At a party that Preston and I threw last week, we bought two bags of lemons and limes because we thought we would serve them in the gin and vodka tonics with appetizers. In the end, however, we ended up only serving beer and Pimm's cup (YUM) with the appetizers, which meant that we arrived back in Pennsylvania on Thursday with a surplus of lemons and limes. I know, right? The dilemmas I face.
So yesterday, I made fresh lemonade. And as soon as I tasted it, I immediately had an epiphany, because y'all. THIS is what lemonade is supposed to taste like. Even though it had a cup of sugar in the syrup (which I am totally ignoring), it was still nice and tart and the lemon flavor was crisp and clean. AND it was super easy.
How did I make this delicious, super easy lemonade, you ask? Well, because I am fancy, I googled "lemonade recipe" and clicked on the first result, which led me to the recipe for "Perfect Lemonade." All it takes is a simple syrup, the juice of 4-6 lemons, and 4 cups of water.
Preston, who prefers his sweets to be cloying, reports that my recipe resulted in a tart lemonade which needs added sugar. I, who prefer my sweets to be not-very-sweet, had to dilute my lemonade with water to get the taste I wanted. But in the end, we agreed that it was the best lemonade we had ever tasted because, well, it tasted exactly like lemonade should taste. And because that is really the best description I can manage, I urge you to go make this yourselves so you too can experience the deliciousness.
Perfect Lemonade
1 cup sugar (can reduce to 3/4 cup, which I did)
1 cup water (for the simple syrup)
1 cup lemon juice (The recipe says that 4-6 lemons will yield 1 cup, but I found that to be fiction. I don't have a juicer, which I'm sure is part of it, but I ended up using 10 lemons juiced by hand to get 1 cup of juice. So apparently either I need to work on my juicing skills or I need to buy juicier lemons.)
3-4 cups cold water (to dilute - I used 4 cups, but ended up wanting mine a bit more diluted)
1. Make simple syrup by heating 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 4-6 lemons (or 10, if you are Mary Frances), enough for 1 cup of juice.
3. Add the juice and syrup to a pitcher. Add 3-4 cups of cold water and refrigerate 30-40 minutes. Serve with ice and sliced lemons.
N.B. If you're watching your sugar intake, here is the recipe that I'll try next time (made with agave syrup).
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