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!