Guest Post: Hannah's Preserved Lemons

Hi folks, Hannah here. On a recent visit stateside, Iris and I did some crafty scheming and she persuaded me to try my hand at some blogging. I'm addicted to food preservation and I hope my humble contributions live up to all her amazing and lovely creations. 

So, I live in California and there's tons of citrus in what passes for winter here. I got some Meyer lemons in our CSA  the other day and wanted to preserve them in the Moroccan style. There's lots of recipes out there and I particularly like this one, but since I wanted to use them in a tagine for dinner, I opted for a more expedited recipe.

I sliced the lemons into eighths and boiled them in about one part water to two parts vinegar. I also added juice from one lemon, some bay leaf, peppercorns, cinnamon stick and a couple of cloves.

Once the peels were soft, I removed the pan from the heat and let them cool. All three lemons only made one small jar - but there's quite a lot of flavor packed in there! Various sources indicate they should be good for about six months in the fridge.

To reward myself for all that hard work, I made this tagine with sweet potatoes, carrots, turnips, and roasted chickpeas - it was a delicious accompaniment to some roasted lamb with peppers and canned tomatoes! I added some almonds for extra crunch.