Lemonade Recipe

Here's a great lemonade recipe that I used, courtesy of simplyrecipes.com. The shortcut key to making lemonade is the starting proportions: 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of water, 1 cup of lemon juice.

I had to use up some freshly picked lemons that a nice gentleman gave me while I was walking down the street with my friend and our kids. He was pruning his lemon tree and just asked us if we wanted some, because otherwise they were just going in the compost bin. So, I took a bagful gratefully and vowed to make some lemonade with them. I only made about half a batch of what the recipe below calls for, but that's because I wanted it to fit in my nifty glass bottle! I used half a cup of lemon juice, less than half a cup of the simple syrup and 3 cups of water. I didn't want the lemonade to be too sweet or tart, so I diluted it.

INGREDIENTS


1 cup sugar (can reduce to 3/4 cup)
1 cup water (for the simple syrup)
1 cup lemon juice
3 to 4 cups cold water (to dilute)

METHOD

1 Make simple syrup by heating the sugar and water in a small saucepan until the sugar is dissolved completely.

2 While the sugar is dissolving, use a juicer to extract the juice from 4 to 6 lemons, enough for one cup of juice.

3 Add the juice and the sugar water to a pitcher. Add 3 to 4 cups of cold water, more or less to the desired strength. Refrigerate 30 to 40 minutes. If the lemonade is a little sweet for your taste, add a little more straight lemon juice to it.

Serve with ice, sliced lemons.


The secret to perfect lemonade is to start by making sugar syrup, also known as "simple syrup." Dissolving the sugar in hot water effectively disperses the sugar in the lemonade, instead of having the sugar sink to the bottom.

Cheers, to the generous good samaritan who gave me these lemons! YUM!