Close your eyes for a minute and let’s pretend summer’s not over. I loooove fall, but I can’t help wishing for one or two more weekends of cutoff jean shorts and a wifebeater. It’ll happen.

Here’s my secret (until now) recipe—once legendary at a little place called Eat Records—for Mollie’s Famous Lemonade. When the weather feels right, load up on lemons and get to squeezin’.

Ingredients for lemonade base

• 1 part freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 part warm water (i.e., cold water heated in a saucepan—never drink or cook with hot water, because lead and other poisonous chemicals are more easily absorbed by hot tap water)
• 1 part granulated sugar

(I recommend starting with 1 cup of each. If you want a vat of lemonade, by all means, increase the amounts. The mix will also stay fresh in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.)

Directions

1. The ratio of lemonade base to cold water is 1:2. So for example, mix 1 cup of base with 2 cups of water.
2. Then add 1 bunch of fresh mint, but set aside a loose handful of them for later.
3. Add the mint to the lemonade and keep it there for at least two hours.
4. Discard mint (or serve from a pitcher that will filter it)
5. Serve chilled on ice and garnish with a reserved mint leaf.

Variations*
Use lime juice instead of lemon juice
Use basil instead of mint
Add fruit, like berries

*I never do any of these; I just stick with the original recipe.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 8:08 am and is filed under food, recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.