a day in the life… with an angel, citrus, and pizza

Friday, January 7, 2011

7:30 AM – Awake, shower, dress, eat breakfast and put up a blog post for the day.

9:40 AM – Open email and find this gem:

Happy New Year Linda!
Been following your blog and your bumper crop of citrus. I bought an ACME years ago when our landscape included many prolific citrus trees. It juices at lightning speed! Would you like to borrow mine? Let me know and I’ll drop it by ; )
Jeanie

9:43 AM – Immediately Reply:

Oh, Jeanie, you are a lifesaver! YES, a thousand times, YES! Thank you so much, I was actually thinking of putting out a neighborhood search for a juicer I could borrow. I’ll have to show you the one I have, you will die laughing when you see it! Thank you! xoxo
Linda

(that is my tiny little juicer in the background!)

9:44 AM – Go out the French doors and haul the crate of Meyer lemons inside. Thoroughly wash each piece of fruit. Zest and then cut in half the entire contents of the crate in anticipation of Jeanie’s arrival. Which she does, a mere 5 minutes after I have finished.

11:12 AM – Jeanie arrives with the Acme “Supreme Juicerator” in tow. After a quick tutorial on how to work the beast, Jeanie leaves and I set to work on the Meyer lemons.

11:45 AM – The Meyer lemons are all juiced! In only thirty minutes? It can’t be! It would have taken me at least 90 minutes with my infantile juicer, that would have included the time to let it cool down after it would have overheated repeatedly!

11:46 AM – Place 1 tablespoon of zest in each compartment of mini muffin tins, top with juice, and freeze for zest cubes. Pour the juice into full-size muffin cups (approx. 1/4 cup) and freeze for juice cubes. Once frozen, transfer to freezer-quality ziplock bags, each labeled with the type of fruit juice or zest and the date. Continue with the remaining fruit.

5:00 PM – With only a 15-minute break to eat a Subway sandwich Connor brought me, I have finished! My arms, shoulders, and back hurt, plus my hands are raw and feel as though they have been soaking in acid for the last 6 hours… oh yeah, they have been! But it’s a great feeling – I can now look into my backyard, through those French doors, without dread and guilt.  Here is the bounty that my freezer now holds. Well, minus the amount that I brought to Jeanie, my angel neighbor, when I returned the rock-star Juicerator!

89 Meyer Lemons produced 29 cups juice and 48 zest cubes

12 Blood Oranges produced 2 cups juice and 10 zest cubes

117 Lemons produced 24 cups juice and 60 zest cubes

62 Oranges produced 42 cups of juice and 36 zest cubes

46 Pink Grapefruit produced 34 cup of juice

Although I did zest all of the Meyer lemons, blood oranges, and lemons; I gave up about 1/3 of the way through the oranges and didn’t zest any of the grapefruit, since there is still plenty of grapefruit on the trees (they aren’t at as great a risk of freezing as the other smaller fruits).

And yes, I have plans to order a Juicerator of my own from HERE! Jeanie, I can’t thank you enough! You truly were my own personal angel yesterday. xoxo

Oh, and I did manage to make dinner for the family too! I know, I am amazing! What can I say, the Juicerator and the joy of not having the citrus hanging over my head gave me an extra surge of adrenalin. Plus, I really needed to use the fresh homemade mozzarella I made a couple days ago, while it was still fresh!

Caprese Pizza

1 pound whole-wheat pizza dough (which Dave picked up at Trader Joe’s)
Pesto
3/4 pound Mozzarella cheese
Heirloom tomatoes, thinly sliced
Sea salt

Place a pizza stone in the oven and preheat oven to 500 degrees. Lightly dust a pizza peel with cornmeal.

Shape and stretch the dough into the desired thickness and shape on the peel. Spread with the desired amount of pesto. Thinly slice 2/3 of the mozzarella cheese and finely grated the remaining 1/3 of the cheese. Lay the cheese slices in an even layer over the pesto. Top with the sliced tomatoes. Season lightly with the sea salt. Sprinkle with the grated cheese.

Carefully slide off the pizza peel onto the preheated pizza stone. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the crust is cooked through and the top layer of cheese is bubbly and lightly browned. Remove with pizza peel and slide onto a cutting board. Slice and serve.

Makes 1 pizza