Aloe Vera Lemonade

I was doing some blog surfing when I came across this recipe for aloe vera lemonade and since I have an aloe plant I decided to give it a try. I found the recipe over at The Thrifty Mama and, as usual, deviated from the recipe a bit. The recipe calls for lemon juice and of course I couldn't just pour it out of a bottle. I had to buy lemons and squeeze them myself. Since lemons are in season right now I was able to buy them at a fair price. If you'd rather used bottled lemon juice, like the original recipe suggests, I would advise against buying Realemon (no offense meant to Thrifty Mama!) Firstly, Realemon comes in a plastic bottle (my awareness of plastic and avoidance of said plastic is ever increasing) and secondly it's lemon juice from concentrate. We can do better! For cooking I purchase Italian Volcano Lemon Juice which is also available at Costco. It's in a glass bottle, it's 100% juice AND it's organic... sold!


Ingredients:

1 big healthy aloe vera stalk
4 cups water
3/4 cups lemon juice (bottled juice or the juice of 3 large lemons)
1/2 cup sugar

For the aloe vera stalk there are two options. Either buy an aloe plant or find a produce place that sells aloe stalks. I bought my aloe plant at Home Depot and I've had it for a while so it has some nice healthy stalks ready for harvesting. If you aren't too fond of the idea of having to care for a plant just to try out this recipe (although they are very low maintenance) then there are also produce places that sell aloe vera stalks. I do all of my produce shopping at Fresh Farms mainly because their selection is amazing! The aloe stalks that they sell at Fresh Farms are probably about 10 times larger, but then you can make 10 times the amount of lemonade!

So to utilize the aloe, filet the stalk and scrape out the inner gel. There will literally be a clear gel inside the stalk. It seems weird at first because it looks just like the gel that would get rubbed on a sunburn. Add the gel to the blender with the rest of the ingredients. Blend until the sugar is completely dissolved. Chill and then serve.

You won't be able to taste the aloe in this drink, but the nutrients and health benefits will be there. This lemonade is not too sour and not too sweet. Perfect for a hot day. Personally, I mixed it with some Moon Mountain citrus flavored organic vodka (which I wrote about here). I'm always looking for an excuse to have a cocktail!