Amy :
Hi, I'm Amy. This is House of Nash Eats. And today we're making fresh squeezed homemade lemonade.
Amy :
All right. So to start out making
our fresh home squeezed lemonade, we're going to make a simple syrup. And all
you have to do to make a simple syrup is add two cups of granulated sugar into a small sauce
pan. And then we're going to add two cups of water and we'll turn that on.
Amy :
Okay. And what we're going to do is stir this
together. And after about six to eight minutes, it doesn't even need to come to a boil.
It's just going to heat up enough that it will go from being cloudy like it is right now,
to a clear, slightly pale yellow sort of liquid that's a simple syrup. And it's just dissolving
the sugar and it's going to make it so that you don't get grainy little bits of sugar in
your fresh squeezed lemonade. Nobody wants that. Okay. While our simple syrup is being made,
we're going to go ahead and start working on juicing our lemons. So I've got a whole
bunch of lemons here. It's going to take like three to four pounds usually, of lemons
to get two cups of fresh squeezed lemon juice. So you can buy one of those big bags at Costco.
Amy :
If you're really lucky, you have a friend who has
a lemon tree and they'll share lemons with you. So first, I'm going to take my lemons and I'm going
to roll them on the counter while pressing down with my hand. The reason we're going to do this
is because it breaks up the pulp inside the lemon and makes it so more juice comes out. So I'm going
to do that with each of my lemons so that they're even juicier and easier to squeeze out the juice.
Maybe I should've done that on my cutting board. We don't have to put that in. I
don't know. I made my counter yellow. It's fine. It's fine. Now I'm going to cut all
of these lemons in half, and we're going to juice each of the lemons.
Amy :
And you can use any kind of lemon juicer you want,
you don't even have to use a juicer. You could squeeze these by hand, but that's a little bit of
work and a juicer certainly makes it a lot easier to juice your lemons. So you can use the kind
where you press it down. I have this one that you just run them around and it works great.
This is my favorite one of all the different juicers I have tried. And just squeeze it out
so that lemon is empty and this will catch all of the seeds and most of the pulp. But the reason
I really like this one is I like a little bit of lemon pulp in my lemon juice or in my lemonade.
I like that little bit of texture that it gives. And so I leave it in. If you really don't want
any pulp in your lemonade, you could strain this through a fine mesh strainer before making
your lemonade and adding the simple syrup.
Amy :
And that will get rid of all of the pulp for you. Actually, I'm going to check on this. I
can see that this has gone from cloudy to clear. So I'm just going to turn that off. And if
you stir it, you can see that this is a nice clear simple syrup. It doesn't really thicken up
or anything. It just makes a nice clear liquid and dissolves all of that sugar into the water.
And so we can make our lemonade right now, but I'm going to let it cool down for a little bit
first, rather than adding the hot syrup to our lemon juice and a bunch of ice. I'm going to cool
this down for a little while before we make our lemonade.
Amy :
Okay. So I'm going to transfer my lemon juice
to a measuring cup to make sure I've got two full cups. I'm not there yet. So I'm going to
get rid of all those seeds and the larger bits of pulp and keep squeezing. This is a really good job
to have your kids do for you. They love it, and you don't have to do the work. All right. So we've
got our simple syrup done and I've got two cups of freshly squeezed lemon juice here. You could use
bottled lemon juice, but it won't have the same quality and flavor that actual fresh lemon juice
is going to have. So I'm going to actually use a couple of extra lemons and slice them up to add
to my pitcher, just to have a really beautiful, fun presentation. You could also make wedges or
smaller pieces to add to your glasses. If you want to serve your lemonade that way as well.
Amy :
One thing to watch out for if you're adding lemon
slices to your pitcher is if your lemons have a lot of seeds and they're loose, they could fall
out in the pitcher and get poured into a glass. And that's not so fun. So just pop those little
seeds out before you add them to the pitcher.
Amy :
Now I'm just going to add my lemon slices to the bottom of the pitcher that I'm going to serve
my lemonade from, and I'm going to fill it up with a bunch of ice. And now I'm going to add what is
essentially lemonade concentrate, which is just my freshly squeezed lemon juice and my simple
syrup, which I took and I poured into a jar so that I could stick it in the fridge and chill it.
I like to do this often because you can make this a week or two weeks in advance and it's going to
be just fine in the fridge. And it's just one less thing to do when you're serving lemonade for a
party. So I'm going to add all of my simple syrup. So right now that's pretty concentrated
lemonade, which is perfect because you can dilute it out as much as you want until you
get your lemonade, just how you like it. So I've got some water here and I'm just going to
fill it up with water until I have it just how I like it. So I'm going to give it a stir.
Amy :
Okay. So now I get to test my fresh squeezed
homemade lemonade, and I can't wait. Oh, it's so, so good. I love that you can balance
how tart or sweet you like your lemonade by adding more or less of the syrup or more or less lemon
juice. But this is exactly how I like it. It's so cold, and sweet, and refreshing. You guys thanks
so much for watching my videos and subscribing to House of Nash Eats. We just hit 1,000 subscribers
and I wanted to celebrate with this great homemade lemonade recipe. Be sure to like, and subscribe
to my channel for more recipes just like this.
