I was lucky enough to have a friend send me some lemons. There's so many things I want to do with them but decided to start with making Lemon Pepper. This is one of my favorite seasoning in the summer. On veggies, chicken, fish...even just sprinkled over salad.
I sliced six of my precious lemons into fairly thin slices, picked most of the seeds out to set aside for trying to plant, and put them in the dehydrator. This can also be done in the oven. Set the oven to it's lowest setting and in both cases dry until crisp rotating occasionally to get even dryness. The amount of time this takes will depend on your method and settings, and on how thinly you slice them. Just keep an eye on 'em.
(I've never bothered trying to plant the seeds before because all I can get around here are the ones from the stores. Hope to be able to show my great success with those later.)
As your lemons dry take them out and let them cool. These can be stored in any covered contained until your ready to grind them or put directly into a food processor or grinder. I pulse them for 30-40 seconds and then sift them through a wide mesh strainer.
Repeat this a time or two pulsing only the larger bits. When you get down to the bits that won't break down anymore, mix your lemon flakes with course ground black pepper. We really like the taste of 3/4 lemon and 1/4 pepper. You can add salt now if you like. I don't. I add the salt directly to whatever I'm cooking.
The extra hard bits can be saved separately and used in hot tea or marinades. Since it has the pith it can have bit of a bitter taste.
Store your lemon pepper in a sealed container. I refill a shaker that I reused from the store and put any extra in glass jar.
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