Re: [gardeners] lemon pepper
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Mon, 02 Jul 2001 11:56:42 -0500
Your Ponderosa's are dry? We squeeze ours every year and get several quarts of
juice from the 40 or 50 lemons we harvest. Miz Anne grates the peel and also
cuts strips to add to the teas she drinks. The juice is frozen in ice cube trays
and then bagged for later use. Makes it nice to reach in the little freezer atop
the fridge and toss a lemon juice cube in your cold water. The cubes are exactly
two tablespoons of juice so I know how much I need in a recipe and just nuke it
for a few seconds to melt it. Love that old Ponderosa lemon, grandkids gave it
to me more than ten years ago and it has frozen to the ground twice. The
following spring it would leap up to its normal twelve-foot height. Mine don't
get football size, just about softball size. Biggest one weighed 3.3 lbs and the
rest averaged 2.2 lbs apiece.
I finally rooted out the lemon grass, whacked it with a machete and sold it at
our annual plant sale for 2 bux a 1 gallon pot. Just was too much trouble to
use.
When we lived in Yemen we had a pepper tree growing in our courtyard. The
Tanzanian maid used to harvest the berries and dry them on the roof. I don't
think they would grow here or I would have one, make a pretty tree.
Never heard of any tree with fall berries that would substitute for peppercorns
growing in the US. Try a web search.
George
flylo@txcyber.com wrote:
>
> Agreed! I never had much use for lemon pepper, would use it when
> I was at a loss for something to add to a dry rub. Hubby, though
> decided it was worse than useless and actually tossed the
> container out.
> For lemon, I have a Ponderosa lemon in the greenhouse, and the
> football sized fruit are too dry to juice but the rind is where the
> commercial canners get candied citron, very nice to grate over
> dishes that need lemony taste. Also, lemongrass growing like a
> weed, can be chunked up and stirred up into a sauce at the last
> minute for a lighter lemon.
> At the 'pepper end' of the lemon pepper discussion, I like coarse
> black Malabar pepper and have recently fallen for green
> peppercorns. Wish they weren't so expensive though. We have a
> few slippery elm/ash (I never can remember) trees (aka
> tickletongue) and I've read that the fall berries are sometimes dried
> and used in place of peppercorns. Has anyone done this one?
> Lon?
> In a cooking column a LONG time ago (Houston Chronicle in the
> 1960's) I read that black pepper can't be digested. This was from
> Chef Louis Szathmeyer? (Translvanian chef!) and it's one of those
> things that stay with you, right or wrong!!
>
> Martha, (Texas)
> Visit our Paso Fino Club: www.TxPFHA.org
> Visit our farm:www.geocities.com/Heartland/Fields/5505/index.html