various dumb things. I had gone to St. George Island with my family over Christmas, so I was telling Rob about the trip.
“Jake wore his pajama pants all day on Christmas,” I said. (Jake’s my nine-year-old nephew.) “But not his pajama shirt. No, he wore a nice polo shirt, along with football gloves, bright orange shoes, and a red satin tie that played music. His pajama pants had a superhero print, and they were rather short, like culottes.”
“Jake’s got style,” Rob said.
“Bunny and I gave him some Domo magnets and he decorated his scooter with them right away. His scooter is looking awesome.”
“Uh-huh.”
“He didn’t want to wear his helmet though, when he was riding around the island. He said he wanted to go bare-headed so people would be able to tell he was blond.”
“A very important consideration.”
“Kris told him not to worry since his helmet allows clear visibility of his bangs.”
Anyway, Rob and I squeezed a bunch of lemon juice and froze it. But we saved out a little to make lemonade. Here’s our recipe. Fresh lemonade is so easy to make and it tastes delicious cold or hot. I like mine hot . . . and I like to drink it in my robe and slippers on a chilly winter night while holding three or four cats in my lap. Mom used to make me hot lemonade when I was little, so to me it’s sort of a comforting, medicinal thing like chicken soup.
Meyer Lemonade
Ingredients:
2 cups Meyer lemon juice
1 cup sugar
6 cups water
Directions:
Add lemon juice, sugar, and water to a large pitcher. Stir until the sugar dissolves.
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| A Meyer lemon isn’t a true lemon but rather a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange. Don’t you like how fat the Meyers are? And they’re sweeter and tastier than regular grocery-store lemons. |
Our Rangpur lime tree is doing great this year. It’s dark and lush, loaded with bright orange, tangy fruit. A Rangpur lime isn’t a real lime; it’s a cross between a Mandarin orange and a lemon. But the fruit is sour enough to use as …
