Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with lemon

I've been grating a le~mon~, all the live long day~

wiretap — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:48:05 -0800

Fresh Lemon Zest - so yummy yet so annoying to grate. There must be an easier solution! My first experience with using fresh lemon zest is in a lemon sugar cookie recipe which asks for 2T of it, in a doubled recipe (4T total. egads). After carefully grating away the skin of a couple lemons and having my hands become tender and sore from the lemon oils and still not having enough lemon zest, I'm starting to feel like avoiding dessert recipes that include lemon zest at all.

Googling "lemon zest substitute" suggests a spice aisle product known as "dried lemon peel" which is similar but apparently is not as good as fresh lemon zest (I'm guessing it is less flavorful?).

My questions:

1. Is there a *better* lemon zest substitute that I can easily purchase at a grocery store?

2. If not, and dried lemon peel is the only close choice, should I add a little lemon flavoring to the reconstituted peel? And how much flavoring per t/T of peel should I include?

3. Could I just use lemon flavoring and fake the color in the recipe with yellow food dye? And again, how much flavoring would equal 1t or 1T of fresh lemon zest?

Fool's Garden

Ljubljana — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 06:14:37 -0800

Please help me save my beloved lemon tree! I'm hoping that some of you can help me prevent a case of unintentional herbicide.

Here are the facts of the case:

* I bought the lemon tree about 4 years ago.
* This year I moved to a new place, and the tree is now on a small balcony facing west. (It does get some direct sunlight after about 4 or 5 p.m.)
* I'm watering it every other day.
* It didn't bloom this year. In fact, I was sure it was dead. As you can see in this picture, the top looks positively devastated.
* A few weeks ago, after I had already given up, a fresh branch came bursting out of the bottom. There also seems to be some clover in the pot. (I was told that lemon trees like company, so I've left it in.)
* I have no idea what to do at this point. Should I replant? When should I bring it indoors? Should I clip? How to best survive the rapidly approaching autumn/winter?

I've consulted local florists and the intraweb, but have found lots of conflicting advice and the oft-repeated caveat that lemon trees are just plain persnickety. So... any help would be greatly appreciated!

Smells like Teen Spirit

asockpuppet — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:44:16 -0800

How/when did floral, citrus, pine, and mint become associated with cleanliness?

Traditional-schmaditional

owtytrof — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:49:42 -0800

RecipeFilter: Seafood stew stumper! A local Italian restaurant serves a fantastic bowl of cioppino, which I would like to try to replicate at home. The problem is that the dish I'm trying to make is not cooked in the traditional tomato and garlic broth, which is all I can find via Google, but a creamy lemon butter version.

I'm fairly handy in the kitchen, and not afraid of improvisation, but I need a starting point. Any tips, ideas, or actual recipes for this apparently rare version of cioppino would be greatly appreciated!

What is the lifespan of a Meyers lemon tree?

ljesse — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:13:25 -0800

What is the lifespan of a Meyers lemon tree? Growing up I remember my parents having the best lemon tree ever. It bore huge grapefruit sized lemons that were sweet enough to eat raw. Today its a sad sad tree. The fruit is more lime size and bears half the amount of fruit it used to. We've deducted its either the plum tree which has slowly grown over the lemon tree blocking the sun or its just getting up there in age and is on its way out.

so my question is whats the lifespan of a Meyers lemon tree? and is this just normal aging ( smaller fruit, less quantity)

Any tips on perking up an aging tree?

I'll add that the tree according to my mom was there when they bought the house some 30+ yrs ago and has always lived in the ground.

What is this? I found it underneath several leaves on a lemon tree.

tdischino — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 19:40:07 -0800

What is this? I found it underneath several leaves on a lemon tree. Is this a mold or bacteria? Or are these some kind of insect eggs? Is my lemon tree in trouble? It has blossoms, and new growth, but i've found this underneath several leaves (none of which are new growth.

