Today happiness is fresh squeezed lemonade on a hot summer day! I love fresh squeezed lemonade! It is so easy to make and so re-freshing. This year I wanted to make lemonade with a twist – stevia. Stevia is plant that is about 300 times sweeter than sugar and it doesn’t impact blood sugar levels. I have a small Stevia plant in my garden to try to make lovely treats like lemonade with no sugar. I have never used the Stevia leaf before so this is an experiment in action. I wasn’t even sure how to use it. I started by boiling a few leaves to make a sweet syrup. I didn’t get the sweetness I expected and I was still really wanting lemonade so I decided to blend the leaves with water to see if that would release the sweetness and it did! I used the water along with fresh lemon juice.
I took a big gulp expecting a lovely lemonade. It was still way to tart. I ended up having to add a few teaspoons of raw sugar to create perfection. While I would love to use no sugar it still is a great accomplishment to make a pitcher of lemonade with a few teaspoons of sugar instead of a few cups! Maybe by the end of the summer I will have figured out a sugar free all natural lemonade!