Home made candied lemon peel is very easy to make, and a great way to use up left over lemon rinds. It also tastes better than shop bought, and you can cut the peel to just how you like it.

This batch was made from the peel left over from making lemon cordial, but you could easily freeze single lemons until you had enough.

Lemon cordial is a refreshing summer drink, and making your own using this recipe is surprisingly simple.

It would be a great recipe to do if you ever find crates of lemons being sold off cheap, as can happen on markets towards the end of the day. It's also a good choice for making early in the year, before the elderflowers are ready for  elderflower cordial.

Lemon curd is one of those great afternoon teatime treats, lovely spread on hot crumpets or used as a filling in cakes or tarts. It is surprisingly quick and easy to make, even with a child helper as I had here.
You can of course buy lemon curd, but it's sure to contain thickeners and preservatives and you'd miss out on all the fun of squeezing lemons and cracking eggs. The whole process only took an hour from start to finish and was a fun way to pass a wet afternoon.

This recipe is taken from the WI book of preserves.

Preserved lemons are traditionally used in North African cuisine, but are a useful ingredient to have in the fridge and can add a citrus kick to many other recipes. They are very easy to make, see here for a blog post about making preserved lemons.

Try out some of the following ideas:

Preserved lemons are a common ingredient in North African, and  especially Moroccan, cuisine. You can actually use them in many dishes - anywhere that would benefit from a bit of citrus flavour.  I've put together some ideas in this blog post about what to do with preserved lemons.

They're very easy to make and it costs very little to make a large jar full, especially in January and February when the new crop of imported lemons enters the UK. 

As part of using up the ongoing glut of rhubarb in the garden, and having already made rhubarb and ginger jam, chutney was next on the list. I never usually make chutney at this time of year, it tends to be the sort of thing I submit vegetables to at the end of their life, such as green tomatoes, huge marrows and windfall apples. It seems slightly unfair on the excited spring shoots to confine them to several hours of simmering in vinegar, but we do get through a lot of chutney over the year and a new flavour will be eagerly looked forward to when it's ready.

The recipe I used was adapted from the one at the thefoody.com, as recommended on the grow your own forums.

When making marmalade last week I froze some unused lemon peel with the thought of using it for something constructive. After some thought, and research, I decided to have a go at candied peel, not something I'd usually even use.

Hopefully having some in the house will be useful when it comes to baking, and for mincemeat at Christmas if it lasts that long. I wanted to have a wider range of peel than just two lemons, so the bag in the freezer grew to contain the following: