Lemon Salt

 I got a wild hare the other day and decided that with all the lemon we were using for ice tea that I was tired of throwing away the peels. 

All that lemon zest going to waste? 

Just sitting there, on the slices of lemon I was squeezing into my tea. 

Wasteful, wasteful, wasteful...

And somewhere I had read something about making lemon salt, I think it was on Facebook, but I could be wrong.

So, I decided to try zesting the lemons before squeezing them into my tea. 

Although I got the bright idea after I'd already cut a lemon, which just so happened to be the sole lemon my little lemon tree produced this/last year. 

I just sliced the peel very thinly from it, and proceeded to chop it even further using my mezzaluna.
Luckily there was very little pith, but even so, I took that off as well.

I then proceeded to zest another lemon, cause I decided that I didn't have enough peel to do much good to the salt other than irritate it.

Put them all into a container I just so happened to have, which was full of sea salt for my grinder, and shook it all up, together.

Recipe:
1/2 cup coarse salt for a grinder
zest from 1-2 lemons or more if you like.
Mix together and use.

*** I also spread the salt and zest out in a pan, and put it in the oven at 170 deg. for about 5 minutes, turned the oven off and let it sit.  I wanted to zest to dry out otherwise I think it would have gone mouldy.

I don't use a great deal of salt, but sometimes you just want to amp it up a little when cooking something. 

I'm thinking a few grinds of this lemon salt on a roast chicken, or some fish, maybe rimming a margarita glass or even a Bloody Maria.  (Tequila instead of vodka, so good.)

I'm going to add more zest to the salt container, but I can't wait to start using it.
 

Come to think of it, I've got a nice fat roasting chicken hanging out in the freezer.  

I think I'll introduce them soon.

Sea Salt