Looking for a cold refreshing summer drink recipe? This is so tasty you’ll want to run out and buy yourself some raspberries and give it a whirl! (Literally…in the blender…you’re going to whirl it.) And wanna hear the best part? It’s super easy! Here are the ingredients. Don’t blink. 3 cups cold water (I added more just because I thought it was too sweet) 1 cup lemon juice (5-6 lemons) 1 cup fresh raspberries (save a few for garnish if you’re feeling fancy) 3/4 cup sugar ( I know…but it’s lemonade…and its worth it) Ice Cubes Fine mesh strainer   Directions: 1. In a 2-quart pitcher, stir together water, lemon juice and sugar until sugar dissolves. 2. Place 1 cup fresh raspberries in a blender or food processor and blend until pureed. 3. Press raspberry puree through fine mesh strainer to remove seeds. Don’t skip this step. I did. Don’t do it. 4. Add strained puree to pitcher and stir. 5. Pour over glass filled … [Read more...]

Last time I showed you how to make homemade Strawberry Jam, so this week I’ll show you how to make Grape Jelly! We did this at our Keepers Meeting the same night as the jam, and though I prefer the jam, my son loved this so for all you jelly lovers out there, here goes! What’s that? You don’t know the difference between Jam and Jelly? Jam is made by boiling fruit and does have fruit bits. Jelly is made from fruit juice and so has no fruit bits. Okay, now that we have that out of the way, we can continue on. This is a bit more involved, but still fairly easy. Again, this is NOT a canning recipe, just one for the refrigerator. Are you ready? Ingredients: 3 1/2 lbs seedless grapes (washed and sliced in half ) 7 cups sugar 1 box fruit pectin 1 1/2 cups water Equipment: Potato Masher Large Sauce Pan Glass jars with lids (Recipe makes about 8 cups, or 5 pint sized jars) Medium Bowl Metal Spoon Measuring Cups Cheese Cloth (Can be found everywhere, even Home Depot!) … [Read more...]

We had our Keepers Meeting tonight and we made our very own homemade strawberry jam! Yum! It was so easy, I thought I’d share the recipe with you all. This is NOT a canning recipe, I’ll cover more of that in a later post, but for this we put the jam in jars and then into the refrigerator. They should be good for about a month. So don’t be afraid, YOU CAN DO IT! And the taste is WORTH it! Ingredients: 4 pints of strawberries (cut off stems, wash & chop) 7 cups sugar 1 pkg fruit pectin (I used Ball Brand) Equipment: Potato masher Large sauce pan Glass Jars, seals and lids (Recipe makes about 8 cups, or 5 pint sized jars) Metal Spoon Measuring Cup STEP 1: Put 5 cups of strawberries into large sauce pan and using potato masher, mash strawberries until pulpy (is that a word?). We left some chunks just ‘cuz we like it! STEP 1.5: Make sure to sample the strawberries for freshness! STEP 2: Stir in 1 pkg of fruit pectin into the strawberry mixture and place on … [Read more...]