Lemon Freeze On A Blazing Hot Day

It’s been hot in Tennessee this week. Sticky. Miserably hot. 95 degrees and high humidity.

I don’t love heat.  I prefer mild temperatures.  And while I’m a fan of the summer schedule and the sunny skies and the growing garden out my window, I am a firm believer that it is easier to get warmed up when you’re cold than to get cooled off when you’re  hot.  When I was a teenager, we talked about being hot and I expressed my misery when it was “hot sticky and wallery”.  I worked at a camp as a junior counselor and my handle on the walkey talkey was ADHESIVE, lovingly given by our friend Tim.  He knew how much I loved being hot, sticky and wallery.

All that to say, I don’t love being sticky with sweat from the heat.  I'd prefer being wrapped in a quilt, drinking a cup of coffee.

 

This week has been so hot that I have felt the need to say out loud, “It’s hot!” Do you do this? And say it again and again to everyone you encounter on your walk, or in a parking lot, or to a neighbor you see.  I don’t know why we do this… is it because somehow it feels like it lessens the agony if “named”?  I usually find that to be true in my life.  At our church, which meets at an elementary school, there are frequently odd celebratory decorations left in the auditorium where we meet and it feels like we need to publicly acknowledge that this is distracting and not our doing.  We need to say out loud, “Interesting decorations this week”, or “Chinese New Year is approaching – as you can see by the hanging paper lanterns and large dragon displayed”.  And when the drum corps began drumming during the sermon each week for a couple of months, it was such a distraction, that we were relieved that our pastor acknowledged what we were all thinking.  Somehow putting it out there sets things more at ease.  It confirms that people know what the situation is and are better able to embrace it. 

I think this is true about angst too.  When someone can say, “It’s awkward, I know, for us to be in this room together, since the last time we talked, it was not a good conversation.” It just makes it better.  The elephant in the room is acknowledged.  Or, “I know my child is needing my attention and it is making it hard for me to converse with you and that is frustrating.”  

Naming it – an important life skill.

I was talking to my friends Amy and Catherine about this need I feel to express my hotness often on these fuming days.  They both wholeheartedly agreed.  In fact, Catherine, my world-traveling friend, said she has observed this as universal.  All over the globe, she hears people acknowledge verbally the heat (or cold).  Regardless of region that she has visited– Spain, Japan, Australia, etc. – on miserably hot days, people talk about the heat.  So, maybe it’s human nature.

So, what are we to do?

Other than saying “it’s hot”, what can you do on these hot days?

As far as I can tell, you have only a few options:

our lemonades [country time and "real"(from frozen concentrate)] –
the remedy for the heat

Sit inside air-conditioned rooms.

Drink Lemonade (and lots of water).

Get your body in a pool.

Make Lemon Freeze for dessert.

So this is what we have done this week.

It’s the only way to beat the heat.

Some recent reactions to Lemon Freeze (this lemonade ice cream pie) have been: “yum, this is SOOO good” 

and

“this is really refreshing” 

and “this hit the spot”,

“what’s in this pie? It’s creamy and zippy”.

This simple dessert was one from my childhood.  My mom made it frequently when we grew up and it’s still a favorite of mine.  It’s super easy and a tasty hot-weather treat.

Lemon Freeze

Graham cracker crust:

1 1/2 cups crushed graham crackers

1/4 cup sugar

4 Tbsp. butter, melted

Filling:

1/2 gallon vanilla ice cream

6 oz. frozen lemonade concentrate (if you can't find the small container, just use 1/2 of the regular size and make a 1/2 batch of lemonade with the other 1/2)

Set ice cream and lemonade on counter to thaw.
(You want the ice cream softened and the lemonade liquid.)

Crush graham crackers. (I put them in a large ziplock bag and crush with a rolling pin).

Mix with sugar and melted butter until fully incorporated.

Press into a deep pie plate or a casserole dish.

Bake at 300 degrees for 10 minutes

When ice cream and lemonade are softened, dump into a large bowl.

Blend together.

(You can add a few drops of yellow food coloring to the lemonade before mixing to add a little color and to help indicate how well it's blended).

Spoon into the pie crust.

Sprinkle with the crumbs of 1 graham cracker.

Freeze for several hours until firm.

Slice and Enjoy!

The only challenge with this recipe is that it calls for a ½ gallon of vanilla ice cream and unfortunately, it’s hard to find ½ gallon cartons of ice cream these days!  You just have to make it work and adjust to what you can find.  

[This week I made a double batch with a gallon of ice cream and a large lemonade, which made two pies. That's a bonus! We had one for us and one to share.  It's a great dessert to take to friends, because they can keep it in the freezer and it stays good for weeks.]