fresh blueberry & mint lemonade

One of the great things about late Spring and Summer is the abundance of gorgeous fruits and vegetables that you can found at local markets and Farmer's Markets.

There are staples that I buy every week, and fresh berries (and haricots verts) is one of them.

You could say that we're a berry family! We all have a favorite. 

My oldest and youngest daughters love blueberries and eat them every day (no kidding!); and our youngest son loves strawberries and eats them every day too!  For me, it's all about blackberries. I would eat them every day if I could get my hands on ripe juicy ones year round. 

I look for ways to add them to our drinks and desserts all the time. 

Last year, I made this aaammazing blackberry mint lemonade. If you haven't tried it yet, then you must! 

A recent heat wave (temps in the high 90s, ugh!) sparked another lemonade make-over, and this time I used frozen blueberries and fresh mint. My goodness, it was good! 

The mint adds an incredible freshness to it, and the specks of blueberries are quite pretty dancing in the lemonade. Oh, and the color . . . it's so pretty . . . almost fuchsia. 

I made a quick batch of lemon crumble cookies to accompany the fresh lemonade, and we enjoyed a picnic in the shade.  It was a easy & fun prelude to Summer days!

a simple recipe for 

blueberry lemonade

.     .     .     .     .     .

3 cups water

1 cup sugar

18 mint leaves, torn

2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

ice

3 mint sprigs

4 cups natural store-bought lemonade

mint sprigs

Preparation

Bring the water and sugar to boil in a small pot. Stir the water/sugar mixture until the sugar is dissolved then turn off the heat. Add the torn mint leave and give the pot a stir. Allow the simple syrup to cool.

Add the blueberries to a blender. Place a strainer over the mouth of the blender and pour the mint simple syrup into the container. Discard the mint leaves. 

Blend the simple syrup and the blueberries on low speed for just a few seconds at a time, just enough to break the berries apart, but not enough to puree them.

Fill a juice pitcher halfway with ice and add the mint sprigs. Pour the lemonade and the blueberry mixture over the ice. Stir the blueberry mint lemonade and add more ice if necessary before serving.

Enjoy!

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