Lemon Overload

Lame_username — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 07:49:12 -0800

What can I do with a ton of lemon juice? I have just finished zesting 20 lemons to make a batch of delicious limoncello. It seems wrong to throw away all those lovely organic lemons. I would make lemonade, but winter and lemonade just don't go together to me. I considered lemon curd, but Wii Fit keeps telling me I'm a tub o lard, so I'm hoping to think of something not excessively caloric. If push comes to shove, I'm going to try freezing it for summer, but I'm hoping that the hive mind has a better idea.

Meyer Lemon Apotheosis

exceptinsects — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 20:36:24 -0800

What excellent recipes have you tried with Meyer lemons? I always get all excited when it's Meyer lemon season and buy a whole bunch of them, and then I hate to just use them for normal things. So have you made anything that you thought was especially good?
I suppose recipes for regular lemons would be good too.

In past years I've roasted them with potatoes and garlic, made ice cream (the one from David Lebovitz's book, and it's AMAZING), marmalade, candied peel, lemonade, these two pasta dishes, and spritz cookies.

I've also read this article on 100 things to do with a Meyer lemon.

There are 1 million recipes that I can find on Google, but what have you actually made or eaten that really shows off that beautiful perfumy tart flavor?

What's hanging in Liz's office?

apetpsychic — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 19:25:50 -0800

What's this print hanging in Liz's office on 30 rock? I always thought it looked familiar, but in last night's episode she took it off of her wall before a visit from an adoption agency, so now I really want to know what it is and why she'd take it down (I assume it's fairly innocuous, but still wanna get the joke)...

PT Cruiser owner regrets purchase, wants to improve the car he can't afford to dump

mccarty.tim — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 07:43:56 -0800

I'm an ignorant person when it comes to cars, so this is a pretty dumb question. I own a 2007 PT Cruiser which has no anti-lock brakes. It skids like crazy, and got me into a minor accident. Is there any way I can get add anti-lock breaks to it? My mom's friends told her that the best way to buy a car was to get an auction proxy, so we went to an auction lot to go car shopping. We were intending to get a compact Japanese car with decent milage. However, the proxy talked us into getting a 2007 PT Cruiser which was $9000 on the lot. I was no fan of the aesthetics of the Cruiser, but I did like the interior space and the fact that the proxy pitched it as being 28 MPG (A good but not great amount. Turns out he was mistaken, it gets 20). We rushed to bid on it, and the next day we got it, only to discover it was a cheap model with no antilock brakes. I don't blame the proxy for this, he was as surprised as we were, and I really don't think this is in the spirit of false advertising. It's just the nature of auctions, it's fast paced and you don't get to test drive the car, and I had no prior knowledge of how a PT Cruiser drives.

I'm no good at threshold braking and recently skidded into a guardrail because a guy behind me in a huge truck was tailgating me at a high speed. It was scary, and it took two weeks to get it repaired, but insurance paid for it, and I was okay. I now know I should have taken that turn slower, or let the guy in the pickup hit me.

The guy at the repair shop says the brakes are pristine, so I can't blame it on old brake pads. The mechanic did remark he got 3 PT Cruisers who got into the exact same type of wreck.

This brings me to my question. I would love to trade in the PT Cruiser for something that I can afford to buy gas for and with good enough brakes to handle the curvy roads in my town. However, it seems to be outside of my means to do so. Would it be possible to augment the car with an antilock braking system? Or if not, is there a good, safe way to learn how to threshold brake?

Thanks for your help, guys.

help me not kill my new lemon tree!

beandip — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 19:22:06 -0800

Help! I was just given a potted lemon tree! What do I do? I don't know anything about growing potted citrus plants (or any kind of potted tree). My mom gave me this plant, which a friend gave to her a couple of years ago. She said it was too hard to take care of, and that it was leaving sticky residue over everything nearby indoors. I think she's been watering every day. And when there were blossoms, she pollinated with a Q-tip. She moved it outside when the weather warmed up. I don't think she's done much else with it, other than trimming the top branches last year. And she repotted it recently but did not fertilize. Last year it produced some lemons.

