That Paula Deen

We've had a busy two days around the Looper house. Jason's on vacation this week, and since we didn't go anywhere for a formal vacation, we've been finding "adventures" to go on locally. I'll post pictures later, but so far we've been to the Greenville Zoo, the flea market/sale barn (whatever you'd like to call it), to Clemson to visit Aunt Heidi and we're going to informally celebrate birthdays with some of our very best friends tonight. To put this into perspective, I laid down with Jake on our bed last night around 8:30 just to calm him down and get him to go to sleep and Jason woke me up at midnight to tell me to go to bed. It's just too hot to be running around like this, but Abby's had a blast, so it's all good.

Anyway, the real reason for this post is to tell you about a fantastic lemonade recipe I stumbled upon. I kind of altered it, but that's what cooking is, right, a great big experiment in the kitchen?

I don't go to the flea market often, mainly because it's hot and dusty and smoky, and well you get the point, but we went this morning because it had been years since Jason or I had been. Jason said that you could have driven him out there this morning and told him he'd been transported to 1989, and he wouldn't have known the difference, and I would agree. People were still hocking junk, food, chickens, rabbits, dogs, Atari's, you get the picture.

BUT, they do sell amazing produce at the flea market, and that's where I got suckered in. We bought lemons, key limes, peppers, squash and zucchini. Tomorrow night we're feasting on roasted veggies and maybe pork chops (or chicken, whatever is on sale).

Once I got the lemons home, I had to make lemonade; that's what you do with lemons, right? Unless you're Kelly on The Real Housewives of New York then you might make lemons out of lemonade, but I digress.

I found a recipe by Paula Deen, cut it in half and added a few key limes, and let me say, it was wonderful.

Here it is. Let me know if you like it as much as we do.

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup hot water
1 cup lemon juice (I used 5 lemons and 2 key limes - be sure to strain it)
1/2 gallon water (I mixed water and ice cubes to cool it down quicker)

Direction: Dissolve sugar in hot water in a half gallon pitcher. Add lemon juice. Stir until mixed. Add cold water and ice. Serve. (Yields 1/2 gallon)

Super yummy!