Welcome! (and a recipe for home made lemonade)

Hey, welcome if you've come from a link on Ali Edwards' blog, drawn by the mention of ideas for a summer Christmas. Lovely to read the comments from other hot Christmases - Guam, Johannesburg, Florida - and your ideas too.

I mentioned home made lemonade twice in that list - ah well, it's a family favourite.

So here's my grandmother's recipe. It's wonderful stuff. And I love that although she is someone I barely knew, since I was so young when she passed away, every time I read this recipe (6 lemons with good skins) and every time I make it, she's part of our days.

My Grandmother's Lemonade

Ingredients
6 lemons with good skins: use the rind of three & the juice of six
1 kg white sugar
25g citric acid (it comes in 50g tubs, so this is 1/2 tub)
3 pints water (boiling)

Method
Grate the rind from three lemons using the fine holes on the grater. Squeeze the juice from all six lemons. In a large bowl, dissolve the sugar and citric acid in the boiling water. Stir in the lemon rind and juice. (You may choose to include one pip for authenticity.) Allow to cool before bottling.

Unlike many lemonade recipes, this makes a concentrate, like ordinary cordial, and should be diluted in the same proportions (usually 1 part cordial to 4 parts water). In hot weather, diluting it with 1/2 soda water and 1/2 plain water is very refreshing. It should be kept in the fridge and used within two to three weeks. My sister uses lemons from her tree in season, preparing the rind and juice and freezing these in correct amounts to use later in the year when her tree has no fruit and lemons are expensive.