My Favorite Things: Progressive Lime Squeezer

I was slow to get on the citrus press bandwagon. I had a juicer (big clunky electric one). I had the plastic kind you balance over a dish and then twist against. I had the small wooden reamer you jam into the fruit. I had the glass dish our grandmothers all had. None really fired my jets, and I usually ended up just squeezing fruit directly into whatever I was making, and then fishing out the seeds.

Then I watched a cooking show with a citrus press type, which basically turns a half lemon or lime virtually flat or inside out with almost no effort, and doesn't corrode, and I thought "Now, that's what I need."

Trouble is, I get kinda fussy about buying a $10.00 gadget when I already have 3-4 others. I can blow a paycheck on cookbooks and clothes and a new Italian leather purse, but then bitch and moan about a $10.00 lime press. I finally broke down and bought a lime squeezer because I buy bags of key limes voraciously. I use fresh lime juice in many many things -- it freshens virtually everything it touches. Key Limes are notoriously difficult to juice, not only because they are small and many are required to get a decent cup of juice, but because they tend to harden very quickly, even when they still have usuable juice, so can be tough to squeeze by hand.

Now that I own this press, and learned how to properly use it (I didn't realize at first that you place the fruit with the flat cut side facing down into the bowl [I was cradling the curved side of the fruit IN the bowl], so that when you press, it turns inside out). I can honestly say, I LOVE this tool, and I use it constantly. It was worth every penny of that $10.00 at Target.

Now, that said, I wasn't nutty enough to buy a yellow one for lemons, a green one for limes, and an orange one for oranges. One will do ya. Available at Target and housewares stores everywhere, but here's a link to Amazon anyway:

My Progressive Lime Squeezer

Update: Ok, now I understand why people buy all the color coordinated versions, because my huge lemon didn't fit in the lime press last night. Damn them to hell, they made them all different sizes to sell more product. Ok, buy the biggest one. Probably the orange. Not the small green one. Otherwise you'll have to quarter it, like I did. Still works.