Lollipop Trees

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Hand-Squeezed Honey Lemonade


Earlier this summer as I was getting ready for my garage sale (and selling all of my precious baby stuff -- sniff, sniff,) my kids (probably with my help) came up with the idea of having a lemonade stand. They sold lemonade and chocolate chip cookies for a quarter a piece. Grandma was extremely kind and made all of the cookies (2 ice cream pails worth) and wrapped each one to be sold. She also found a few things to sell and said that the procedes could go to the kids, as they were earning money for our vacation. They made twenty dollars each! And I must say that they both made smart choices with their purchases. A warm and very cute pink winter hat from Alaska for my little girl and two animal books for my little animal loving boy.

Well, we have been really into making lemonade since then. The kids call for lemonade or peppermint tea all of the time. We have even used the peppermint tea instead of water in our lemonade. Very tasty!

Anyone who knows me, knows that I try to eat as healthy as possible. This means fresh and whole foods and organic foods as often as possible. I aviod the following "food" like the plague: corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, artificial flavors and colors and preservatives. We also try to eat mostly vegetarian and aviod cow's milk and other dairy products created from it. We seem to do better with goat's milk and almond milk. It can be easy to subtitute with soy products, and I try to avoid doing this as well, although we do eat soy.

Oh, and I try to use other forms of sweetners in place of refined sugar. So when we wanted to make lemonade, I was not about to buy the little packet from the store that is full of chemicals. I decided to make honey lemonade intead. I began searching the internet for recipes, and found many sites had the same quantities in their recipes, so I am not quoting anyone in particular for a source. Here is what we do:



Honey Lemonade

3/4 to 1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
3/4 cup honey
2 cups hot water
water to fill the pitcher

First, add honey to the hot water and stir until dissolved. Next, add lemon juice. Then, fill pitcher with cold water. Last, pour over ice and enjoy!

I have found that 2/3 and even 1/3 cup of honey was just fine when I was running low on honey. The kids never knew the difference! I've been using 3 lemons, and that seems to be a good amount for our tastes. It helps to warm the lemons in the microwave for a minute and then roll them on the counter to break up the pulp and to get the juices going. I don't even have a lemon juicer anymore in my attemps to simplify. I just squeeze the lemon half with my hand and then use my wooden spoon to sqeeze out the remaining juice.



We like to serve our lemonade in mason jars. I hope you try it and love it as much as we do!

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