I know you’ve probably gotten tons of healthy recipes for Super Bowl, but you must have something to drink with all that healthy food! There is no sense in making a lot of healthy food, then washing it down with a soft drink…

To make a gallon of lemonade you need 3 ingredients & a jug:

This is what you need to make real lemonade!

-approximately 8-10 lemons

-sweetener equivalent to 1 or 2 cups of sugar, depending on how you like it. See “good, better, best” list for sweeteners and decide what to use.

-additional (filtered if possible) cold water to fill

Put about 2 or 3 cups of cold water on the stove to boil, if you have a sweetener that dissolves better in hot water. If you use stevia, it will dissolve in cold water, so you can leave out that step. Make your sugar water first, either in your pan or in a large Pyrex glass measuring glass (do not pour boiling hot water into a plastic container). (Non-southerners please note, this is also the trick to making good tea: sugar water first.)

Use whatever means you have to squeeze those lemons. I wash them, cut them in half, hand squeeze them on the 50 year old glass manual “juicer” I have. I set up a mesh strainer on top of my 4cup Pyrex cup, so that when the juicer is full, I dump the juice and seeds into the strainer, and the lemon juice goes into the Pyrex cup. The pulp and seeds stay in the strainer. Later, I add as much of that pulp as I want.

My old glass juicer still works fine!

Now pour your juice and sugar water in to the gallon jug you’re using. If you use a glass jug or a safe# plastic jug, make sure your water has cooled enough. Bottom line: Don’t add boiling hot water into a plastic or regular glass jug. (HERE is a post that lists “safe” plastics. I am in the process of throwing out all my plastic, as I can afford to replace it. My unsafe plastic# pieces have all been pitched.)

Add enough cold filtered water to make about 3/4ths gallon and then keep testing it until you think you’ve added the right amounts of water, sweetener, and lemon juice. Add your pulp back in if you want. That’s it.

copyright 2012 organiceater.com Real lemonade

The finished product: I think I used coconut sugar for this batch, and it gives it a darker golden color.

After juicing the lemons, I throw them in the food disposal for a great smell in there! You can also store the lemons in the fridge for a couple days, if you need lemon zest, etc. for a recipe coming up. If you know you will need zest, zest the lemons before juicing to make it easier on yourself.  HERE is a post on what you can do with lemon peels. LOVE using up all the benefits of every lemon!

Now y’all pour yourselves a cup of fresh squeezed goodness, and feel great about ALL the healthy benefits of lemons with every sip! Sure beats that ol’ nasty soda any day!:) Add lemon slices in your gallon if you wanna make it look “purdy”.

This post at Whole New Mom gives you a stevia lemonade recipe, along with links to why you don’t want to use high fructose corn syrup or sugar.

This post at Organic Authority tells you much more about lemons

This post at CrunchyBetty tells you 3 new things you can do with lemons

If you want to print this recipe without all the commentary or pics, select the “print friendly” button below. The additional reading links above were added for those of you who, like me, would rather read than watch the Super Bowl!:) hehe

Encouraging Health,

Organic Eater