I am wishing that life would hand me lemons just about now.  Our inexpensive source of lemons is now selling a bag of about 15 lemons for $9.82, the limes cost about a dollar less the last time I checked.  We used to get them for $4.39. The grocery store price is far worse.

We use lemons and lemon juice a lot here. Since we don't always use the whole lemon or the zest (though I tried to zest lemons before I juiced them to freeze the extra zest when I remembered), I finally started looking around for another way to get the juice. I despise the real lemon bottled juice and its imitators. However, while looking for some bottled juice in the organic aisle, I saw these bottles of organic lemon and lime juice. They are pasteurized, so they don't taste quite as fresh as squeezing the fruit right before you use it, but they still taste good and like actual lemons and limes.

I was able to buy them on sale for $2.49 each, so I picked up three bottles each. The bottle holds the juice of about 16 lemons or limes, which makes it much cheaper than the bags of lemons and limes, even at the regular price for the bottle which is $3.79.

We've even used this juice in strawberry lemonade and it was quite tasty. When we need the zest, we bite the bullet and buy one or two lemons or limes, but since most of the time we are using the juice, this works for us. I've been pleased with how these bottled juices hold up in cooking and baking, and they tasted fine in -ades, so I'm pretty happy with how well these are doing. Considering we were buying standard lemons and limes, rather than organic, in some ways we are moving up in the world. We may even be able to buy one or two organic lemons or limes the next time we buy them, since we won't be buying a large quantity.

If you can find this at your grocery store, I highly recommend picking up a bottle or five.

Labels: Homemaking, Product Recommendation, Tales from the Kitchen