I Heart Cooking Clubs - Mark Bittman Edition: Summer Heat

This week's theme for Mark Bittman and the I Heart Cooking Clubs could not have been more appropriate. It has been sweltering around here lately, and that's before you add in the extra humidity!

So when invited to Beat the Heat, I had a great idea and the ingredients on hand to do it.

Even better, I had a little helper desperate to be involved.

My little guy has been desperate for me to make lemon sherbert for him (which he is eating, right now, up way past his bed time.) Because of this request, I had two big bag loads of lemons, and a volunteer to make some homemade lemonade.

I also had family coming for dinner, on a hot, hot day, and felt lemonade would go over very well with dinner.

My little guy was amazingly helpful - he spent a full half hour with a lemon reamer, getting the most juice he could out of those lemons. (And when he was done with juicing for lemonade, he promptly juiced for his lemon sherbert.)

I used Mark Bittman's lemonade recipe from How to Cook Everything, which was simple and makes a tart lemonade. Personally, I like mine a bit sweeter, but as I had lots of simple syrup left, I could adjust my own glass to suit me.

Two pitchers of lemonade (a double batch) did not last very long, telling me this was a keeper recipe that I need to make again.

Pretty sure I still have a few lemons left, and likely a volunteer to ream more of them.