I’ll very often buy a lemon to procure just a tablespoon of juice. Then, I’ll wrap the un-squeezed half of the lemon in plastic, and shove it in the fridge, where it will be completely forgotten about, noticed weeks later, and tossed. Other times, I have the prudence to squeeze the whole lemon, even if it produces more juice than I need, and then I put the extra juice in the fridge … where it becomes completely forgotten about and eventually tossed. Lemon juice freezes well, but my freezer has a tendency to become a deep, deep wasteland of long forgotten things – especially if they’re small. (I will never forget, for instance, that there is a half-gallon of ice cream in my freezer, or a whole turkey. But I won’t notice a couple of lemon-juice ice cubes unless they fall out of the freezer when I’m reaching for the ice cream.)

What can you do with a half a lemon? You can find a number of dishes that might use a half of a lemon or its juice, but that doesn’t cut it for me. I need to end this lemon. If it becomes a minor ingredient in a dish that requires the purchase of a bag full of groceries, that will almost certainly result in an increase in the number of leftover ingredients in my fridge, which defeats the whole purpose of cooking. Lemonade by the glass is one of my favorite ways to use up the rest of a lemon, although there are lots of possibilities.

We’ll get to the lemonade, but first lets discuss the alternatives:

1. Lemon water. It’s delicious. It’s elegant. Women love it. Men should love it too, but maybe it’s too delicate. I don’t know. It’s not exciting, I’ll grant you. It needs to be ice cold, and the lemon needs time (but not too much time) to steep. You should drink it outside, on a hot day, in the shade, when you’re really thirsty and wearing linen and sunglasses.
2. If not lemon water, then squeeze slices into some iced tea, or even into some cola. No kidding, though: iced tea. I never make a pot, especially in summer. I make two pots. I enjoy my tea, and let the rest of it cool and eventually bottle it up and put in the fridge. I have these awesome glass quarts from an old-fashioned dairy where I sometimes go to get milk. They have re-useable (and easily washable) plastic tops. I use them for my iced tea. So, now and then, when I’m making something that calls for the zest, but not the juice, of a lemon, I’ll squeeze the lemon into a bottle, add a shocking amount of sugar, and fill the bottle with tea. Incredible.
3. Eat the peel. You could candy it, but who has time? Grind it into tiny bits, pith and all, and stir it into oatmeal. Weird, I know, but I like it. A quarter-cup of ground peel to a bowl, with sugar and half-and-half, of course. A lot of people prefer to avoid the pith, but I don’t mind it. And I’m not the only one: here’s an intriguing pith recipe that I might try one day when I retire or hit the lotto and have nothing much else to do. People say the pith is bitter; I say it’s “dry.” It’s a good bitter, not a bad one. Note that some people recommend eating the peel only of organic lemons, because you’re otherwise likely to ingest pesticide residue. That would be harmful to most people, but flat-out lethal to Seth Brundle.

Of course, you can separate the peel from the pith if you wish. Martha can show you how. Once you’ve done that, some new ways to kill a lemon open up:

1. Use the peel for twists in your morning espresso. It’s surprisingly good. Also good, but for other reasons: create twists for your evening martini. (Works just as well for the martinis you have at lunch. It you use two twists, I believe it qualifies as a fruit salad.)
2. Make yourself a glass of lemonade. Even if it’s just a single glass, it’s so fantastic that it’s worth it. If you need to be incentivized, toss a shot of vodka into your single glass of lemonade. “Yes of course, but how does one do this?” you wonder. Patience.

3. The Lemon Drop Plan: during a very hot summer, many years ago, some neighborhood kids found it necessary to lure me from my perch inside the neighborhood bar – which I hadn’t left in years – with a trail of lemon drop martinis. You should consider making this exquisite cocktail to serve alongside whatever dish it was you needed the other half of the lemon for, even if you don’t have anyone to lure.

Lemonade by the Glass

To make lemonade from leftover juice, first measure the juice. Then, work from a ratio such as this: 3 parts juice to 2½ parts sugar, plus three times as much water as sugar. This will make a strong, sweet-tart lemonade that will bear up well to a glass full of ice cubes. Want pink lemonade? A tablespoon of maraschino cherry juice will pink up a couple of cups of lemonade. Mix it up? Make a juice with lemons and limes.

Sugar doesn’t dissolve well in cold water, and of course you want to make cold lemonade. You could use superfine sugar – which you could grind yourself in a food processor – but I prefer for make a simple syrup. I don’t boil the syrup; I heat it just until the sugar is fully dissolved. A glass of ice will easily overpower the warmth of the resultant lemonade.

To Kill a Lemon

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! Clicking on images will enlarge them. This content was not solicited, nor written in exchange for anything. I had originally titled this post “To Kill a Lemon,” in reference to “To Kill a Mockingbird,” but it’s post date happened to occur the morning after the Orlando massacre, and I found that it really bothered me to be using the word “kill.” Gun violence has become uniquely  synonymous with America. I have to believe that either this is what most Americans want, or that most of us just don’t care enough to want to do anything about it.

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