Perfectly Sweet Strawberry Lemonade from scratch

I am pretty sure that if there were such a thing as perfect drink, lemonade would be a top contender.  I love that it can be made with some many various options: sweet, sour, spiked or straight...whatever suits your fancy.  I prefer mine to be not too sweet and not too tart.  I'm certainly not a big fan of the enormous amounts of sugar that seem to be in most pre-made lemonades though.

The strawberries in this lemonade help balance out the tartness of the lemons, so you don't need more than 1 cup of sugar for a whole big jug of lemonade.  I use organic cane sugar for a number of reasons, but one is that it seems to be a bit sweeter than regular refined sugar, so I feel like I can get away with using a bit less. 

Perfectly Sweet Strawberry Lemonade
Makes approx. 10-12 servings


Ingredients
6 Cups of Water
1 cup organic cane sugar
12 large lemons
1 pint strawberries

Directions
Bring 2 cups water to a boil. Turn off heat once boiling point is reached and immediately stir in sugar until it is completely dissolved.  Let cool.

Set aside 2 lemons for later.  While water is boiling and then cooling, juice 10 of your lemons into a large bowl.  Before you cut the lemons in half to be juiced, you can roll them over the cutting board a few times while applying pressure, and this will make them easier to juice.  Strain the lemon juice into your serving pitcher and discard the remaining pulp and seeds.

Rinse and hull strawberries.  Puree all strawberries in a food processor or blender and add to the lemon juice.  Add 4 cups water to the strawberry-lemon mixture and then add the sugar water mixture.

Rinse the remaining lemons well and slice.  Add lemon slices to lemonade for garnish as well as extra juice. If you have extra strawberries, slice them up for garnish as well.

Refrigerate until cold or add ice just prior to serving.