Refreshing Strawberry Limeade
By: Nicole Hood
Published: Monday, May 19, 2014 - 3:00pm

Ingredients




1 1/2 cups strawberries, stems removed and sliced
1/2 cup sugar
1 part lemon lime soda (I used about 1/4 of a liter)
2 parts seltzer (preferably lemon lime seltzer, if not add a couple extra tbsp lime juice)
turbinado sugar, optional for rimming glasses
juice from 1 lime
limes, sliced for garnish
ice

Preparation

1 Add berries and sugar to a bowl and let macerate for about 30 minutes. 2 Add berries to a food processor (or blender) and pulse until smooth. 3 In a large pitcher add ice (about 1/3 of the way), then top with 2 parts seltzer to one part lemon lime soda. 4 Stir in a few scoops of strawberry puree and add juice from 1 lime. 5 Stir well then taste. Add more strawberry and lime juice if needed. 6 I add thinly slice lime to the pitcher and garnish the glasses with lime wedges and a sugared rim.

About

For Mother's Day this year we decided to go strawberry pickin'. We were on vacation in Florida so we drove out to Baker, FL with my parents for a fun day of fruit pickin' then a delicious Mother's Day lunch. Akers of Strawberries has been around for years and I have many great memories of pickin' sweet strawberries and eating their homemade fro-yo with my parents back in the day! I was so excited to take my little Ava there {and Ashton too!}. She enjoyed it more than all of us; immediately grabbing a bucket and  searching for ripe, juicy berries {and eating a few along the way}. It was such a special day and I will forever treasure the memories of strawberry pickin' with my daughter!
We came home with 3 buckets full of bright red strawberries, ready for eating. We immediately cleaned them, removed the stems, and froze them in freezer bags for later. Ashton makes smoothies for breakfast a few times a week and frozen berries are perfect {and mean you don't need ice!}. I saved some to make a Strawberry Pie but since the weather is so nice and we are spending more and more time outside I wanted to make a refreshing- family friendly- drink for us.
Ashton loves Sonic's Cherry Limeade {I made it for his Bomb Birthday} so I decided to try out a Strawberry Limeade {recipe below}. It tasted great and was just what we were craving to refresh us from spending the afternoon in the sun! Bonus: the strawberry puree can be used as the base for many drinks including Strawberry Lemonade! Yum!