Happy 4th of July/ My Mom's Jello/fruit drink

Sorry for the lousy picture, but I thought my mom's " recipe" for Jello fruit drink would be perfect for your 4th of July barbecues. A little history: mom was always conscious of our not having too much sugar as kids. I guess the fact that my uncle, her brother was a doctor (studied in Florence, Italy) and always preached eating well made her more conscientious about our sugar consumption. Whatever it may have been, we never drank soda with our meals and rarely had it in the house. Her one concession to sugary drinks came during the summer when mom made her Jello drink. I say "her Jello drink" because as far as I know, she invented this. I would be very interested in knowing if anyone has seen this elsewhere. I do know that it is very refreshing and looks beautiful in a glass pitcher. My sister has the very pitcher mom always used to serve this drink. Every time I'm at her house and see it, I'm reminded of my mom and summer meals at the Ambrosinos.

 

 To make this drink, you will need one pkg. of Jello. My mom always used the "black cherry" flavor, but you can use any one you like. You also need for each Jello package, one or two oranges and two lemons or limes. (very important)

You simply follow the package directions by boiling a cup of water and stirring it into the Jell-o mix for two minutes making sure you dissolve all of the mixture. The Jell-o recipe then calls for adding one  more cup of cold water and refrigerating the mix till it sets. Instead of this, mom mixed in two cups of  ice water, and added the juice of the oranges and lemons or limes. The citrus not only added real juice to the drink, but the lemons (or limes) also cut the sugary taste and made the resultant "drink" very refreshing. You need to leave it unrefrigerated in the pitcher till you're ready to serve it. At that time, add a tray of ice cubes. Not only is this drink great tasting, mom always left the rinds of the fruit in the pitcher which we kids loved to suck on after we consumed our drinks. As an adult, I still look forward to making this drink for parties and festive occasions especially if there are kids around. Try it; it will bring out the kid in you!