Quick Lemonade

When it comes to lemonade I prefer to go the simple route - water, sugar and lemon juice stirred together.  None of this making cooking up a concentrate, chilling it, and then adding the water.  It also works well for making limeade, just substitute lime juice for the lemon juice(obvious, no?).


Lemonade
13 cups water

2 cups granulated sugar(or more or less to taste)
2 cups lemon juice
Combine all ingredients in a 1 gallon pitcher, stir until the sugar dissolves.
Makes ~1 gallon.


Kickin' Arnold
1 cup lemonade
1 cup iced tea
1 tbsp ginger syrup(I'll add the links as I get to the recipes)
Stir together and serve over ice.
Makes 1 large serving, or 2 normal ones.


Lemon Granita
4 cups lemonade
1/2 cup sugar(again, to taste)
1/2 cup lemon juice
Stir together and pour into a 9x13 pan.  Freeze for 1 hour, scrape with with a fork to break up any ice that's formed, continue to freeze and scrape every hour or so until it's frozen through.  Scoop into a bowl and enjoy!
Makes 4-ish servings. 


Raspberry Lime Slushies
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen 
5 cups limeade, divided
1/2 cup lime juice
1 cup raspberries
1 cup soda water
Purée raspberries and press through a sieve, stir together with 4 cups of limeade.  Pour into ice cube trays and freeze.  Toss the ice cubes into a blender and blend with lime juice and 1 cup limeade until slushy.  Pour into 4 glasses and top each with 1/4 cup soda water.
Makes 4 servings.   

Summertime Staples

Now that the weather is getting warmer it's time for me to put away the cocoa mix and put my coffee pot away and break out the cold drinks instead.  In an effort to actually keep hydrated and keep our drink options interesting(I don't like plain water much).  So I've assembled a selection of staples that keep well in the fridge, are cheap, and can be mixed and matched with each other and other basic ingredients that you likely have around in the summer.

I'll be sharing these recipes throughout next week, so today I'll lay out the necessary ingredients and my small list of equipment that really makes it easy for me keep the fridge stocked and me away from Dunkin's iced drinks.

First the necessary ingredients:
Coffee(I just use Folgers that I can buy in a big cheap-ish can)
Sugar
Lemon juice
Tea bags
Fresh ginger root

My equipment of choice:
2 - 1 gallon pitchers(I have these)
1 - 2 quart pitcher(this is my favorite)
Colander or sieve
Small kettle or large saucepan

Optional but handy equipment:

Sealable glass bottles

I have a 1 liter bottle that I use for ginger syrup and a couple of smaller ones that I use for small batches of berry purées and for the husband to take drinks to work in.  I found mine at HomeGoods for $3-5 each, which is way cheaper than I was able to find them online.

A soda siphon

Now this is a really optional item - if you have one or you find a good one at a tag sale(that's where ours came from) or if you can borrow one from a relative that doesn't use it anyway, great!  If not, bottled seltzer is still relatively cheap if you can get it on sale.  You can get the soda chargers for about $0.40 each if you buy them in bulk from a bar supplier, they're actually more expensive to buy from Amazon than from a smaller dealer.

And lastly get yourself some good cute glasses for sipping these tasty concoctions from.

See you Monday!