Right now it's on my west-facing balcony, which gets a lot of sun in the afternoon and evening. That is the sunniest spot in this apartment so hopefully it will be enough. We live in Minnesota so I know that's going to make things harder.

My questions are:
1. How much water is enough? It seems like daily watering is probably overkill, especially if it's outside for the summer. Some of the leaves are yellow...
2. How do I know when to fertilize?
3. Should I be worried about bugs. When I picked the tree up, it was covered in ants (we're in a second floor apartment and have never had ants here, so I think that will be less of an issue than it was in my mom's backyard.) Some of the leaves look chewed. And there are a lot of brown bumps on the leaves (both top and bottom surfaces). Here are some pictures. Are these things anything to worry about? If so, what should I do? I'd really like to be able to eat any lemons that survive, so I suppose that most insecticides are ruled out.

Also, what are your favorite gardening sites where I could learn more about how to care for this thing?

Please help me! I am terrified of killing this tree through ignorance.

Lemon tree very pretty, but impossible to...identify.

artdrectr — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:01:03 -0800

Meyer or Eureka? How do I determine my lemon tree? We have a big ol' lemon tree on our property that thankfully provides us a lot of fruit. I've looked at pics, asked friends, and get differing answers. How do we tell for sure if it is Eureka or Meyer? (recipes often call for one or the other).

It blooms and fruits almost continously throughout the year, in Sonoma County CA. It's about 25' high. The fruit is on the sweeter side, and visually has the elongation at both ends, rather than round.

Sorry, no pics to help.

Even my problems are bigger in Texas

kscottz — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:03:19 -0800

I bought an out of state lemon - is it worth my time to pursue the matter in court? Do I have a moral obligation to go after a scammer that could potentially hurt someone? A little over three months ago I bought a vehicle on eBay from a dealership in Texas (I live in Michigan). At that time the dealer had excellent feedback and my car ran great when I first got it. After about three months, and less than 4000 miles, my car started having some break problems. I took the car in to a reputable mechanic and here is the list of problems (so far):

New break caliber shoes and pads ~ $900 - Seller claimed breaks were at least 50%
Faulty Motor Mount - One bolt sheared off and the other improperly seated. This is almost certainly not my fault and will cost close to $1000. This is a huge safety concern.
Bad belly pan - held on with zip ties - about $300 to replace.
Faulty CV joints - another $700.

I feel that these problems are not representative of a vehicle that was supposed to be in "excellent" mechanical condition. Because of the belly pan and the motor mount bolts my mechanic claims that either the seller did not properly inspect the car as claimed, or the listing stated fraudulent information. I talked to the dealer about the problems and why I felt he was entitled to pay for them. The dealer's response was to, "Grow up and get lost. We ain't paying you squat! Remember AS-IS WHERE-IS" Angered, I reviewed the seller's history and found that a significant portion of their auctions over the past three months have ended in negative feedback. I contacted half a dozen of the most recent buyers and found that they all had stories similar to mine. One guy had his timing belt fail while driving his car back to Ohio resulting in $3000 in damage.

I have already done the quick and easy things: contacted eBay, contacted the BBB, and contacted the Attorney General. Is it worth my time, money, and aggravation to pursue this guy legally (either under lemon laws or outright fraud)? Other sellers have had no success with third party mediators. Am I just out of luck because I bought the vehicle "As Is" and I have exceeded eBay's 60 day period to report claims? Should I go after this guy just to stop him from scamming other people, and potentially injuring someone in the near future? Is there something about Texas laws that make the state a safe haven for this activity? Do you know a reputable lawyer in the Dallas area?

I can provide more information as necessary.

I know you are not a lawyer, or cannot give legal advice without seeing the case specifics.

Let the age old debate begin anew.

allkindsoftime — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:29:38 -0800

Guacamole-filter: which is more authentic to use in your guac recipe: lemon juice or lime? I don't care which is better. I don't care what else you put in yours. I don't care how much of either juice you use. I don't care what your mother has always used (unless maybe you're of Latin decent and the recipe has been passed down through the generations, and the answer is lemon juice, in which case I really want to hear from you).

