Turning Naked Lemons into Lemonade

After four weeks of baking for the St. Stephen market, I am exhausted! I'm so not in my 20s anymore. I'm not even sure I can say I'm in my 30s given my lack of endurance. My birth certificate says 37, my legs say 93. It wasn't so much the baking every night...it was the standing and selling for 5 hours, along with low blood sugar and poor sleep (my toddler still wakes in the night). What happened to my youth? I can remember pulling all-nighters and surviving on coffee alone. Gone are those days. By week three I even uttered "should have worn Naturalizers." Who said that? Me? ME? Suddenly I'm in the function over fashion group. Chiropractors everywhere want to make me their poster child for appropriate footwear.

Thankfully, it was a successful run and SUGAR's name is out there. I've received a few online orders already, which was the main goal behind doing the market.

Now, I have a few lingering ingredients I had purchased to make the market goodies and must figure out what to with them so they do not go to waste.  In particular, many of my treats required  lemon zest...but not lemon juice. So now I am left with a fridge full of naked lemons. Solution #1: Strawberry Basil Lemonade!

Ingredients:
Juice or sangria pitcher
4 naked lemons
(they don't have to be naked, but why waste the zest? You could add the zest to the lemonade - it adds a lovely flavor and aroma)
3 cups frozen whole strawberries (or thickly sliced fresh)
one bunch (1 cup-ish) fresh basil leaves, some chopped some whole
1 1/2 cups sugar in simple syrup form
filtered water (as much as will fit in your pitcher)

First make the simple syrup so it has time to cool before adding it to the lemonade:
Pour sugar into small saucepan and barely cover with water. Bring to simmer and stir until sugar has melted. Remove from heat and let cool.

Meanwhile, add strawberries to your pitcher. Squeeze lemon juice through strainer (to catch the seeds) into the pitcher. I find the most effective (and cathartic) way to get the juice out is to cut it in half and stab the lemon sections with a fork multiple times. Then while squeezing the lemon, twist the fork around in the middle. Or you can use a lemon reamer. I like getting a little pulp in there too.

Add basil.

Fill the pitcher with filtered water, but leave enough room for the simple syrup. Add syrup to taste (keep in mind the longer the strawberries steep in the lemonade the sweeter it gets).

Stir and let sit in the fridge for an hour. After it has had time to steep, taste to see if you need more of anything.

Fresh basil from my ridiculously out of control basil plant that I purchased at the market.

Serve chilled over ice, as ice pops, add a wee bit of vodka for a fun cocktail (which also makes a delightful ice pop!)...enjoy!