Long Lost Beloved Recipe

When I was a kid my family had a frozen strawberry lemonade smoothie recipe that we use to make constantly, until one day we lost half the recipe.  Ever since then I’ve gone through phases of scouring the internet seeking the long lost love, but never had any luck, until last week.  I got to thinking, maybe it’s not a “lemonade” maybe it’s just lemon, or lime, or limeade, so I broadened my search and notices some recipes were called “slushy’s.” Turns out that one little word was exactly the word I needed to find my recipe!  For this recipe you make a lemonade “base” ahead of time (heated over the stove, then cooled in the fridge), then blend the super sweet/tart condensed lemonade with strawberries and ice. As my boyfriend delightfully stated "It's well worth the effort."

Here's my family's long lost beloved recipe:

Strawberry Lemonade Slushy

For the lemonade base:

§                                      2-1/2 cups water

§                                      1-1/4 cups sugar (also works with Splenda® sugar substitute)

§                                      1/2 teaspoon finely shredded lemon or lime peel

§                                      1-1/4 cups fresh lemon or lime juice

Preparation

• In a medium saucepan, stir water and sugar or sugar substitute over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat; cool 20 minutes. 
• Add citrus peel and juice to sugar mixture (don't skip the peel, it makes a difference!). Pour into a jar or pitcher; cover and chill. Keeps for up to 3 days.
• After cooling, we poured the lemonade base into silicon cupcake tray and frozen them, but you’ll want to thaw out the frozen lemonade before you blend it into a smoothie or your blender will really struggle with lack of liquid...and be warned, if you freeze the mixture, it will be pretty sticky wet even frozen, so you'll probably want to keep it stored in the cupcake tray for as long as they are in the freezer. 

Then to make one 15 oz Slushy

§                        1/3 cup lemonade base

§                        1/2 cup strawberries

§                        1 tablespoon sugar

§                        2/3 cup ice cubes

Simply blend and enjoy – but if you don’t have a super powerful blender you may want to add the ice to the mix slowly.  (personally I have a ninja blender…which is fantastic for smoothies)...and please please please serve your smoothies/slushys with a straw! I swear they taste better that way.