All I need to know is which would yield me the most traditionally authentic guacamole ever. Bonus points for reasonings as to why - this is where my google-fu has failed me.

Thank you, and may you be blessed with infinite avocado.

Life gave me bitter lemonade...now what?

tastybrains — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 18:04:16 -0800

Why is my lemonade turning bitter? I recently decided to try making some homemade lemonade using the basic recipe I've found on about a gazillion recipe sites ... sliced lemons (1 per quart), sugar (1 cup), ice, water. I take the thiny sliced & seeded lemons and sugar and I mash the crap out of them so there is a nice slushy sugary lemony mess. Then I mix it all up with ice and water. And it tastes awesome.

However, when I leave it to chill overnight, it turns horribly bitter & undrinkable. Mixing it up doesn't help.

Why is this? I feel like it's probably something obvious, but my Google-fu sucks and all I found were metaphors of bitterness and life giving you lemons and that sort of thing.

Is it the lemon peels? Should I peel the lemons before mashing everything up? Or does lemonade just not stay tasty for long?

Help...I really like lemonade & I really feel stupid that I can't make a simple pitcher of lemonade that tastes good for a full 24 hours.

Missing: Lemon basil marinade.

phaded — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 19:28:58 -0800

I'm looking for a lemon basil marinade my dad used to buy but hasn't been able to find in quite some time. Some years ago, my dad used to buy this lemon basil marinade made by Lawry's. It went very well with grilled chicken breast in particular. However, we haven't been able to find it for a very long time, which leads me to suspect it's been discontinued. A quick search of their website shows a lemon pepper marinade, which is okay, but not nearly as good as the lemon basil was.

What I'm looking for is either a replacement marinade I can buy in the store or a recipe I could whip up myself. Does anyone know the marinade I'm talking about, and could anyone suggest a replacement?

If it helps, I'm on Long Island.

Lemon Verbena

gimonca — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 14:59:15 -0800

I have a lemon verbena plant that's getting nice and bushy. Any recipe ideas?

How do I not get screwed on a used car?

geodave — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 00:15:02 -0800

I have a halfway-decent car that I'm looking to sell, and I'd like to buy a beater and drive it into the ground. Looking for a little advice. This is all very long and overdone, so forgive me, but here is the situation:

I own a '97 Nissan Maxima that I obtained many years ago in mint condition for $1000. It drove wonderfully for years and years, and still drives very well, but I feel like the repairs are hurting these days. Thousands have gone into it over the years to replace various things, no enormous repairs, but lots of oxygen sensors and other bits.

My most recent repair was new ac/serpentine belts, a tension rod, and a vehicle speed sensor; the mechanic charged almost $700CDN for the repair, most of it was labour. He's a good mechanic, I think (maybe I'm wrong) but there was a lot of labour on this job. He's told me repeatedly that all the bolts are frozen, usually things have to be torched off, and everything is a bitch to replace. I live in Toronto and salt is hell on cars here.

Finally, my question. I'd love a small car that fits the following criteria:

1) Great on gas, or diesel. Even though I live in Toronto I'd invariably try and make biodisel in the summer, but regular gas is fine. The stupid Maxima is like $65 to fill each time.

2) Fairly cheap repairs-wise, or simple to repair myself. I don't have many tools, but I have endless patience to learn how to fix things, and I can always rent the tools. I just don't want to get bogged down with expensive parts that are hard to find.

I keep going through classifieds and seeing $500 cars, and it doesn't take a lot of driving for $500 to be worthwhile. What brands, models, or other recommendations are out there? Should I ignore this plan and buy something newer? Is anything still made that I can fix with a handful of tools?

This is such a broad and open question, I hate to even ask it; but if anybody has some advice, helpful or not, I'd love to hear it. Tell me about your experiences buying crappy, sub-thousand-dollar cars.

Law of the lemon

bendy — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 02:32:49 -0800

What to do with a meyer lemon? We have this beautiful lemon that smells like heaven. What should we do with it to preserve the scent?

