Healthy Sugar-Free Lemonade Recipe

Stay healthy and cool with this SUGAR-FREE lemonade recipe! It's sooo good and refreshing, the best way to stay cool in the hot summer months! www.cucicucicoo.com

Stay healthy and cool with this SUGAR-FREE lemonade recipe! It's sooo good and refreshing, the best way to stay cool in the hot summer months! www.cucicucicoo.com

There’s no denying it: summer is suddenly here!

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Our family is doing everything we can to stay cool. The kids have started using the bathtub as a swimming pool, our ice cream machine* is back in business, we’ve been making all sorts of homemade popsicles, and we’ve been doing everything else that I’ve written about in my “How to beat the summer heat” series.

And what else? I’ve been drinking loads and loads of homemade lemonade.

Stay healthy and cool with this SUGAR-FREE lemonade recipe! It's sooo good and refreshing, the best way to stay cool in the hot summer months! www.cucicucicoo.com

We’re lucky enough to live in an area where lemons grow abundantly, so we have no shortage of organic local lemons. And, because vitamin C helps the body absorb iron, I’ve been ingesting lemon in every possible way to help my body in its very slow recovery from the extreme blood loss that led to a 4-night hospital stay last month. So besides squeezing lemon juice on every vegetable known to man, I’ve been drinking glass after glass of delicious homemade lemonade!

And besides its health benefits, how incredibly refreshing lemonade is on hot, humid summer days! You know, those days when you can barely move because of the suffocating heat? And I’ve also come up with a recipe without sugar so it’s a 100% guilt-free pleasure for the whole family!

Stay healthy and cool with this SUGAR-FREE lemonade recipe! It's sooo good and refreshing, the best way to stay cool in the hot summer months! www.cucicucicoo.com

I make up two or three batches of lemonade at a time so that we’re sure to always have plenty of it in the fridge. And it’s perfect for offering to guests or bringing to an outdoor summer party! Remember, fellow US peeps, July 4th is coming up, and this stuff is perfect for your holiday cookout!

So, are you ready to find out the secret to making this incredibly healthy, delicious and refreshing summer drink? Read on for the Cucicucicoo sugar-free lemonade recipe!

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How to make striped popsicles (and fruit popsicles)

How to make striped yogurt or juice popsicles, or textured fruit popsicles! Part of the “Beat the Summer Heat” series on www.cucicucicoo.com

Last week, as part of the Beat the summer heat series, I started talking about one of our favorite – and most delicious – ways to cool off during the summer: making homemade popsicles! The wonderful thing is that you can make them just as …

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How to make healthy DIY popsicles

How to make healthy DIY popsicles: a fun and no-guilt way to cool down with kids in the summer! www.cucicucicoo.com

How to make healthy DIY popsicles: a fun and no-guilt way to cool down with kids in the summer!

In last week’s post on refreshing activities to do with kids inside the house in the summer, part of the Beating the Summer Heat series, I mentioned that I had another fun activity to do with kids. But even more fun is when you EAT it with kids. I’m talking about no-guilt, ice cold, healthy popsicles made to order right at home!

How to make healthy DIY popsicles: a fun and no-guilt way to cool down with kids in the summer!

These are one of our absolute favorite things to do in the summer because you can get super creative with what you make them with, even mixing up ingredients for really unique flavors and textures. And the great thing is that, unlike store-bought popsicles, which are filled with artificial colors and flavors, not to mention way too much sugar, you know exactly what goes inside your pops, so they can be just as healthy as you want!

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If you have any experience with homemade popsicles, you are probably wondering what I can fill a whole blog post about about them. Well, I actually am going to fill up TWO whole blog posts with the different ways we make popsicles!  In this first one, I’m going to show you different types of popsicle molds, including a non-plastic version, and give you some ideas on popsicle ingredients. In the next post, I’ll show three more fancy varieties that I like to make. So, want to make some healthy DIY popsicles? Let’s get started!

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Refreshing summer activities for kids in the house

Beating the summer heat: Refreshing summer activities for kids to do in the house, without taking a step outside! www.cucicucicoo.com

Hello, all! I just got back home a few days ago from a 3-week trip to the States to visit family and friends. We had a great time, which is why- despite my best intentions- I didn’t do ANY of the blogging or pattern or shop work that I’d planned on. Whoops! But I really needed a break, and I had a wonderful one complete with visits with loved ones that I hadn’t seen in years, an abundance of delicious food (that I’m currently in withdrawal from), and lots of swimming in lakes and the ocean, frequently having to make sure to stay away from seals to avoid getting eaten up by sharks. Such good times! If you’re interested in poking into my private vacation life a little, I did post a few pictures on Instagram (some belatedly, after my return to Italy), and now I’m getting back to work on everything that I’d taken a break on!

And so today I’m betting back into my Beating the Heat summer series, with ideas on how to stay cool when you’re forced to stay home in the worst of the worst summer heat. Last time I wrote about making homemade iced tea, which is my absolute favorite hot-weather drink (although this trip to the States reminded me how ridiculously good green tea Starbucks Frappucinos are….) and is light years better than industrial-made iced tea. But seeing as a lot of my readers have young children, like I do, and they’re all on summer vacation right now and probably bored out of their minds, today I want to share a few of the many ways to cool down inside the house with refreshing summer activities for kids! These are all things to do IN the house, without having to take a step outside into the broiling heat. This is by no means a definite list, so I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below!

Beating the summer heat: Refreshing summer activities for kids! Start the day off by eating breakfast outside before it gets hot. www.cucicucicoo.com

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How to make homemade iced tea (sun-brewed or boiled!)

How to make homemade iced tea, the best drink on a hot summer day! A recipe for all natural sun brewed or boiled tea. www.cucicucicoo.com

This ice tea recipe is so good! I love sun brewing it! Learn how to make homemade iced tea, the best drink on a hot summer day! A recipe for all natural sun brewed or boiled tea.

Today, for the first post in the Beating the Summer Heat series, I want to share one of my absolute favorite things to drink when it’s hot out: iced tea!

Have you ever had real iced tea? I mean the real stuff that’s actually brewed from tea leaves, not that glucose-y industrial stuff with fake lemon flavor and god knows what weird synthetic  ingredients. I am a tea drinker, so I find that fake tea absolutely horrifying, not to mention that I don’t like very sweet things. Homemade iced tea tastes like real tea because it IS real tea, and you can sweeten it how much you want and with your preferred sweetener, and add real lemon juice if you so desire. It’s so ridiculously easy to make, there’s really no excuse not to!

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And, if you’re hesitant to turn on your stove on hot days, there’s still no problem; all you need is a nice sunny corner to steep your tea leaves! Are you trying to limit your caffeine intake? Again, no prob! You can make iced decaf tea, green tea, herbal infusions, or whatever other tea variant you can dream of!

So now that you have no excuses left, let me show you how to make homemade iced tea!

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How to beat the summer heat!

Come battere il caldo estivo! La guide di Cucicucicoo mostra modi di stare fresco a casa nei mesi estivi caldi e umidi. www.cucicucicoo.com

I love the summer and I love hot weather… but I hate humidity. I hate sticky skin that mosquitos get stuck on. I hate that sluggish feeling that doesn’t let you do anything. I hate air conditioning. And there’s nothing I hate more than being …

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