Lemon Pepper Seasoning

You will notice the recent trend in lemon recipes here.

You see, my wonderful mother-in-law brought me a whole shopping bag full of home-grown Meyer lemons when she arrived for Thanksgiving.

Besides the Lemon Pecan Tart, Lemon Bars, and Lemonata Vinaigrette, I have been juicing and freezing lemon juice by the ice cube tray full.

I will never have to by lemons again for any recipe that calls for juice.    Just FYI, typically recipes that call for the “juice of one lemon” will require about 2 tablespoons of juice.

That being said, these are mambo-jambo lemons and I can get almost 8 oz. from one of the behemoth beauties.

Here is a gift idea for the upcoming holidays, or a seasoning for the Season.

 

Lemon Pepper Seasoning

Zest of 4-5 large lemons
1/3 c. peppercorns (I used a medley blend.)
1/4 c. coarse sea salt

Using a microplane, zest the lemons.

 

Place peppercorns in blender or spice grinder and grind to a coarse consistency.

 

(You don’t want powder and a few whole peppercorns are okay.)

Mix all ingredients and spread on parchment paper. Place in a food dryer or in a convection oven on “dehydrate” setting for an hour or two, stirring occasionally to get rid of any “clumps” of zest.  After a couple of hours, I turned my oven off and let it set overnight to ensure it was completely dry.

After the zest in the mixture is dried, you can return the entire mixture to a spice grinder and grind to desired texture. Store in airtight container.

My inspiration for this came from Simply Scratch.  I modified the instructions just a bit.   I have yet to try this on chicken or fish, but I am packaging some up for gifts.

This is basically my only “gift” post this month (with the exception of Handcrafted Baileys Irish Cream.   I cheated a bit and compiled my old December posts together in Gift Ideas if you need more inspiration.

Hope your gift buying or making is on schedule.  Only four days left!