lemonade

Since my niece posted about raspberry lemonade we have many batches. Almost every day gets a new batch made. It takes about 5 minutes and is so good. (We'll have no scurvy HERE!) Most of the batches do not include the raspberries since the boys do not care for them. But we vary the recipe according to our ingredients. We did stop making it while Melissa was here since she couldn't drink it.

The boys' favorite is the juice of 2 limes; then lemon juice to bring it to a cup. Yesterday's was the best so far; we had no sugar in the canister so we used a cup of vanilla sugar I'd made last year; although we couldn't taste the vanilla for some reason it seemed better--placebo? just knowing it was there made it taste better? My favorite is the former but after I get the lemon/lime juice to a cup I add the juice of 2 oranges. Yummy. Sunday we were out of lemons but had plenty of limes so made a batch of straight limeade. Everyone liked it but not as much as the mix.

I finally planned ahead and heated the sugar and water before I went to bed so it got cold faster. And yes I know I could make a double batch but then I find it very hard not to drink it in the evening and then I can't sleep. :( This way everyone get a glass and then it's gone.

1 cup water boiled with 1 cup sugar; cooled (although I just use more ice in the next step)

3 cups cold water and crushed ice

1 cup lemon/lime juice

throw in some vanilla seeds if you want.

very good.

equipment; I use a metal lime squeezer I bought for $10. The one I pictured here is plastic and it broke during my first batch of lemonade. I bought a similar one made of enameled metal. I think I'm ready to get one of these. But after reading everyone's comments I'm not so sure. I bought a juicer years ago that worked great but it was aluminum and it started putting black bits in the juice; yuk.