Friday, January 27, 2012

When Life Hands You Lemons...

As of late, I'm obsessed with lemons. My mom and a family friend own lemon trees, so I am reaping the benefits. With a couple bags full of lemons, what's a girl to do? I made a meal revolving around the lemon. I could be on "Iron Chef"!

For dinner, I marinated chicken breasts in a delicious marinade that I found from Simply Recipes. It included some of my favorite herbs like thyme and rosemary. Don't get me started on rosemary. I could write a separate blog entry just about that. (Hmmm, that's actually a good idea.)

For dessert, I made a batch of lime meltaway cookies (I adapted them for lemons). They are sublime. It has the crumble of a Mexican wedding cookie, the perfect tartness, and a coating of powdered sugar. What could be better?

All of that eating makes you thirsty, right? I finished the meal with a tall glass of lemonade. I found the best recipe from Allrecipes.com. This is not that powdered Country Time stuff. It was seriously the best lemonade I've ever had. It was super sweet and yet my mouth puckered at the same time. Yum!

I still have a lot of lemons leftover so here are a couple ideas of other uses for lemons (thanks to Rob Sapp and Granny):
  • If the lemons are starting to get old and you can't use them immediately, squeeze them and freeze the juice in teaspoon or tablespoon increments. Remember to remove the seeds or it will taste bitter.
  • You can freeze the rinds and zest them at a later time. 
  • Put the rinds down the sink and run your garbage disposal. It acts as a freshener and deodorizer.
  • Lemons can be dried and turned into potpourri. Simply put them in a bowl, in a dry place, and they will dehydrate over time without molding.
So whenever life hands you lemons, now you know what to do!

After making all of those recipes, I still have this many lemons left!

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Pack It Up!

It's a new year so that means a new look for my blog. I hope you like it as much as I do. Okay, down to business. 

How long is too long to keep your Christmas decorations up? Some take them down the day after Christmas or New Years. I love Christmas lights and wish I could look at them all year round (my HOA says otherwise). Growing up, my family was forced to take down the tree around my birthday when I had a party at my house. Did I mention that my birthday is February 29th? Yeah, we were that family.

I loathe the idea of bringing all those dusty containers back in the house and trying to re-package everything to fit back in the boxes. Doesn't it feel sad to look around the house after everything has been put away? The house feels so cold and sterile. That, my friend, is the absence of Christmas cheer. 

Maybe I should load the house with red Valentines hearts and white doilies to fill the Christmas void. When in doubt, just move on to the next major holiday.