Concentrate, syrup, maybe cookies, a winter wonderland.....

We are awaking to a winter wonderland in our yard, so we couldn't buy a snowflake in January but we are more blessed than we want to be in March, Spring please come and dry it all away.  I spent most of the day yesterday making lemonade concentrate and lemon syrup.  Okay so next time I will plan it out better and not decide that I don't want to waste all the peels until after I have already juiced them.  I had juiced 72 lemons and was faced with a mountainous pile of them when it came to me I needed to use them for something.  Off to my trusty computer to look up candied peels and the by product of making it is lemon syrup.  I was bemoaning my plight of zesting the already piled peels when Drama suggested I might try flavoring with huckleberries.  I took her idea and flavored the lemon syrup with huckleberries.  I am going to use it to make kids drinks and teas this summer, lemony with a huckleberry hint.  I spent the whole day on only 2/3's of the box.  I am going to juice some more of it this morning to add to the syrup,  the peels gave it a nice lemony taste, as did the huckleberries give it a nice taste but I think a little lemon in each before I can them will give it just a little more kick.  I think I actually ended up with 16 quarts so that will be great.  I think it will be so much better than sugar and I am usually to lazy to whip of simple syrup when I am making teas and kids drinks.  I will have it already on hand.  Open and make the drink when it will last indefinitely in the frig for more drinks.  yay. 

I must admit to a catastrophe yesterday.  I had just finished making the syrup up, after I had canned the lemon concentrate, I put the pan on the stove, about 4 gallons and sat to drink some coffee.  I heard a loud noise come from the kitchen just as I sat down, I wondered what it was but since it didn't reoccur I just ignored it.  Poppie was off to the store to pick up 25 lbs of sugar and get the kids from school.  I was sitting talking to Cubbie about half an hour later when we heard the loud noise again, but lots of it, and then saw smoke coming from my kitchen area.  I have an open plan kitchen, dinning room and living room.  We ran in and got the pan off the burner and turned off the stove.  The front big burner was a flame, it had burned to the wires on one side,  I never had that happen before.  Well, maybe when I burned my Grandma Thelma's pressure cooker to the stove when I was making potatoes at 10 and boiled it dry, but I digress.  I don't know what happened maybe the 5 gallon pan I regularly use on the stove took it's toll or maybe it was just an accident.  I sort of looked at the bottom of the pain, at a glance it looked fine, so I slid it to the back big burner and it started to cook away.  Poppie removed the big burner when he got home sure enough it was burned out but he didn't really know why.  I was cooking the syrup when all of a sudden there was smoke in my kitchen again a little later.  I went to check and there was a fire under the pain.  The pan was leaking, the burner had burned thru may pan, very sad Son bought it for my at a rummage sale for 15 dollar it was a 100 dollar pan that I could not otherwise afford.  Poppie may be able to weld it.  Poppie thinks the first noise I heard welded the burner to the pan causing a whole, it burned a pin hole through which caused the syrup to drip through and coated the burner causing it to burn the burner out completely.  Sad tale, but thank the Lord no real catastrophe.  I am truly blessed, how scary a fire would have been.  I am going to talk Drama about a flat top she has from an old trailer we gave her.  I know a flat top is not ideal to can on but my mom and Lady both have used them successfully.  I will just have to practice my patience, maybe God is giving me a test to over come my impatience.  We will see. 

I found the coolest lemon cookie recipe yesterday so if I have any lemon left I am going to try them and maybe a practice recipe of lemon curd with the thought in mind to get two cases of lemons next time.  I hope you have a great day and remember that you are special, God created you, he loves you and you are the most important person he ever made in his eyes, yes he loves us each as his special child..... tomorrow.