Make Your Own Lemon Spices
Lemon spices bring out the flavors in your cooking by adding a hint of citrus. Lemon spices are a great way to add flavor without adding extra salt, fat or oil. These spice blends can be hard to find, as well as expensive, but they're easy and affordable to make at home. Best of all, they can be customized to suit your own style of cooking.
Instructions
1. Wash your lemons thoroughly. Lemon zest is made of only the rinds, so be sure to remove all stickers, waxes and pesticide residues with a good scrub.
2. Use a microplane to remove the zest from your lemons. To do this, scrape the microplane back and forth across the surface of the lemons until you get to the white pithy layer beneath the zest.
3. Line a baking sheet with waxed paper. Sprinkle the zest onto the baking sheet in a single layer and place into a 250-degree oven until the zest just dries out but not until it browns or gets hard. This takes anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes, depending on your oven and the amount of zest you're drying.
4. Create a coarse powder from the zest by processing it in a blender, food processor or coffee grinder. This will serve as the base for your spice creations.
5. Add one to three tablespoons of lemon zest to a small bowl. Add equal parts of the other spices to create your own lemon spices. For example, of zest and three tablespoons of pepper make a nice lemon pepper. Try creating different combinations like lemon salt or lemon ginger.
6. Pour your into spice jars with tight fitting lids to keep them fresh. Label them for easy identification.
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