I promised Paul that I would make lemon bars on Sunday. I had all of the ingredients except lemon juice so I added it to my "Trader Joe's Shopping List". The unfortunate thing about shopping at Trader Joes is that their inventory isn't always consistent. They didn't have lemon juice and the last thing I wanted to do was make an extra trip to Safeway.
I was more than a little embarrassed to pass by the bright yellow lemons in the produce aisle – twice – before it dawned on me to pick them up to juice myself. Problem solved!
I started making the lemon bars after dinner. If you have ever made them before, you know it is a two step process. As the first layer of the bars baked, I began cleaning the dinner dishes. Stupidly, I dumped the lemon juice that I had squeezed and set aside for the bars all over the kitchen floor.
Luckily, I hadn't thrown away the juiced lemon halves yet. I took a wooden spoon and inserted it inside of the lemon half. I then squeezed the lemon together over the spoon and moved the spoon forward and back to break the juice out of the remaining capillaries. I was able to get all of the juice I needed from what I thought were completely juiced lemons.
The first moral of the story… remember that lemon juice comes from actual lemons and is not restricted to bottles.
The second moral of the story… necessity truly is the mother of invention when you desperately don't want to go to the grocery store.
The third moral of the story… make sure you get every last drop from your purchases. What I thought was garbage was actually liquid gold.
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