Wow! This lemonade is my new favorite drink to make for hot weather, and sooo easy!
I have tried making lemonade from scratch before, and it has either involved juicing a whole bunch of lemons which are not grown in my area and therefore trucked in and expensive. Or it meant making a syrupy concentrate to mix with water.
Both were more work than I wanted to go through…and more lemons
So for years, I bought the frozen concentrate instead. But it never tasted quite right.
One scorchingly hot day this summer, I thought, “It really can’t be that hard to make lemonade,” and came up with this recipe. Sheesh, it’s so easy, it’s hardly a recipe lol! I invented the easiest lemonade ever, I think.
Here’s all you need: a lemon, half cup of sugar and water…and ideally a quart jar.
Cut the lemon in half and juice it. You can strain the juice to get rid of seeds if you want to, but I don’t because I want the pulp. If I have seeds, I pick them out of the juice with a fork.
Put the lemon juice and—and this is key!!—the lemon halves in your jar. Add the sugar and water to fill the jar. Shake or stir to dissolve the sugar, then put it in the fridge for a few hours and the lemon halves will give your lemony flavor a boost.
You can easily double this recipe and use a half-gallon jar instead.
I was so excited about this lemonade recipe that I posted a how-to video on TikTok. My TikTok profile says I’m “Just an idealistic nature lover hoping to save the planet by sharing insights :)”
So…how does making lemonade from scratch save the planet? By changing how people think, I hope.
Here’s what I mean: When people get reconnected to making food (or drink) from scratch, when they are empowered to cook for themselves, to realize they don’t have to go to the grocery store or Door Dash for every little thing, perhaps they will start to rethink packaged foods, convenience foods, foods that show up on the doorstep as prepared meals, and so on.
Maybe, just maybe, making lemonade from scratch will lead to making yogurt from scratch (also super easy!). Maybe it will lead to packing a lunch rather than going through a fast-food drive through. Maybe it will lead to cooking dinners instead of eating takeout.
And maybe moving people from processed foods moves people one tiny step closer to paying attention to what they eat and drink…and that might lead to paying more attention to the world around them, and what is happening to it.
There is so much work to be done to turn this train around and save the planet. It will take much, MUCH more than some homemade lemonade, I realize that. But it’s a tasty place to start.
Lemon photo by Lukas: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photography-of-lemons-1414122/
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