Hello friends,

As it's now winter, it's peak citrus fruit season for our lemon and lime bushes. The lime fruit ripened on the bush first, so we've been using them in various baking and cooking recipes for the last couple of months (wherever citrus is needed), and I've even been giving away limes to anyone who comes to visit us...

But even after doing all that, we still have too many limes sitting on our kitchen window sill and also on the bush, so I searched the internet for ideas for what to do with all the limes.

After searching for a while, I settled on making some simple lime syrup. It uses up a lot of limes, and it means I have homegrown syrup for hot and cold drinks, and also for using in baking recipes.

Simple Lime Syrup

Ingredients

1/2 Cup of Fresh Lime Juice
Zest of Those Limes
1 + 1/2 Cups of Water
1 Cup of Sugar
1/2 Teaspoon of Citric Acid (citric acid makes the lime syrup flavor more intense)

Recipe

(1) Zest limes one by one before you juice them, aiming to have 1/2 a cup of lime juice, plus the zest from them at the end. This step is not exact, depending on how much juice is in the limes. As I had a lot of limes, I just kept juicing them until I had enough juice and zest. It's always easiest to zest the limes first before cutting them in half and zesting them.

(2) To a pot, add 1 + 1/2 cups of water and heat to a simmer, add the sugar and citric acid, and mix until the sugar is completely dissolved. Add in the lime zest and juice, and cover the pot, and simmer for 15 minutes.

(3) Remove the syrup from the heat and allow it cool. When the syrup is cool enough to handle safely, strain the lime syrup to remove the zest and any stray lime pieces. I used a dexam strainer that I got from Moore Wilsons when we lived in Wellington. (The dexam strainer is very useful for many cooking, bottling, juicing, and jam making projects, as the strainer is super fine.)

(4) Collect the lime syrup in a container, and store it in the fridge, where it will last for up to a month.

You can also use this recipe to make a simple syrup with other citrus fruit like lemons and mandarins and oranges. I've found that the lime syrup is great for making a hot citrus drink, similar to making a hot lemon, and you can add honey to it as well. It's quite refreshing and warm on a cold frosty day.

Have a wonderful day

Julie-Ann

Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky.

Tags: 2024, Baking, Citrus, Cooking, Drink, Food, Food Processing, Harvest, Harvesting, Homegrown Food, Jars, Lemon, Lemon Meyer, Lime, Lime Syrup, Mandarin, Plants, Recipe, Winter

Hello friends,

You know how sometimes you fall in love with something you've seen, and you need to buy them all, and in all the sizes available, but then when you get home you're not entirely sure what to do with them, yeah well that's me with the many apothecary jars I bought about ten years ago.

Back when we were living in Wellington, I saw the apothecary jars during one of my many visits to Pete's Emporium in Porirua, and I knew straight away I needed them in my life. But then when I got them home I wasn't entirely sure what to do with them. Over the years I've filled them with various different things, including dried herbs and flowers, and Christmas decorations, but it never seemed to be the right thing, so I gave up and put them away in storage.

But while I was renovating my craft room I found a pile of them in a cupboard, and thought now was the perfect time to use them. And I finally found their new home with my huge stationery sticker collection. You see I also have a problem with buying and not using stickers, especially because I put them away somewhere safe, and then forget to use them. I was so happy and excited about this exciting mashup, that I got started on this project straight away. I separated my stickers into different collections and then got to work.

First up was my apothecary jar sticker collection, which was quite serendipitous...

Next up was my collection of cat stickers. And because I am a crazy cat lady, I do have a lot of cat stickers.

And then of course there is my book sticker collection, which usually includes also cats, tea pots and flowers...

And I also have a huge collection of nature stickers including leaves and mushrooms and cute woodland animals, so they also had to find an apothecary jar of their own...

And don't even get me started with my Scandi christmas themed stickers, which I also have a lot of. I mean who can resist stickers featuring hot chocolate, snowflakes, reindeer and gnomes...

And then there's all my witchy stickers. You put moons and starts and cats and other witchy things on a sticker, and it's like take all my money...

And with all that done, I have a whole set of apothecary jars filled up with lots of beautiful stickers. I laid them all out along the windowsill behind my computer desk in my craft room. And now whenever I'm at my desk I can look up and see both my beloved apothecary jars and stickers.

Already I've found that I've been using my stickers more often now that I can see them. I hope to decorate all my diaries, journals and notebooks with my beloved stickers from now on. Do you have something small like apothecary jars and stickers that bring you joy? I'd love to find out.

Have a wonderful day

Julie-Ann

Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky

Tags: 2024, Apothecary Jar, Cottagecore, Crafting, Crafts, Jars, Organising, Organizing, Stationery, Stickers, Storage