It's that canning time of year!

Canning is a heck of a lot of work. Washing, peeling, chopping, boiling, stirring, straining, pouring, sealing, water bathing and labelling. Not to mention picking! But oh, the rewards of opening a jar during a cold prairie winter and discovering a taste of summer.

Over the years, I have canned the bounty of Saskatchewan from cucumbers (aka pickles) to black currant jam. Corn salsa to chokecherry syrup. Rhubarb to honeyed pears. However, one of my favourite items preserved in a jar is also the most unlikely: lemons.

A friend grew the lemons in his greenhouse near Saskatoon. I preserved them in a Moroccan style with plenty of course salt (yes, Saskatchewan salt). This method of preserving breaks down the lemon peel, which is then used (not the juice) in Moroccan recipes. It adds an exotic touch to Saskatchewan ingredients such as lamb and chickpea stew or couscous with roasted squash.

 

Preserved Lemons
5-6 lemons, preferably organic
1/4 cup rock salt (un-iodized)
1 cinnamon stick
3 cloves
6-8 coriander seeds
3-4 black peppercorns
1 bay leaf

Cut the lemons in half. Then, cut them ALMOST into quarters, in other words don’t slice all the way through.

Press one section of lemon into the bottom of the jar, releasing the juice. Sprinkle with salt. Press a few more slices on top, sprinkling with salt as you go along. Put the cinnamon, cloves, coriander, peppercorns and bay leaf into the jar. Continue pressing in lemon sections, releasing the juice and sprinkling with salt, until all the lemons are in the jar.

The lemons should be completely covered with lemon juice. If they are not covered, add some extra juice or water. Secure the lid and refrigerate, shaking now and then. Allow the lemons to marinate at least one month before using. If you want to be super simple, you can skip the spices and just use the salt.

Follow the Canadian Food Experience Project in which participants across the country share stories of our unique food experiences.

Ply me with lemons...

I do a bit of public speaking and, for that, I am often rewarded with a special gift. But few gifts could be as rare and special as this collection of Saskatchewan-grown lemons (and one lime) presented to me at the Saskatchewan Food Summit earlier this month.

The lemons were grown by my friend Nair -- carefully bred and selected to produce bush lemons that grow indoors in low-light prairie conditions. Check out the labels -- the one called "Centurion" will be released to the public to mark the centennial of the University of Saskatchewan next year. And a sour time was had by all...

Sucking lemons

Ug. Bad cold. But a good excuse to drink my tea with a slice of Saskatchewan-grown lemon.

Sorry, I can't tell you where to get your hands on these lemons because they're not for sale -- yet. They were bred by a local horticulturist specifically for indoor growing on the prairies. The plan is to make them available within the year, so watch here for details.

Read more in this article I wrote for the Star Phoenix,

Newspaper - Lemons for the Prairies

This article appeared in the Star Phoenix on March 15.

It was a sight to sooth my winter soul: lemon trees in bloom and laden with fruit. No, I was not on vacation in the tropical south. I was in Saskatchewan on a cold and snowy day, surrounded by lemon trees painstakingly bred to grow indoors even during the short days of a prairie winter.

These lemons are the conception and passion of master gardener M.P.M Nair, a retired engineer who grows lemons on his acreage south of Saskatoon. After thirty years of breeding and growing lemons, he has almost achieved his goal: an indoor bush-type lemon that blooms four times per year and produces fruit in the low-light conditions of a northern winter.

“Someday soon, when I’m fully satisfied, some of these lemons will be made available to the general public,” he told me, picking a plump lemon and plunking it into my hand.

Nair says he began his lemon project almost on a dare: “A friend told me I couldn’t grow lemons in low light. I’m a stubborn man and when somebody says you can’t do something I have to do it.”

He remembered his mother’s abundant garden in India where lemons grew in the shade. He brought a couple of cuttings back to Saskatoon and cross-bred them with some lemon and lime plants from the United States. He grew the fruit and planted the seeds, then selected the offspring based on his desired characteristics. The result is several different varieties of lemons—small and large, with and without seeds, thick or thin skin and varying degrees of tartness—that grow in pots and bloom at least four times per year.

What a boon! During my year of eating locally, when my husband and I tried to eat only foods produced in Saskatchewan, I had to make an exception for lemons, the one exotic fruit I could not do without. Lemons are essential for a lovely salad dressing and a key ingredient in the cuisines of Greece, Morocco and the Middle East, which lend themselves so well to foods produced in Saskatchewan. I can’t imagine my refrigerator without lemons.

Nair is not the only one successfully growing lemons in the Saskatoon area. Susan Chalmers, who grows and markets vegetables from her acreage in Furdale, has a Meyer lemon growing in a sunny window. “I’ve had it for two years now,” says Susan. “When I got it, it was seriously infested with whitefly—all the leaves fell off. It then went on to give me three lemons about ten months later.”

She made lemon chicken, lemonade and Greek lemon salad dressing, and even threw the rinds into the dishwater to give a sparkle to glassware. “The smell of the blossoms on a cold snowy day are reason enough to have one!” she says.

Nair is convinced that, in the future, we’ll all be growing more food inside our homes, both to augment local food supplies and to clean polluted air: plants use harmful carbon dioxide gas in the production of chlorophyll and emit healthy oxygen. He predicts that homes will be constructed with sunny solariums and other adaptations that support indoor gardening. “We have to relook the way that we live,” he says. “We have no choice, it’s a must.”

Nair gave me four lemons. I squeezed some into my tea and made lemon biscuits, Greek lemon soup and a salad dressing. Then I preserved some of the rind in salt for use in Moroccan dishes.
Which ensures that I’ll be eating my Saskatchewan lemons for several months to come!

Soup Week 6 - Greek avgolemono with wild rice

Never thought I'd make a Greek avgolemono soup with Saskatchewan ingredients, but here's what I did with those lemons.

Oh those lemons...

Lemon crisps made with Saskatchewan lemons. I could get used to this...

More about those lemons...

These lemons were grown by master gardener and retired engineer M.P.M. Nair on his acreage south of Saskatoon.

Using a cutting from his home in India, he grew and selected the lemons over 30 years, until he developed a lemon that would grow as a bush, flowering four times a year and thriving in the low light of a south-facing window, even in a Saskatchewan winter.

Each type of lemon has a different characteristic whether it will be used for the juice or the peel, some with seeds and some seedless.

Nair's goal is to one day see many folks growing his lemons at home. I'll write more about his lemons in an upcoming newspaper column.

A New First

Today I ate a Saskatchewan grown guava and picked Saskatchewan grown lemons. No kidding.