Lemonade

Because I am terrible at looking after fruit trees, and also reluctant to use chemical sprays, my fruit doesn't exactly look immaculate.  They may be knobbly and gnarly, but my lemons are the largest I have seen (well, outside of the ones I saw in Sorrento) and they are delicious.

Making lemonade isn't exactly rocket science.  Lemon Juice + Water  + Sugar = Lemonade is a lot easier to get your head around than E=MC2.  I do however have a couple of tips for making extra nice lemonade.

• Don't just stir in sugar.  Make a sugar syrup first.  Do this by adding boiling water to half a mug of sugar and stir until the sugar completely dissolves, then let the sugar syrup cool.
• Make the effort to not include the pips - if you don't have a juicer then squeeze the lemons over your up-turned cupped hand so that you catch the pips.
• Once you put the lemon juice and sugar syrup in your serving jug, set this aside and don't add water or ice until the last minute so that the lemonade is cool.  Warm lemonade is such a let down.
• Keep a bottle of sparkling soda water in your fridge and add this to your jug of lemon sugar mix, just before serving, along with a few cubes of ice, a slice of lemon and a sprig of mint if you have it.
• Taste before serving so that you can add more lemon juice or sugar if needed.  I am really guilty of not doing this and on more than one occasion have ended up with watery rather than flavourful lemonade.