Mmm.. Homemade Lemonade!
I have to admit, one of my mommy pet peeves is juice. Once a child inevitable gets a taste of commercially processed juice at a birthday party or play date, then crave it, like sugar sucking zombies! Having a healthy alternative to HFCS filled foiled pouches is must during summer time.
This homemade lemonade cans up so easily, you’ll wonder why you’ve been buying expensive organic juice all this time. Not only will the kiddos love it, but adults will too. I can my batches up in quarts, which makes for a perfect gift to take to summer bbq.
Late last fall my parents retired and moved to Arizona for the winter, because apparently, that’s what you do when you retire. But don’t let them fool you, their not even old! Their just pretending to be, so they can flee negative temps and the 4 feet of snow, to go soak up some sun for 6 months. This meant two things to me.. 1.) Winter will be lonely on the farm without my momma and 2.) Fresh citrus! .. this alone might just be worth all that agony. Growing citrus on the homestead isn’t going to happen here any time soon, so I asked my parents to grab me a couple of boxes of lemons from the farmers market on their way back home. And lemons I got. 70 pounds of lemons to exact. Homemade lemonade was my first mission. I couldn’t wait to stock the pantry with antioxidant rich, tasty lemonade.
This recipe is super easy and the best part is, you can can it up and have the taste of summer all year round, even when its snowing and your wearing wool socks, like today.
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You could make your job super easy and purchase one of these, or you can be a glutton for punishment and use one of these, like I did. I picked mine up at Target years ago in the dollar bin. Score! However, even juicing them by hand, it still only took me 30 minutes. And hey, tomorrow I won’t need to do a upper arm workout. Double win.
One large lemon should yield 1/4-1/2 cup of lemon juice. The end yield will depend on the amount of juice the lemons gave.
NOTE * Save your lemon seeds if your planning on doing any special jams, jellies or marmalade’s this year, as the seeds contain natural pectin.
For a fun adult twist, substitute the water for tonic and add a splash of vodka.
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Anybody who has tasted fresh lemonade knows it’s an entirely different animal from processed juices. Thanks for posting. Hello from HomeAcre Hop.
Melissa French, The More With Less Mom recently posted…April Real Food Meal Plan
I don’t understand removing the ring before storing. Won’t the seals break?
No, actually the contrary. Leaving the ring on could false seal a jar. Some times the seal on a home canned products will loosen. If the ring is on the jar, then it could reseal itself in a unsafe manor and you would not know that the jar had been unsealed and now very dangerous. However, if you remove the ring, and the seal pops, it can not reseal itself and then you will know to discard the jar immediately. I hope that makes sense.
What ring are you talking about?
Did I miss something? The recipe says 1 cup water? So how
Much more water do I use to fill up pints?
Thanks
Hi Danielle,
You will need to add the water to pot along with the lemon juice.