Fresh Diet Pink Lemonade

The weather has been ah-mazing here.  Upper 70s, lower 80s.  I love it.

With the warm temperatures, I've been craving some yummy, cold, refreshing drinks.  Like lemonade (the real stuff!)  Aldi's happened to have lemon's on sale for $.99 a bag!  Then, I rounded the corner and found the $.79 strawberries!  I snagged a few of each the other day and decided to make some pink lemonade this week. 

I don't know if I'm just a lousy searcher, and I don't use the right keywords when looking for things.  Or, if there truly wasn't a good, yummy, fresh homemade recipe for Strawberry Lemonade (that didn't include club soda or simple syrup) on Pinterest.  Either way, I searched and searched and couldn't find one.  So, I made my own.

The awesome part about this lemonade?  Its diet and it only cost me $1.92 (with tax!) to make the entire pitcher.

My Fresh Diet Pink Lemonade

Ingredients:
6 Lemons, room temperature
1 16 oz package of Strawberries (washed)
7 packets (or more to taste.  I like my lemonade kind of tart) of Stevia (though Splenda would work well, too)
1 cup of water (and about 1.5 quarts added at the end)
Ice
Sprig of mint

You'll need a lemon juicer and a knife to cut your lemons and strawberries

*Wash and cut your strawberries. 

*Put into your 2 quart drink container and set aside.  I mashed mine a little bit with my pampered chef mixing do-dad.  But, you can mash yours with a fork a little bit if you want.  

*Roll each lemon back and forth a few times before cutting it.  I read something somewhere (isn't that the way it always is?  I can never remember WHERE I read it.) that you get more juice from your lemon if you roll it before cutting and juicing it.  It seems to work well.

*Juice each lemon half.  (I absolutely LOVE my lemon juicer from Pampered Chef.) 

*Pour the lemon juice over the strawberries and let them sit together for a while.

*Meanwhile, heat your cup of water up per your method of choice. I  put mine in the microwave for about 1.5 minutes. 

*Stir in your packets of sweetener. 

*Pour water/sweetener mixture over strawberry and lemon juice combo.  Stir well.

*Add extra water and ice until you have 2 quarts of lemonade.

*Pour into your pretend-I'm-on-a-tropical-island-alone-glass, garnish with a lemon slice and a sprig of mint, that you took from your neighbor's herb garden, and enjoy. (You could even go further and do a little sugar on the rim of your glass if you wanted to be super fancy)

I did find that wasn't super pink the first day, but the second day it was a glorious color!  I'd recommend making it a day ahead to achieve a beautiful color pink.



It was so.stinking.yummy.  Normally E doesn't really care for my low-calorie re-dos.  However, even he raved over this, saying "its very refreshing!" 

There you have it.  Diet Pink Lemonade.  Yum!