Lemons!!!!!

We moved to Santa Cruz a few weeks ago into a cute little rental house in the center of town.

If you know anything about boyfriend, you'd know that he seems to be unable to live in a city without owning a property there. Unsurprisingly, last week he bought a house! My mother is constantly amazed by his ability to just buy and sell property in relatively short periods of time. I sharred her feelings at first. Now I'm getting used to it.



I love this house. I love it a lot. My favorite thing about it is the large walled in garden which nearly all of the rooms open out to.



Yeah, right now it looks like a mess, but wait wait wait. It's a mess filled with FOOD! Tell me, if you pick food out of an untended garden that you technically own, is that considered foraging? I hope so. I've always wanted to forage....

Eeee! Look what we found!!

Spring onions!!!



We found quite a few of these. So far I've used them in gazpacho, salads, bean soup, and other stuff.


Lemon balm!!!



Lemon balm is really nice in Thai curries! Good idea, boyfriend! You can also make a nice herb tea by placing a few fresh leaves in boiling water. It's a lovely pale green color. I'm looking forward to trying it iced with a bit of honey. Any more lemon balm ideas out there? We are going to replant some of it in a pot, but there is more than we need. Maybe I can dry it?


Lemons!!!! Lemons! Lemons! Lemons!!!



We have lots of lemons. The yard has two big lemon trees. One which is currently FULL of lemons. The other is just budding. Hopefully I'll have more fresh lemons by the time I have used the ones we already have.

So, what should I do with these? To be honest, I'm very excited to be faced with this challenge. Lydia's suggestion of lemonade was genius in it's simplicity. For years I've wanted to make preserved lemons, as Mo suggested, but I'm having trouble finding recipes that call for preserved lemons. I'm afraid that I would make them and then have nothing to do with them. I think that I am going to give lemon poppy seed muffins and lemon chutney a try. A pitcher of lemonade is in order as well. Even though I said that I didn't want to make any super sugary desserts, I might HAVE TO give lemon meringue pie a go. At the very least, a lemon curd... maybe lemon marmalade? I might not have enough lemons!

The yard is also sheltered by a trellis covered in some serious grape vines. We don't know what kind of grape they are yet, but boyfriend thinks they are probably a variety called "pais," in his words, a "bog standard" variety. (Whatever that means...) At the very least we should be able to juice them, and maybe make some grape jelly? I'm also thinking about giving dolmas a try with the grape leaves.

Doggies napping in their new stomping ground:



Happy!!!

Besos,
Allie