Lots of Yellow Limes!
Finally we can do something with our brand name Casa da Lima. While waiting for our two small lime trees to give us limes, we have got a lot from our friends in our village. Beautiful juicy yellow limes. Thank you Dan and Fiona! Two times when we were coming home from swimming, we saw a large bag of more than 70 limes in front of our doorstep. Time to experiment: Drinks, ice cream, jams. delicious to make limes in vietnamese dressings. We normally used lemons, but with limes are much better!
Why Yellow and Not Green?
They are yellow, really! It is not a lemon. The yellow colour is tastier because they are ripe. A green one is not ripe. Because they need to be transported they are picked green. When they get sunshine on the tree, they turn yellow. And this one is sweeter! There is lime in a lot of cocktails! The taste is soft, and that has to do with the higher sugar content than that of a lemon.
Limanada
I made some nice lime products for parties of my daughter and for those who stay in our Casinha. When it is warm outside all people start with the question: “Do you have an ice cold drink”. Yes, now I have an cold and refreshing homemade drink! Sometimes I have special home made fresh drinks like orange juice, grape juice, And now I can add my new Limanada, pure lime joy! The limes make a great limanada,
Lime & Shine, Lime Citrus and Much More Jams
I also started with the lime jams. I developed a lot of special flavours, with a secret ingredient. The flavours are unique. The jams with lime are not so easy to make, since it is only juice and it doesn’t have enough pectine to make the thick jelly needed for jam. I managed anyway with a bought pectine, but I will wait until I got more fruits with a higher pectine content from our fruit trees to make fine lime jams. The reason why I need lots of pectine is that I like to add less sugar. Too many details, sorry I am a genuine nutrition freak.
Limacello
After looking for ingredients for Limacello, I finally found a place nearby where I can buy pure alcohol, (not the one to clean). The famous drink in Italy where they make this with Italian lemons is very popular, not only in Italy but in other countries too. They drink it after dinner and it is said it helps digest the food.
It requires almost 100% alcohol. In The Netherlands you cannot buy this in the stores, you must buy them online. But here in Portugal I thought it would be possible to buy it somewhere. After every door here, you could find hidden treasures. After asking a lot of people, I succeeded. Our friend the Chief pilgrims knows. I will start my limacello experiment soon. If you are walking the caminho to Fatima with us, you will certainly enjoy this nice yellow shot after dinner.
It is not ready yet, it needs to ripen a week in the bottle below. But I tasted anyway. Our Italian pilgrim Paolo had to taste it after dinner, although it was not ready, and it should be in the freezer before drinking.
Wow, what an explosion in your mouth. We’ll have something very nice in the house now! The colour looks different than I saw on photo’s but who cares: our Italian pilgrim Paolo approved it!
