Daily Prompt : Infuse

In response to one-word prompt : Infuse

Pickling Lemons My Latest Hobby!

I spent a lot of time, past year and a half, pickling lemons. I have jars on my window sill in the kitchen, with  two kinds of lemons. Never did I think about lemon pickles, and taking time to pickle them, was never my idea of enjoying lemons. I sort of got trapped into doing it. I bought two bags without knowing how I will use them, on the third or maybe fourth day I was concerned about them. I did not want them to rot, and didn’t want them in a dessert which would mean using a lot of sugar.

I knocked the doors of the online recipes and found recipes to make lemon pickles. The process is not so difficult. I realized there was a different kind of work involved. I washed them, sliced them, took out the seeds, and then mixed them with salt and turmeric and put them in jars for a week.

A week later it was time to use a variety of spices, garlic, ginger, white vinegar and oil and green hot chillies. I toasted the dry spices, fried the garlic and ginger, added some sugar. Put all these together in separate jars, so all these along with the lemons that were waiting in salt and turmeric had to be combined.

The next step was to leave them on the kitchen window to get infused. The sun was a factor, but occasionally it did shine and I succeeded in getting the lemons infused with all the other ingredients.

I’m delighted with the result, for I have a few jars of tasty pickles. I gave away a few, I’m hoping to get back the empty jars.

I’m motivated to add  pickling lemons as my hobby!

…………………………………. 🙂