Makes sense. In someblackguy's original work, the lime paste was dried completely and actives where indeed extracted with ethyl acetate based on his bioassay. Ethyl acetate was evaporated (not salted) leaving an oil behind. So drying the paste should work (?). His result was a green extract, so maybe microwaving to partially dry + extracting at 0F is more robust because the extract is near colorless.

One interesting thing about the microwave (which I think you don't have) is that we may be doing something called Microwave Assisted Saponification (MAS).I believe it breaks down esters (generally soluble in ethyl acetate which is itself an ester) into carboxylate ions and organic alcohols. An important example is,

Chlorophyll + 2OH- ⇒ Chlorophyllin-- + Phytol + Ethanol

So less matter is soluble in ethyl acetate. In the example above, assuming ethanol mostly evaporates, only phytol is available for ethyl acetate to pick up. It has an amber color (apparently) and when extraction at 0F it does not appear to be picked up (since extract is colorless).