Note: Availability fluctuates throughout the year, please understand the described items below are educational. To confirm availability please inquire with us directly.
Lemons do more than turn into lemonade! Today we use lemons to disinfect, to clear the air to lighten hair, to preserve, for nutritional value, but mostly as flavoring and to make things taste better and taste cleaner. Yum! Now the taste of summer must be a wedge of lemon freshly squeezed on a BC salmon steak!
An oval shaped bright yellow citrus fruit that is sought for its tart flavoured, highly acidic juice and skin
Available year round.
Lemons have lots of variables: size, acidity, number of seeds and thickness of skin. Your best buy will be firm, heavy for its size, bright yellow lemons are best and should be a little tender to the touch. When extreme hardness is evident, however, this is an undesirable indication of aging. Lemons with paler skin and/or green patched tend to be more acidic. A rough skin surface usually means less juice content. Smooth-skinned lemons tend to be juicier.
Smooth or Rough Skinned?
-
Smooth = cooking or juicing
-
Rough = grating (These lemons usually have less juice content.
Keep at cool room temperature for one week – they are quite colourful and decorative displayed on your counter. If you need to keep them for 6 weeks, store them in a bag in the crisper drawer.
Lemon zest can be frozen.
Rinse thoroughly. To use the peel, rinse, pat dry and grate skin. One option is to slice or cut into wedges. Zest them and freeze the zest in an airtight bag. Squeeze the juice and freeze it in ice cube trays.
Juice it up – Pull out more juice from a lemon by slicing when at room temperature or by rolling it under the palm of your hand on a flat surface before slicing. It can also be heated in a microwave for a very short time.
Zest – Fine, thin strips of lemon peel can be created with a paring knife, vegetable peeler, or citrus zester. When slicing off the pieces, care should be taken to remove any of the bitter white pith. As an alternative to grating, the ‘zesting’ can then be minced. can be minced.
Grate – Do so by rubbing the lemon against a metal grater, making sure to systematically turn the fruit so that you are only taking off the yellow part of the peel and leaving the white pith behind.
This fruit is not just for lemonade!
-
Sprinkle lemon juice on cut produce to prevent oxidation (browning).
-
Use in salad dressings or as a vinegar substitute, on seafood, in drinks like hot or cold water and tea, as garnish, marinades and seasoning
-
Lemons can be used to make sorbet, marmalade, pudding, and cakes.
-
In sauces, lemon zest, juice, or pieces give a refreshing flavour and make an attractive garnish.
-
Knowing that the skin contains the real concentrate of flavor and essential oils, add lemon zest to pancake batter, cookie dough, and icings.
-
Use the juice for souring foods. For instance, add several teaspoons to fresh cream, or add several drops to the water when poaching eggs, in order to thicken the egg whites.
There is no limit to the quantity of lemons in your diet. This fragrant citrus fruit offers a quick boost of disease-fighting nutrients. Lemons are a great source of B6, iron, potassium. Loaded with antioxidants and pectin, lemons may defend us from free radicals, prevent heart disease, lower cholesterol, lower blood sugar levels, and act as an antibacterial in the body. But that’s not all their nutrients: dietary fibre, vitamin C, calcium, folic acid, manganese, magnesium, zinc.
Lemon, 1 fruit (with peel)
Calories: 38
Protein: 2.16g
Carbohydrate: 11.5g
Total Fat: 0.32g
Fibre: 5.01g
*Excellent source of: vitamin C (83.2mg)
*Foods that are an “excellent source” of a particular nutrient provide 20% or more of the Recommended Daily Value. Foods that are a “good source” of a particular nutrient provide between 10 and 20% of the Recommended Daily Value.
-
Earlier in history, lemons were used as a trading commodity. Their value stemmed from the ability to preserve food, add flavour, an antidote for poison, soothe the skin, prevent scurvy, and beautify the body (applied to women’s lips for added colour). Estimated with today’s cost of living, people would have paid $17 for one lemon!
-
The California gold rush of 1848 accelerated the momentum selling lemons in North America. Miners and speculators quickly saw the lemons necessity as an ascorbic acid as well as easy to transport.
-
The lemon’s high volume of pectin is excellent for thickening curds and marmalades, as well as setting soft fruit jams (i.e. strawberry and peach).
-
Exfoliation – Rub a lemon on your acne and rinse. For extreme areas, add big salt crystals.
-
Make lemonade with agave nectar instead of sugar!
-
Do not use iron or copper cookware with this fruit to avoid a metallic taste and discoloured food.
-
Natural highlighter – Add lemon and water in mister, to spritz hair in the sunlight.
-
Natural bleach – Add lemon juice to a stain on cotton, set outside in the sunshine.
-
California has become the leading producer of lemons for North America, with Argentina takes the lead during the summer months.