DIY Garden Projects, Yummy Recipes, & Crafty Goodness
Sea salt infused with lemon and rosemary makes a great addition to chicken or lamb dishes. I also like it in grain dishes like quinoa and since I’m eating mostly vegetarian these days, it’s fun to have it to spice up a salad or a roasted veggie dish.
Continuing with this month’s Citrus Celebration theme, this morning we made the flakiest whole wheat blueberry lemon scones for breakfast. With a perfectly balanced aroma of lemon, sweet blueberries, and buttery goodness, these are hands-down my favourite scones. The scone is shown here with Meyer Lemon Marmalade that was made earlier this week (stay tuned for the recipe). In the meantime, try them with this Blood Orange and Raspberry Jam.
Ingredients:
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400°F and line a baking pan with parchment and sprinkle it with flour. Measure out and combine the milk, cream, lemon juice and vanilla. Stir and let sit while you measure the dry ingredients, it will become thick and a bit separated – that’s OK! Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the butter and gently cut the butter in using a pastry knife until it is somewhat mixed in and chunks of butter are still visible. More butter chunks = flakier scone. Add lemon zest and milk mixture to the flour mix and gently combine. Gently fold in frozen blueberries. Pour dough out onto a floured surface and very lightly knead only about 5 times being careful not to melt the butter or blueberries. Dough will not be completely mixed, but if it feels equally moist all around, and not overly sticky, it’s ready to shape.
Shape the dough into 2 equal balls and flatten to 3/4″ thick on the floured parchment or pan. Using a knife slice each circle into 6 wedges and carefully pull the wedges away from the center to separate them to 1/2″ space around the outer edges. Bake until golden about 20 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean when inserted in the middle.
Makes 12 extra large scones
If you haven’t yet tried preserved lemons, now is the time. Primarily used in Moroccan cooking, this unique salty citrus flavour quickly makes an amazing dish out of chicken or fish and adds lift to sautéed vegetables or beans. This recipe has only two ingredients, so choose them wisely. Organic lemons are the only ones I ever use for preserving as the rind will have less junk (pesticides, etc.) on it.
Ingredients:
Directions:
1. Scrub the lemons under running water with a vegetable or nail brush to get the rind nice and clean. Then cut the stems and ends off the lemons.
2. Score each lemon into a star: start by making a cut through the lemon from the top down to almost the bottom, but don’t slice all the way through. Leave enough remaining so that the lemon stays attached. Cut again twice more, to get a star shape.
3. Pack the insides of the star with lots of coarse salt. Don’t be afraid of the salt it’s not going to become overly salty if you use too much. Just go for it!
4. Now pack the lemons into clean, sterilized jars. Really squish them in there so that the juices start to cover the lemons. Add extra fresh lemon juice if you need to top each jar up so that all the lemons are completely covered. Keep squishing down the lemons over the next couple of days to get more juices out and covering the fruit.
5. Let sit for a month in a cold place like the fridge until the rinds soften.
To use the preserved lemons, rinse under cold running water and remove the pulp. The pulp can be squeezed for it’s juice, but generally the rind is what is used. Slice or dice the rind to add to recipes like this one: Chicken Tagine with Green Olives and Preserved Lemon. Yum!
