Lemon flavoured wreckage
I am so shattered I didn’t go bell ringing tonight. It’s the once-a-month practice at Old Eden and since I’m one of the founding members of making that practise happen I get extra black marks when I don’t show up. But the absolute deciding factor is that Chaos has the runs. Lovely. Great. Charming. Delightful. Having dogs is so fulfilling.* Especially as I discovered Chaos’ condition when he brought all three of us to an abrupt, shoulder-damaging halt and Assumed the Position . . . immediately outside someone’s door. And you can’t pick it up. . . .
So. Let’s get back to shattered. I want to give you a recipe here in a minute and the above is not a good lead in. I’m shattered because I’ve been grinding away at PEGASUS, which is an excellent thing, but that I’m this blind and stupid this early in the third draft is not such a good thing.
However, on the ever-absorbing topic of creating compelling heroines, several people, for some reason, sent me the following links
There now. That should have given you an appetite.
I spent most of–last week, was it? When it was so hot?–saying to myself, I must get my ice-cream maker out. Saturday it turned cold. Today, wearing a woolly jumper and my sheepskin slippers, I got my ice-cream maker out. June! It’s June!
Lemon ice
4-6 lemons, unwaxed and organic
1 c sugar
Optional: strawberries
More sugar
Wash the lemons. Then cut the zest off approximately two of them–depending on how big they are and what shape their skins are in. But if you can’t get at least unwaxed lemons and preferably organic, I wouldn’t bother with the zest: you really don’t want to eat fungicidal wax and merely washing ‘em doesn’t really get the nasty stuff off.** If you can’t get organic and are going zest-free, add about a quarter teaspoon of lemon essence to your sugar syrup.
If you are cutting your zest off . . . after dutifully using a grater for several years*** I discovered by accident that a small sharp knife is actually better because you can follow the curve of your lemon: I find it’s almost impossible not to get some of the bitter white pith mixed up in the works with a grater. And you don’t have to do it beautifully here: you’re going to strain it later anyway.
Dump the sugar, the zest, and 2c water in a saucepan and heat slowly till the sugar dissolves. Keep the heat low enough so you don’t have to stand there stirring constantly to prevent the sugar burning. Stir occasionally. Simmer a while, say 5-15 minutes. Take it off the heat, let cool, and put it in the refrigerator for several hours or overnight. Leave your lemons out to stay at room temperature. There’s nothing crankier than a cold lemon, and you want the juice.
After your lemon syrup has been seething long enough, squeeze your nice warm cooperative lemons. You want ½ c juice. Strain the lemon juice. Strain the syrup to get rid of the zest and add the lemon juice. Stir a few times. Start your ice-cream machine and do whatever you have to do to make ice cream.
I rebelled long ago at the idea that you’re supposed to puree all the fruit you put in ice cream. You do have to decide how you feel about the texture of frozen fruit and how big you want your chunks to be. I chop my strawberries relatively small and lavish more sugar over them and let them seethe while the ice cream gets made. Then at more or less the last minute of the ice-cream-making process you can dump your strawberries and their by-now-heavily-strawberry-infused sugar syrup in the ice cream maker and let it run just enough longer to mix the strawberries in. This may vary with your ice-cream maker but if you stand over it and turn it off at the perfect moment you can get this excellent marbled effect (if your reflexes are good enough and you like living dangerously, you can assist with a spoon while the machine is still running), and the strawberry ribbons will be slightly crunchy with undissolved sugar. I like this result, but you may not. Strawberries merely politely scattered over your lemon ice lying in its dish is also good, but unless your strawberries are at the absolute perfect pinnacle of ripeness I recommend you sugar them one way or another, or the collision of acids with the intense lemonyness of the ice will not be agreeable. (You can also make strawberry sauce. I’ll post a recipe some day.)
The lemon ice on its own is also very pleasing, but it is strawberry season.
* * *
* I was up at Third House yesterday, planting dahlias. I was, specifically, planting dahlias in a little patch of empty ground which I had, a few weeks ago–wait a minute, you may have been there, I blogged about it–stuck all over with broken twigs and a bit of spare wire mesh to attempt to discourage local feline or felines from developing their extensive latrine facilities there any further. This seems to have been successful. Then I asked Atlas to dig it through, let it settle for a few days^ and was now planting it up. There was some rustling and a few small muffled thuds on the very overgrown bit of fence between the main garden and the compost bins. I looked up and was treated to a very heavy glare from a small tortoiseshell cat, who was clearly saying I’m Queen of the Universe, and what do you think you’re doing? Come a little closer, honey, I said, and I’ll be throwing you into next week.
^ AKA didn’t get around to it sooner
** I am so glad organic unwaxed lemons exist. When I was first going seriously crunchy granola, which is about a quarter-century ago now, unwaxed organic lemons did not exist, unless you had your own heated conservatory and grew them. I had a lovely little zester gadget that I THREW AWAY because I assumed I’d never use it again. . . .
*** Having THROWN MY ZESTER OUT^
^ I THREW MY ZESTER OUT sounds like a particularly lurid tell-all memoir. But then I have a low mind.
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