{"id":67028,"date":"2012-03-26T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-26T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/?p=67028"},"modified":"2012-06-18T15:34:04","modified_gmt":"2012-06-18T20:34:04","slug":"sip-on-a-blackberry-lemonade-to-sweeten-your-spring-evenings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/03\/sip-on-a-blackberry-lemonade-to-sweeten-your-spring-evenings\/","title":{"rendered":"Sip on a Blackberry Lemonade to Sweeten Your Spring Evenings"},"content":{"rendered":"

This past weekend we hosted dinner with friends. It was a gorgeous spring evening, we had all of the windows open, and we’d planned a very light and fresh meal of avocado pasta<\/a><\/strong> with a green salad. Our guests don’t drink, but I knew I wanted something fun, flavorful, and complementary to the weather as much as the meal.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While at the grocery store, I noticed that lemons were on sale and a fresh batch of blackberries had just come in. Inspiration! I couldn’t wait to get home to find a recipe for blackberry lemonade.<\/p>\n

I Googled around until I found something simple that matched the ingredients I had on hand. I fell for this recipe at Love and Olive Oil<\/a><\/strong>. I liked that it called for raw or cane sugar; while I didn’t have any in the house, I’d have definitely preferred to use that. After that, it was just water, blackberries, lemon, and ice.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I doubled the recipe and made a few other adjustments, including using lemon zest, basil, lime, and a simple syrup made on the stove top. I got busy muddling berries, squeezing lemons, and melting sugar.<\/p>\n

Ingredients<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.5 cups raw or cane sugar
\n6 cups water
\n6 ounces fresh blackberries, muddled
\n6 lemons, juiced
\n1 lime, juiced
\nfresh basil
\nice<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My husband came in during the preparation and remarked on how great the kitchen smelled. I had to leave and walk back in so I could appreciate the blast of lemon that was filling the room. After a solid week of rain for the start of spring, the sunshine and scent were welcome.<\/p>\n

Instructions<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. In a saucepan, combine sugar and 2 cups of water, then heat on high for two minutes until all granules have melted. Set aside to cool.<\/p>\n

2. Rinse the berries then place in a pitcher or bowl and muddle until you’ve extracted as much juice as possible. (I then ran mine through the blender to ensure I juiced all the chunks.)<\/p>\n

3. Add to this the lemon and lime juice and pulse a couple of times to combine.<\/p>\n

4. Pour the juice in to a large pitcher through a mesh strainer to catch any seeds and excess pulp.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

5. Then, add the simple syrup and additional 4 cups of water. Stir well.<\/p>\n

I froze old fashioned glasses and rimmed them with sugar and lemon zest. After all, these were fancy non-alcoholic cocktails!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In the glass I placed cubes of ice and poured blackberry lemonade that was as remarkable in hue as it was in taste.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Before handing off to my guests I placed a couple leaves of fresh basil to make the flavor really pop, and it did!<\/p>\n

Once we had a generous taste-test before our dinner guests arrived, and we’d all shared the pitcher, it really goes without saying that there wasn’t a drop left. In fact, the next afternoon, I had to make a run to the store to acquire the ingredients to make a triple batch, fill a few glass bottles and deliver to the neighbors.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Also Read:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Post-Workout Ice Cream Sandwiches<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Healthified Dirt ‘n Worms Sundae<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Strawberry Mint Lemonade
\n<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This past weekend we hosted dinner with friends. It was a gorgeous spring evening, we had all of the windows open, and we’d planned a very light and fresh meal of avocado pasta with a green salad. Our guests don’t … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[2551,2039,8440,5673],"class_list":["post-67028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recipes","tag-beverages","tag-blackberries","tag-homepage","tag-lemonade"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67028"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67037,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67028\/revisions\/67037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}