I hate waste. I really, really hate waste, especially food waste. My Darling hates waste even more obsessively than I do; when something in the fridge starts to threaten to go bad, he just makes these giant strange-tasting interesting dishes by throwing everything into it...and then eating it. I don't know, too many conglomerate tastes for my liking...but others like them.

Anyway, like I said, I hate waste. A really fast and easy way to conserve in the kitchen is to save the lemons you use in your cooking. Most recipes call for only the juice of the lemon, maybe sometimes the zest, and pretty rarely, the meat. This means that people throw out most of the lemon itself once they're done squeezing it. But no longer! You can use these lemons to make an awesome tasty lemonade right as you're done cooking with them. It's so easy...and you'll feel so good for saving those poor lemons. Seriously.

Ingredients:

- 1 lemon
- 2 tbsp sugar (I use xylitol instead)
- 2 cups of water (or thereabouts, depending on your jar)
- ready mint tea (optional, but seriously delicious if you use it!)



Get a nice round jar with a tight-fitting lid (Mason jars work best, but the one I used was an old pickle jar. Works well!). Squeeze whatever leftover juice there is into the jar (or if you're making this using unused lemons, just squeeze all their juice into the jar), then throw the lemons into it. Add the sugar and water, and the tea if you're using it (works best if half the jar is water and half is tea. Feel free to eyeball it), close tightly, and shake hard for a minute. That's it!

You can leave this in the fridge for up to one day with the lemons in it; after that, you should remove and discard the lemons. Once you discard the lemons, the lemonade can be left in the fridge for about a week...not that it will last that long, seeing how tasty it is. :)