Lemonade..

..you know for when life gives you lemons or when your son picks a bunch at his Grandpa's house.

3 generations of Kuranis

There is nothing like having a lemon tree in your yard.  I planted one last year but it's not doing well.  Certainly not like my FIL's 30 year old lemon tree.  Anytime we go visit, we always come home with a bag of lemons.

The loot

Not only do the kids love picking lemons, they love the lemonade that comes afterwards.

My little helper

First thing to do is wash the lemons, obviously homemade lemonade is not pasteurized.  That means any bugs that are living on the outside of the lemon have a good opportunity to wind up in your lemonade if you aren't careful.

Ready for juicing

Since sugar doesn't dissolve well in cold liquid, the first thing I do is make a simple syrup to sweeten the lemonade.  I use one cup of water to one cup of sugar.

Sugar and water, ready for duty

I let the syrup cook down and thicken up a bit by boiling it for 5-8 minutes.

Watch out this is hot!

Once the syrup is done cooking, I set it aside to cool while I start juicing the lemons.

Keep on juicing

Nadim had to help me juice these lemons, they were so big that it was difficult to get all the juice out.  I didn't use them all, some I saved to make my delicious lemon cake, you can find that recipe here.

Bottoms up :)

Once you've juiced your lemons add enough of the simple syrup and/or water to suit your taste, enjoy!