Way back in March I was at a cooking class.  We were a small group, so the instructor (the talented Delilah Snell) took us down the street to her (beautifully vintage) kitchen.  One of the recipes called for lime juice and as I began to search for it, Delilah pointed to a lovely glass jar filled with the juice.  She’s a member of the same CSA I am, and she explained that every week she juices her limes and puts the juice in the jar.

Let me tell you, despite all the other great stuff I learned, this little tip completely blew my mind.  It was so crazy simple I wondered how I hadn’t thought of that before.  We always have an overabundance of citrus in our fridge.  Sometimes I feel like I might wake up in the morning to discover that the lemons have invaded the living room.

Now that I had a new weapon in my arsenal, I immediately went home and began picking off my opponents one by one.  I juiced most of the lemons and limes and after those were done I searched frantically for something else to satisfy my newly developed OCD.  Oranges!  We had a whole produce drawer filled with oranges, and who doesn’t love fresh squeezed OJ?  Since I mixed several varieties of oranges, including blood oranges, the result was a beautiful persimmon color.  I juiced until there were no more containers (but produce still abounded).

Now, I use my juiced citrus in everything.  I make smoothies with a base of orange juice and a little bit of lime juice.  I throw lime juice into stir fries.  I mix the juices in with carbonated water.  I made limeade with honey or the last of my agave syrup a few times and, of course, I’ve just had the orange juice straight from the bottle.  Once summer gets into full-swing, I’m hoping to make some ceviche.  I also used the lemon juice in my recent experimentation with henna (and even then I had to juice some more).

I love this simple little trick.  Whereas before I would struggle to use all of my fruit, now I’m at the point where I may need to go out and actually buy *more* citrus for the first time in years.

It also gave me the excuse to head to the antique mall and buy the vintage orange juice and lemonade jars you see at the top of this post.  Excuses, excuses.