My friend Heather recently moved from Boise to San Jose and while most of the time I’m not envious at all, the times I am almost always have to do with the beautiful produce that she has easy access to. She knows this and tends to rub it in whenever she can, but at least when she was visited a couple weeks ago, she brought along a nice bag of glorious Meyer lemons. Such a treat indeed and they were so ripe, I knew I needed to figure out something to do with them pronto.

The best idea seemed to be to preserve them so they could be savored and doled out slowly for maximum enjoyment.

I was going for three different methods, the first of which was preserved lemons. I’ve written about this before and almost always have a jar in my fridge to mix into dressings or sauces (I love them tossed with sautéed haricot vert).

The next methods go hand in hand really. The plan was to juice the remaining lemons but there was no way I was going to let all that yummy peel go in the compost bin, so I zested them first and dried it in a low oven before putting into a container that went into the freezer.

The juice, went into ice cube trays and when frozen, the cubes were placed into a ziplock that also went into the freezer.

Now I have three ways to work these wonderfully special Meyer lemons for months to come because when a friend hands you lemons there’s clearly so much more that can be made than just lemonade!