Just like last year, the Lemon Fairy left a gigantor bag of lemons on my porch. I’ve been working my way through them, so you know what that means, it’s Lemon Week!
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This is a really refreshing take on a berry lemonade…but slushy. It doesn’t have to be summer to have this…we drank it when the weather was in the 40s!! It’s slushy time, all the time!

ingredients:
2 cups frozen strawberries
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup water

Frozen strawberries are the key, you don’t need to add ice, they do the work for you.

Blend everything together. Sure, let a small child play with an electric appliance and then take a picture. Hey, he’s just a really small sous chef, ok?

Blend until you get a mini tornado going in there, then pour into cups. This makes two large cups or 4 very small ones. I’m talking about kids here, not oompa loompahs.

I had major dental surgery and am now toothless. While I should be on a steady diet of anything through a straw, I still jammed a piece of cake on the ‘good side’ of my mouth and chewed it up. Hey, a girl can try.

However the Kid got right to work on my new liquid diet. He said he wanted to make smoothies and when I went to get the blender, I turned around and he’d already drawn up a visual recipe for me to follow. He’s a quickdraw! He made me follow his instructions EXACTLY and it came out fantastic.

ingredients:
16 ounces frozen strawberries
1 banana (cut up)
1 cup apple juice

The ingredients in this are simple. While I wanted to add some more ’stuff’ the Kid wouldn’t hear of it. He was right. Simple was best.

Frozen strawberries are great because it gives you just the right amount of slush factor without having to add ice. Blend frozen strawberries, banana and apple juice in a blender. Add more apple juice if you need to, but not too much.

Blend until the smoothie starts to turn in on itself like a mini tornado. That’s how you know it’s ready!

I love the tartness of lime paired with cherries. The combination is refreshing and when you slush it up and top it with ice cream? There’s no turning back. It’s the best treat ever.

ingredients:
1 cup cherries, pitted
3/4 cup lime juice
5/8 cup sugar
3/4 cup ice
1/2 cup Pellegrino sparkling water

vanilla ice cream

In a blender, combine the cherries, lime juice, sugar, and ice. Blend until foamy and combined. Add Pellegrino water and stir.

Pour into glasses, and top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. A nice summer treat!

Part of my own personal – ‘Iron Chef: Battle Lemons’ series. I was recently ‘gifted’ with a bag of a zillion lemons. Yes. I counted them. They were very ripe and I needed to work fast, I thought of every single possible dish I could make and ended up with tons of new lemon-y dishes.

This isn’t a fantastically high tech recipe, but you know. Whaddya gonna do. I love Lemon Coke. I order it when I go to old skool soda fountains. I’m retro like that.

ingredients:
1 can of coke
juice of HALF a lemon

Pour a can of coke into a cup. Cut a lemon in half and squeeze the juice in. Stir.

Told you it was a lame recipe. But SO GOOD.

These go GREAT with Lemon Zest French Fries…

Yes, there is an exclamation point at the end of it – because that’s how I feel when I think about frozen blended drinks. Exclamation pointy! This is not a recipe, because quite frankly you are just pouring stuff into a spinning ice cream maker. But let me tell you, the options are endless!

I make this for the kids with orange juice or pink lemonade:

But for me? That’s a different story. Coke is tasty – but SLUSHEE Coke is even better. Better than that? CHERRY COKE. Now you don’t have to go to 7-11 to get your fix, just make it at home!

Start with of can of Coke for each person you are serving – but I think the max should be 3 for a standard ice cream maker.

Then just pour into your prepped ice cream maker. This goes rather quickly. 20 minutes later you have tasty icy goodness, mmm mmmm.

The doctor said any way the Kid gets calcium is fine. Be it yogurt, cheese or ICE CREAM MILKSHAKES. Damn her for saying that out loud cause now all I hear is, “The doctor said I need milkshakes.” Yeah, yeah.
ingredients
3 scoops vanilla ice cream
1-1/2 cups milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Put all ingredients in a blender. Blend. I like mine a little thick – runny ain’t my thing, so I don’t blend for long. I like the hemmorage effect I get when I try to get it up the straw.

As always, top with whipped cream, sprinkles and a cherry and you are good to go.

That there is your standard vanilla milkshake. You can even leave out the vanilla (as I do with the boys) and it tastes just fine. But you can change that thing a million delicious ways:

Chocolate:
Add 3-4 tablespoons of chocolate syrup
Chocolate malted:
3-4 Tablespoons chocolate syrup
2 teaspoons malt powder
Strawberry shake:
substitute strawberry ice cream
also add 1/2 cup frozen strawberries.
peppermint shake:
1-2 drops peppermint extract
some crushed peppemint candies
Oreo shake:
2 Tablespoons chocolate syrup
6-7 Oreo cookies

I could go on, but it’s really endless, just start with the base and add. Peanut butter. Candies. Fruits. What have you. In the end, you are eating ice cream. And that’s really life’s goal, right?