1 part juice

1 part sugar

2 parts cold tap water

I’ve been round and round with this, for years. What I’ve come down to is that simple formula: one part juice, to one part sugar, to two parts water. Shake vigorously, leave on the countertop for a while, shake again, and then refrigerate. 

You may need to continue shaking every once in a while, until the sugar completely dissolves. You may need to give it 24 hours before the sugar fully dissolves. As an alternative, you could heat the mixture until you can get the sugar to dissolve. 

When it comes time to drink it, it may be too strong to drink straight up, but if so, it may be the perfect intensity to pour over ice and wait a minute or two. Or you might shake over ice and then drink it dirty – meaning, with the ice you shook it with – which is especially nice if you add some vodka beforehand. Or, you might cut it with sparkling water and make something resembling a lemon Pellegrino. 

If I’m in the mood for precision, I’ll add sugar to 100ml of juice until I come to the 1-cup mark, then fill the container with water until I come to the 2-cup mark. If I’m adding vodka, I’ll shake 1 cup of this mixture with 1/4 cup of vodka.  

Sometimes, I’ll cut the water back to one part, and wind up with something resembling a lemon simple syrup. I’ll do the same sorts of things with it: lemonade, lemon drop, Pellegrino … they’ll all just turn out a bit more intense.

Anyway, this is what I do when I have leftover lemon juice.  

Here are other ways to use up leftover lemon:

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.

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.)

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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