Summer days - Homemade lemonade

So the sun finally showed its face in the UK for a couple of days this weekend. In honour of the glorious weather, I decided to make a bottle of lemonade. I have always preferred traditional, cloudy lemonade, enjoying the real lemony flavour but this is the first time I made it myself. It won't be the last time though as it is really simple and tastes far better than shop bought versions. I used a recipe I had torn out of one of the supermarket magazines but I'm not sure which one.
To make the most of the great weather we went walking on Saturday in Dovedale again. It's a really nice area for walking (although a little over crowded on a hot, August weekend) and they sell great ice cream which I have previously wrote about but tasted even better on a hot day, after a long walk. On Sunday we finished off the lemonade sat in the garden reading. I have a selection of review copies of cookbooks that are being released in August/September to tell you about in the next couple of weeks so I enjoyed a lazy Sunday flicking through these gorgeous books deciding which recipes to try and what to tell you all about them. Expect the first review in the next few days of The Eagle Cookbook by David Eyre Published by Absolute press. I cooked a delicious chicken recipe form this book on Sunday evening so expect to hear all about it and the rest of the book in the next few days.

Homemade lemonade
Makes around 1 litre

6 lemons
150g granulated sugar
1 litre water

To serve
Sparkling water

1. Peel the skin off the lemons and place in a large pan, taking care not to take any of the bitter white pith off with it.
2. Squeeze the juice of all 6 lemons into the pan and add the water and the sugar.
3. Heat gently, stirring until the sugar dissolves, then turn up the heat and bring to the boil. Allow to boil fairly rapidly for 10 minutes. Take off the heat and allow to cool.
4. Strain through a fine mesh sieve and pour into bottles. Seal and store in the fridge until ready to serve, preferably within 24 hours.
5. To serve, half fill a glass with lemonade and top up with sparkling water and add some ice cubes.

Enjoy!