If you like making your own herbal tea blends, you will love having
dried lemon peels on hand. They give teas a touch of light
rejuvenation, and mix well with berries and floral teas, or even some of
the mints. Lemon peels help to stimulate digestive processes, so make a
beneficial addition to before or after dinner drinks. In this way they
also help soothe digestive upset.
You'll want to read Juicing Lemons the Right Way so that you have a great way to get the peels without wasting the juice, and vice versa.
Once
you've gotten the peels chopped or cut, there are several ways to dry
them. I used those wicker paperplate holders from days of old, which I
bought at Goodwill for about $1 per 6 of them. These are easy to use
and don't require that you lay papertowels down. I'm good for anything
less wasteful. Just spread the peels over the wicker plates, making
sure there is space between and they aren't clumped together or stacked.
If you don't have wicker plates or baskets, then you can use paper towels placed on regular plates or a cookie sheet. With your ingenuity I'm sure you will find a suitable solution.
Depending on the climate where you live, these could take as little as two days or as long as two weeks to dry properly. You want to make sure they are absolutely and completely dry before storing in jars for future use. A ways to test this is to see if a few pieces will snap in half. If they bend even a little bit, they aren't dry enough. You can try grinding a few in a coffee or seed grinder, and if you get a dry powder, they're done. Otherwise, be patient and let nature do it's work.
Once they are dry, keep them in glass jars in a dark cupboard. They are good until they no longer smell like lemons when you open the jar. At that point, give them back to the Earth by composting or sprinkling around your garden.
Enjoy!
