When liquor gives you lemons, make lemonade!

Lots of happenings in this crows kitchen this afternoon. The gorgeousness of the day inspired me to create a project so, I plunged into making homemade limoncello. Making limoncello is something I have been meaning to do for years and it will be an ongoing project that I will have to keep everyone updated on; unfortunately, it seems like it is going to be a minimum of 6 weeks before anyone will be able to sip on my brew. But, I am none the less excited.


I researched a bunch of recipes and went for it; the zest of 16 lemons is now soaking in a handle of Absolute Vodka in a 5-gallon brewer's bucket ("The Ale Pail") in my pantry. Apparently the only real trick to this is to use clean, fresh lemons and not let any brine (the white stuff on the peel) into the mix. You can use vodka or everclear (grain alcohol)- I went for vodka because everclear is hard to find.



The vodka/zest mixture needs to sit for a minimum of 10 days to 3 months, and apparently the longer the better. I'm aiming for a month. Then it will be strained, mixed together with simple syrup and water and then left to sit for another 2 weeks. So hopefully, come mid-July, there will be limoncello. I'll keep you posted.


A surprise side-effect of all of this was 16 whole lemons, minus the zest. So, not wanting to waste resources, I made another tasty, if less potent, beverage- lemonade. Equipped with a new hand-juicer from Gadgets, Mark helped me extract the juice, which turned out to be way more in volume than I would have expected. We now have a LOT of lemonade. I added two cups of sugar reduced as simple syrup and and a couple of cups of water, but is is still very tart. In retrospect, I think honey instead of sugar would have been delicious. We threw a little Bombay Saphire in the lemonade as a little pre-dinner cocktail. Yumz.


Also, I made a super yummy dinner of grilled shrimp and veggies in the thai-lime marinade with a side of spanish rice. I also grilled a lime sliced in half and used the juice all over the shrimp and veggies- an awesome trick Emily showed me last summer.
So good for a summer day.