Cold and Frothy, I mean Frosty...

Blake and I went to this Italian restaurant to celebrate surviving the last 6 months together and I got a fantabulistic drink!  It was rather addicting (and they don't have free refills) so I decided to figure out how to make it for myself.  Talk about sugar rush, but it was very very close to the restaurant version, so here you go. :)

Lemon Granita
3 lemons (or a bottle of lemon juice works, just not quite as fresh)
2/3 cup water
1/2 cup sugar (I'd cut this down to at least 1/3 if not to 1/4, but it is supposed to be sweet....)
Zest the lemons and put in with the water and sugar in a saucepan and heat until simmering.
Strain and cool to room temp.
Add in the juice of the 3 lemons (or a Tbsp of juice per lemon) and put in the freezer.
Check on the mixture every so often and if it starts freezing, blend it and throw back in the freezer.
Keep doing this till the mixture is nice and slushy.
Makes about 12 oz or so, so it was a nice small treat for us, but I'd double it next time for more joy

*Now for how I did it....
zested 1 lemon and added a tablespoon of lemon juice to the sugar/water mixture
strained as well as I could with a colander...  put in the lemon juice while still hot and put it in a metal bowl in the freezer
stirred it with a spoon every 20 minutes or so until it started freezing and then used the blender
**I also did it with raspberries the other day, but I used about 1/3 cup of sugar and put some whole raspberries in the pan to boil
I then put some raspberries in an ice tray, covered with water, and froze.
Once the mixture had cooled in the freezer, I put it in the blender with the raspberry cubes
Also a very tasty treat (a little better with some lemon juice mixed in too...)

So, for all of you freezing your tooshes off, sound good?  I'll make sure to enjoy it for all of you too cold to give it a shot. ;)

And by the way, aren't the flowers so perdy?!  I love lilies, so he did good.