Lemon Love

I love lemons more than almost any other ingredient, with the possible exception of beautiful brown eggs. This is the time of year when the lemons are ripening on all of the trees I have staked out around Riverside, so I hope to be making many wonderful dishes with juicy fresh lemons, soon. Today I'm making lemon-yogurt muffins, with the left over yogurt from the post-Thanksgiving gyro-fest, and some gorgeous little creatures I got from Carol's neighbor's tree (with permission, of course).

I found the recipe online, and normally would have used Giada's Nonna's Lemon-Ricotta muffins, but I don't have ricotta and I do have yogurt, so there you have it, and I expect they will be grand.

Yesterday's trip to the 99 Ranch market yielded some incredible mushrooms. Fresh Shitake for $1.69 a pound and impossibly beautiful King Oysters for $1.89 and fresh and crispy asparagus for $1.69 a pound - all of these, if available at Von's and the like, would have cost a minimum of $4 a a pound - you can save so much by going to ethnic stores, and the quality is so much higher.

So they will all be on the menu tonight, and I'm sure there will be lemons involved with the asparaus, with lots of fresh zest. Yum.

I'll follow up with the lemon-yogurt muffin recipe if they turn out nicely.