How do lemon laws work?

zsazsa — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 20:17:14 -0800

Has anyone here had to invoke the US federal Magnuson-Moss warranty act for a lemon automobile? How did it go? If you've used your state's lemon law, I'd like to hear your experiences as well. I'll try to spare all of you from listening to all of my car problems, but I have a 2004 Mazda3 with 10,000 miles and 6 months left on the warranty that I've lost my mechanical faith in. I live in Missouri, and I'm certain I don't qualify for the terms of my state's lemon law due to having had the car for too long. However, some descriptions of the federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act like this one state fairly generous terms that I certainly qualify for. Is this too good to be true? It's hard for a layman like me to navigate the actual law to find out for sure.

In any case, I'd also like to gather any experiences from anyone else who's had their car "lemoned" to see how feasible this would be for me.

Also, any advice on finding a non-scummy lawyer to help me would be appreciated. I'd rather not just rely on clicking whoever ponied up the bucks for Google Adwords for searches for "lemon law."

Where can i buy preserved lemons?

rorycberger — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 21:26:23 -0800

Where can I buy preserved lemon in the SF Bay Area? I know, I know, I should make my own, but I need it tomorrow so I can't wait for it to cure. Thanks in advance.

How do you "supreme" a Meyer Lemon?

Badmichelle — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 16:48:20 -0800

How do you "supremed" a Meyer Lemon? I have a recipe that asks for Meyer lemon segments, supremed.
First off, what's supremed--I thought it meant segmented, but if so,
something's redundant, no? Second, anyone know where I can get
Meyer Lemons tomorrow in Toronto? Third, what's a good
substitute for Meyer Lemons if I can't find them: regular lemons?
Oranges? Mandarins? Thanks! (Note, the recipe is for a Red Bell
Pepper Soup with Mango and Meyer Lemons.

A lemon with leather seats and all-wheel drive...

ambrosia — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 16:19:47 -0800

What is the best way to unload a lemon-ized car? We have a 1998 Subaru Forester that has had mysterious transmission problems. In July we spent $5700 to replace the transmission after it failed. Three weeks and 200 miles later, the car downshifted quite suddenly while on the freeway, and then started to make horrible grating sounds at lower speeds. We took it back to the dealership that installed the transmission, who replaced it for free, as it was well within the 1 year warranty. And that's the pattern; transmission is replaced, a few weeks later the car downshifts suddenly on the freeway, and the transmission is shredded. The dealer has consulted with the Forester experts at Subaru but have not identified the problem. We are now on the fifth transmission failure, and have decided that we've given the dealership more than enough opportunity to get it right.

We want to ditch this car. We could cheerfully continue to bring the car back to the dealership every 6-8 weeks, but we are tired of this and just want a car that works. We don't think it is fixable, and we don't want the karma of trading it in and passing the problem on to someone innocent third party. At the same time, we put a fair amount of money into fixing it, and we'd like to get some of that back somehow.

What's the best way to get rid of this car?

How do I buy a car online?

!Jim — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 15:26:07 -0800

How do I buy a car on eBay without getting screwed? I am considering buying a new car, and I would like to tap out of state resources (specifically eBay), since the car is a little rare and expensive around these parts. Normally when buying a used car, I would go check it out, have my mechanic look at it, take it for a drive, etc.

Is any of this possible if I want to do this on eBay? What is the procedure for such things? Do I have any recourse if I buy this sweet new ride and it blows up on the way home?

Other considerations and experiences, good or bad, are quite welcome.

Lemon tree blues

aberrant — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 15:41:27 -0800

Calling gardening experts: what are these small white bugs in the soil of my lemon tree? I've noticed hundreds, if not thousands, of small white bugs in the soil of my potted dwarf Meyer. They don't look like the pictures of aphids that I've seen. More info: they don't appear to fly, they're multi-legged, and they're too small to photograph with my camera (probably 1/8" to 1/4" long, tops). They appear to be restricted to the soil (I see no infestation of any kind on the trunk, branches, or leaves). They crawl and burrow.

So - what are they, do they pose a risk to the plant, and how do I get rid of them?