Today, I’m sharing a recipe for strawberry lemonade with you. When I first head about this stuff, it sounded magical and whimsical. I knew right away, it was something I had to try. I’m glad I made it too, because it’s fucking amazing and I’ll definitely be making it again.
In my previous post, I mentioned I wanted to go strawberry picking before the season ended. So, a couple of weekends ago, Phillip and I ventured out west to the Phil Grieg Strawberry Gardens in Kumeu.
While there, we each picked a bucket of strawberries. It was fun, but man, was it hard work. I guess I wasn’t expecting the plants to be as low as they were, and after a few minutes of bending down, picking fruit, my back hurt like a bitch; It was hot as hell too. I have mad respect for anyone who does this as a job; I definitely couldn’t hack it.
We ended up with about 5KGs worth of strawberries; we’ve eaten a few already but we still have a shit-tonne left in the freezer. If you have any ideas of what I could do with the excess, please let me know. I have a few ideas, but I’m sure the possibilities are endless.
If you try making it, let me know how you found it; I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
- 2 cups water
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tbsp lemon zest
- 2 cups strawberries hulled and halved
- 2 cups sparking water or club soda
- Add water and sugar to a medium sized saucepan, stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil, add the lemon juice and lemon zest, stir and reduce the heat and simmer for around 5 minutes. Let cool completely, and strain into a pitcher
- In a blender or small food processor, puree the pint of strawberries. Add the strawberries to the pitcher, and stir to combine (if you want to remove the seeds and pulp, strain this mixture before adding the sparking water. Refrigerate until well chilled until ready to serve.
- Add the sparkling water to the pitcher and stir well. Pour over glasses filled with ice and serve, garnished with mint and strawberries.