Tuesday, May 26, 2009

When life hands you lemons

Two children and a grocery store are a bad combination. Long story short, the frazzled feeling we felt Saturday by the time we hit the produce aisle meant we had a big shopping boo-boo.

"Hey, the lemons are only $1 cheaper for a bag, instead of just buying 3," I said, putting a bag in my cart.

He heard: "Buy more lemons."

Unpacking our bags, we found out we were blessed with about a dozen lemons to eat. That's a lot of ice tea. Or candied lemons if I was feeling really motivated.

Instead, we turned to yet another overdue library book and found a recipe for Ginger-Lemon Ice. It takes a few hours but is worth the wait.

Essentially it's this: Take 8 lemons and whack the tops off. (And this is why I'm not a cookbook writer...)

Scoop out the insides of the lemon, and save the pulp and juice.

Take a couple of egg whites and beat a little in a bowl. Roll the lemon "cups" in sugar and freeze for an hour or so.

In a saucepan, cook 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup Splenda (or 1 1/2 cups sugar); 2 cups water; and a 2-inch piece of ginger, peeled and sliced. Dissolve sugar/Splenda and simmer. Take off heat and cover. Cool in the fridge. (At least 1 hour).

When cool, pour mixture into blender with pulp and juice as well as ice. Blend until the mixture is slushy. Pour into the lemon cups and serve.

The cookbook version is oh-so pretty. Reality is not. And it comes in the size of a 3 year old who wanted nothing more than to help. We had a sugar-encrusted kid. Sugar-encrusted cabinets. Sugar-encrusted sofa. Not-so-sugar encrusted lemon cups.

It was simple. It was messy. And the results are fabulous.

Need other sweet treats that don't require an ice cream maker? Try our kid-friendly recipe for strawberry ice cream.

1 comment:

Cathy said...

sounds messy but good!