Lemonade Stand Worthy

I got the idea that I wanted to make lemonade for my son's birthday party a couple of weeks before the big day. I Googled "homemade lemonade" to find the perfect recipe as I had never made lemonade before. What I found was what looked like the most delicious recipe ever for strawberry lemonade.

What you will need:

1 cup sugar
1 cup of water
1 pint fresh strawberries -- that would be approximately one small container
1 cup fresh lemon juice

4-6 cups cold water (this will vary depending on your taste)

Before you get to work with the strawberries and lemons, you need to make a simple syrup by combining the sugar with 1 cup of water in a pot, and place it over medium heat until the sugar is completely dissolved, stirring occasionally. Let it cool before using it.

Next, you need lemons -- about 8 or 9 of them, depending on the size. The original recipe says it will be about 8 lemons, but I had a couple of small ones that I used and I didn't mind having a little more than a cup of lemon juice.

I cut the lemons in half, and squeezed the juice out -- I don't have a citrus juicer, but I stabbed the flesh of the lemon all over with a fork to help get the juices flowing. After I had enough juice, I poured it through a strainer to get the seeds out.

Then I got to work with cutting up the strawberries. I had bought a rather large container of strawberries from the grocery store, and used about half the package.

I put all of the strawberries in the blender, added about half a cup of water, and blended them into a delicious puree. This is when things started getting fun! I combined the syrup, lemon juice, and strawberry puree in a large pitcher, and then added about 4 cups of water to the mixture and stirred it up.

And what was born was the most delicious lemonade that I have ever tasted in my life. I seriously wanted to set up a lemonade stand at the end of my driveway and sell it for $2 a pop -- it would have sold like hotcakes!

Needless to say, I will be making this lemonade again. It will be the perfect drink for those warm summer evenings spent hanging out in the backyard.