Even though summer hasn’t
officially begun, eighty-seven degrees with high humidity calls for one of my
favorite summer pleasures – sun tea sweetened with lemon syrup.
In the late morning I
filled a half-gallon jar with filtered water, added three family-size tea bags,
put a lid on the jar, and set it on the deck railing to catch the sun’s rays
all afternoon.
Then I set about making
lemon syrup. I had one organic lemon, rather shriveled, so I cut it in half,
extracted the juice, and added the two lemon shells to water and sugar. After
it boiled for five minutes I set the pan off the stove to cool.
After the syrup cooled I
strained the syrup, squeezing all the syrup out of the lemon halves, and added
fresh lemon juice. The kitchen Buddha was pleased.
Now we are all set for
several days’ worth of iced tea and enough lemon syrup to last through three or four batches of tea.
If you want to enjoy this
summer treat, here’s the lemon syrup recipe:
Lemon Syrup
Combine two cups sugar with
two cups of water. Add the grated peel of one lemon. (Or, if you have a
shriveled lemon, do as I did today. It’s a much easier method.) Bring the
mixture to a boil, stirring until all the sugar crystals have dissolved, and
let it boil for five minutes.
Let the syrup cool and
remove the lemon halves, squeezing
out the syrup they contain. Or, if you have used grated lemon peel, strain the
syrup into a quart jar. Add ¾ cup fresh lemon juice. Cover and refrigerate the
syrup.
Happy summer time!
Copyright
2014 by Shirley Domer
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