What to do with Lemon Peels?

When I make lemonade, or limeade, I now just cut off the stem ends of the fruits, remove the seeds, cut them into pieces and blend in the Vitamix with water. I strain this and repeat and add the resulting concentrate to water and ice to make lemonade. I sweeten with stevia and keep a bottle in the refrigerator and freeze excess. This lemon/limeade tastes really good and you're getting more nutrients, I believe. I sometimes put the pulp on acid-loving plants.

lemon jelly--anyone? very yummy stuff and also makes some of the best lemonade

Oleo Saccharum (latin for 'oil sugar') has been used since medieval times as a flavouring in baked goods, punches, and as a general preservation method for aromatic volitiles and terpenes found in the zest and pith of oranges, lemons, etc.
Oleo Saccharum

I've found some recipes that only use the pith after the zest has been removed. I love the idea of using every bit of flavour, then composting/burning for potassium.

After I sqeeze the  juice out of 1/2 ed lemons, I cut the rhine in little peices, put that and water in pint mason jars with lid and keep in frid for refreshing drinking water.  I often put in a mint left or a rosemary sprig.  I also then keep the used lemon peels  in another liddrd jar.  Since I use 2 lenins a day, I zest the peel to use in salads baking and recipes.  I also save some of tge lemin juice in empty green essential oil bottles with dropper.  It keeps well and I add it to lots of thing.  With the jarred peels peices, I squeeze until dry, the combine with sour cream adding Wonder rand Sweet Leaf Stevia "Lemon Drop Flavor.  Add the zest.  When I have it dished to eat I had a squirt or so of the fresh lemon juice.  Sometimes a touch of tumerec powder makes for a fun bright sumple lemon  pudding.  I do not add real sugar because of diabetes.  I do this the same with lemon peels.  The whole zesting/water drink/ saved softened peels  made into sour cream pudding. I use the same companies Valencia Orange flavor Stevia.  For a real treat I sometimes add the orange stevia to their stevia flavor Vanilla Cream...yes it is a cream cysicle flavor!!!

Sorry for the one paragraph thingy...I am partially blind in one eye which makes no stoping/starting much easier for me to compose.  
The dried peels in flour helps prevent weevils.  Dried lemon peels detract bugs and mice.  Powdered lemon peel with lemon juice with very mild circular motion is a good dead skin remover and skin lighterner/ dark spot remover.  Mixed with salt it is great for hands/elbows and feet ad well as a natural dish/skin/ pan scrubbibg agent.

Trade them for whatever you need or want that some other folk has extra. Surely someone has no lemon peels and would like to make any of the above ideas. You might be surprised what another has extra near you!

Jesse Glessner wrote:Every year my grandmother made sugared orange peel "candy", along with a wire coat hanger, rounded into a wreath style, and added wrapped candies to that for us at Christmas.
Have any of you tried these citrus sugared peels? YUK!!! A Japanese girl who worked for me loved them, but then she grew up with them.

My mother was smart about it though! She made us eat every bit of the orange peel "candy" BEFORE she set out the candy wreath!     :-)

I say "YUK" even thinking about those awful candies!

I love them. I make candied peel with orange, lemon, grapefruit and pomelo, and in addition to eating them straight, I put them in my christmas puddings and fruitcake instead of that vile flourescent candied melon rind you see in the shops.

I love candied citrus peel!

I have a friend who cuts citrus peel into little decorative shapes with a small cookie cutter and pickles them in saki. I know she uses these in various dishes, but I don't know what dishes. Cake likely, maybe alcoholic drinks as well...

I use 1/2 a lemon in my warm lemon sole water every morning.  I don't like to waste the rind, so after I cut the rind from a quarter piece to toss in my tea, I toss the rest in the in the freezer.  When I get enough the freezer is overflowing, here's what I do:

1) rinse rinds to defrost, then scrape the pith, cut rind into strips and cover with vodka to extract for 4 weeks or longer.  Strain and you have lemon extract (or orange, lime, grapefruit).
2) preserved lemon (peel).  Heavily salt the rinds and pack in a jar layering more salt, adding just enough bottled lemon juice to cover.  Sit on counter for a week or longer.  The peel is the part that is used in preserved lemons, not the flesh, so just preserving the flesh works well.   I use the preserved lemons for rice, potatoes, chicken, many vegetable dishes.
3) scrape pith from rinds, dry rinds in a dehydrator, then grind in a clean coffee grinder (I keep one for herb use only).  Use lemon powder in baked goods, pancakes, dutch baby.
4) candied lemon rind.  I usually just make these in the sugar syrup (someone already left a recipe in this thread), and dry them later if I want dried.  I use the lemon syrup with sparkling water to make a nice drink.
5) scrape pith, cut rind into strips, and return to the freezer, then use strips in tea, soup or stew (French beef stew with orange rind makes all the difference)
6) I do this with ALL citrus
7) Oh, one more - lemon, lime, and grapefruit can be infused in alcohol with cinchona bark to make a tonic water syrup to use with sparking water.

I collect all my lemon, orange and lime peels and dry them till you can snap them then blitz them in a blender with rosemary, thyme and salt. I use the salt on pork dishes and it's super tasty!

I also steep the lemon rinds in apple cider vinegar with nettles and rosemary and use as a hair rinse.