August always makes me anxious. Summer’s winding down and the frenzy of the impending school year starts ramping up. I’m holding on tight though – it is STILL summer, right?
The Summer Shack Cookbook by
I cracked the pages of The Summer Shack Cookbook by Jasper White and I swear I heard the waves crashing and a seagull’s cry. I can almost feel the sand between my toes, the soft salt air on my face and see a hazy, lazy sun rising over the ocean. The Summer Shack Cookbook is filled with fantastic seafood recipes and personal anecdotes from a chef whose influences hail from his upbringing on the Jersey Shore and shore points explored from a lifetime of loving and living in locales up and down the Atlantic Coast. This is shore food at its best – no fuss, just good summer eatin’!
While I could have pulled any number of fantastic seafood recipes out of this book, it was the homemade corn dogs (p. 276) and lemonade (p. 326) that delighted the kid in me.
Muriel’s Old Fashioned Cooked Lemonade
p. 326
The lemonade syrup for this recipe must be made ahead and allowed to stand at room temperature for two days before serving.
2 Large lemons, well scrubbed
1 navel orange, well scrubbed
2 ½ pounds (5 ¾ cups) sugar
2 tbsp. citric acid
1 tbsp. cream of tartar
1 tbsp. Epsom salts (yes, like the kind from your local pharmacy – it’s multipurpose!)
3 ½ cups boiling water
Cut the lemons and orange into quarters and remove the seeds. Place the fruit in a food processor and pulse to chop.
Transfer the fruit and juices to a 4-quart glass pitcher or jar, add the sugar, citric acid, cream of tartar, and Epsom salts, and stir to combine. Pour the boiling water over the fruit. Stir well. Cover and let stand at room temperature for 2 days, stirring occasionally.
Strain the lemonade syrup into glass bottles. Refrigerate until ready to use. The syrup keeps indefinitely in the refrigerator.
The syrup must be diluted with water to make lemonade. This can be done right in a tall glass or glasses of ice for individual servings or in a pitcher for a large batch. The ratio of syrup to water is 1 part syrup to 4 or 5 parts water, depending on how strong you like it.
Makes about 2 Quarts syrup, enough for 8-10 quarts of lemonade.
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