Home-made Lemonade

Hello Everyone,

Today I decided I was going to brave to big wide world outside of my little patch of heaven, because as much as I love to garden and to grow my own produce, some things just won't grow here.

Anyway, I braved the big wide world, the chaotic drivers that live locally (and I am not just talking car drivers, people wielding shopping trollies can be even worse) and went to get some produce for our weekly cook up. Of course I had little Kyran in tow.

Making the rounds through the supermarket and somehow found myself in the soft drinks and other interesting beverages aisle. Being pregnant I am quite impressionable and as soon as I set foot through this vast array of colours, sugar free options, energy drinks making wild claims about the physically impossible etc. I find myself craving lemonade, craving it like a half starved dog eyeing a t-bone steak.

So heres the problem with craving lemonade. Basically every store bought option (with the exception of over priced beverages from a "health food store") had some kind of ingredient that I, never heard of, or could not pronounce. And don't even get me started on sugar content. Wow! Well this got me thinking. What is lemonade really? Time for some research. So off we go to pay for shopping and back home Tout Suit!

Well, Lemonade has an interesting origin story. Briefly here is what I found out.

1) Lemonade's earliest appearance was evident in Medieval Egypt where a lemon tree was sent to the Pharoh as a gift. The Egyptians began a lemon juice trade a few years later and started using the juice for preserving and even started incorporating it in their burial rituals. Lemonade came about a while later, and originally referred to a "cheap" wine that was made from figs and used lemon juice to extend the shelf life. Obviously this changed the taste of the wine.

2) Middle class men and women and even some temple priests began adding sugar to the lemon juice believing that sweetened lemons helped cleanse the soul and often gave this mix to people who were dying and about to enter the after life.

I have included some interesting references below if you want to know more.

Alright so what have we learned? Lemonade refers to about 10 different varieties of Medieval Egyptian wines and that apparently drinking sweetened lemon juice helps with a transition journey for the soul to the afterlife. Great! Not very helpful for my current cravings though. Moving right along.

Upon further research and even more scrolling through pages and pages of recipes, I narrowed down my choices to 3 recipes to try. Don't worry I am not going to make you try them all before you get what you are wanting.

The first recipe was from Taste, a website based recipe book where people can share, rate and even alter recipes (think of it as the food wikipedia). Here's what I thought: Although the recipe was very quick and easy to follow and offered instant gratification (as in I had lemonade within 5 mins of making it). The sugar content was a big concern for me. 2 whole cups of white sugar with just 1 cup of lemon juice. Something about that bothered me. Taste wise the recipe was fine. Would I let my kids drink it? No I wouldn't. I may as well buy the stuff from the store if I can't do better than that.

The second recipe was from Sugar Free Mum. I didn't make this one. Although I loved the sugar free side of things I quickly realised whilst juicing the 10th lemon that in order to make the beverage sweet, it required stevia. Usually not a problem for me, but in my current pregnant state all I can hear is my doctor's voice "stay away from fake sugar" something that sounds like it's from Casper the Ghost.

The third was a recipe I put together myself. It still had a lot of sugar in it (well less then every recipe I found within 2 hours of researching but still a lot by my standards) but it is raw brown sugar which as we all know is much better for us and our kids then the white stuff. So here is the recipe (be aware I made a lot of lemonade, this recipe gave me about 1.5 to 2 litres but you can cut it down as needed).

Ingredients:

* 800ml lemon juice (I prefer the freshly squeezed juice from an actual lemon - my lemon tree is currently lousy with lemons but you can use bottled stuffed from the cooking aisle at the shops)

* 1 cup of brown raw sugar (I prefer this type of sugar but you can use white if you like)

* 1/4 cup of honey (this is how I got ride of 2 + cups of sugar)

* 3 cups of boiling water

* 6 cups of cold water

* Lemon wedge to serve (if you trying to show off your "mad skills" - although my best friend will tell you she doesn't get the fancy treatment... She is right)

Method (very complicated stuff here guys... I'm joking):

1) In a large bowl or saucepan combine sugar, honey and boiling water and stir until completely dissolved (the water can just be boiled in the kettle) and let it cool (luke warm is fine, it doesn't have to be stone cold).

2) Stir in lemon juice and cold water - I like to stir it quite a bit as the sugar water tends to linger at the bottom giving you part super sweet and part super sour lemonade.

3) Put into you bottles and refrigerate.

4) Serve in a jug with some ice and lemon wedges

Serving suggestion: I like to do serve half a glass of lemonade and fill with soda water - this way the kids will never know the difference between home-made and store bought.

And voila! Homemade, healthy (ish) lemonade. Even the kids can have it, I know the kids around here love it.

Let me know what you guys think.

Forever Yours

Anni

P.S for my research bugs (like me) out there. Here is the starting site I found the history of lemonade on. It has a few references which will also take you to some more interesting lemon-ey facts. Enjoy

http://www.cliffordawright.com/caw/food/entries/display.php/id/95/