BE MADE: When Life Gives You Too Many Lemons...Freeze Them...Practically

Well, my house has been hit with the flu. Yay. I suppose it was inevitable but I really had thought there for a while we were going to be one of the lucky ones.

In doing what we can to keep ourselves going and feeling as good as one can when they are dying, I have a little tip that has really come in handy for us.

But first, let's rewind a few weeks...

There's a lemon tree at my hubby's work. It is currently producing some of the largest lemons I've ever seen. And he keeps bringing them home.

I have a couple of dinner recipes that call for lemon juice, but mainly sweets recipes. And the last thing my husband and I need in our house is tons of lemon sweets {which he's not a big fan of anyhoo}.

So I had a bowlful of big, beautiful lemons that I didn't know what to do with, and that I didn't want to waste. Wasting free is almost worse than wasting money, know what I mean?

My first thought was to freeze them, which was instilled in my by my mom. She froze everything. But unlike other fruits and veggies, the only thing you mainly use from a lemon is the juice.

Ok, so, freeze the juice. Duh.

But then what do I do with frozen juice from several lemons? I mean, we're looking at at least a cup of juice. That's a chunk of frozen liquid. And most recipes only call for a couple of tablespoons of juice. Definitely not a cup. Unless you're baking in bulk. Which I probably won't be.

So freezing by the tablespoon made MUCH more sense. But how?

Light bulb: Ice cube trays!!

I started by squeezing as much juice as I could out of each lemon. You could use a citrus squeezer but this juicer really worked out all of the juice possible.

But in using this thingy-ma-bob, the seeds come, too, so I strained the juice into a smaller bowl, which also filtered out a little bit of the pulp.

Then I just spooned out the juice by the tablespoonful into each cube compartment in the tray. I was surprised at how many tablespoons I could get out of just one lemon, although they were larger than those typically at the grocery store.

After they were all juiced, I just stuck the trays in the freezer until it was time to need some lemon juice.

Which was just a couple of days ago. {Here's where the "being sick" comes into play.}

My hubs was feeling some crud in his chest and throat, so I made him some lemon & honey "tea." It's not really tea, but that's easier to say than hot lemon & honey water.

Anyhoo....

I boiled some water, put a spoonful of honey in the bottom of a coffee cup, dropped in a couple of lemon juice ice cubes, then poured the water over it, and voila! Hot lemon & honey tea.

It's a little odd tasting at first {for me anyways} but it really does help with a sore throat and crud in your chest. I was super thankful I'd saved that lemon juice, and it was so easy to pop out a couple of cubes.

Here in South Texas, lemons {& limes, which I use a lot} get really cheap in the summer, so I'm thinking I may keep stock of frozen juice. Because you never know when you might need some!

TTfN!