mmmm..mmmm...mmmm...mojitos!!!

This weekend I got to spend a lot of quality time with my sister at her place (since I'm alone for awhile with my hubby off in Paris (something I have not blogged about yet!), she's taking me in!). Sat. night we did a mini bbq girls nite with Julie then we did a bigger bbq on Sunday with Rich & Simon there, and Trish & Johnny & their kids.

Both nights we indulged in a treat that we've always wondered how to make - mojitos - inspired by both Cynth's & Julie's visits to Paris a few yrs ago. They found the recipe in the summer SAQ flyer. We knew that mint & white rum were involved, but we never knew the secret to making real mojitos. Each drink is supposed to take 12 mint leaves, the juice of a half a lime & 4 tsps of sugar & you are supposed to crush that up in a glass. Julie decided we should double the recipe & split it in three. I asked Cyn for a mortar & pestle & she had a great one on hand made of stone, so I made the muddled mixture in there, and the aroma was incredible! All u have to do after that is add that mixture to tall glasses and fill them up with about 7 oz of club soda & 1 1/2 oz of white rum (we ended up adding a splash more, as we like our drinks on the strong side!). Garnish with lime wedges & mint leaves (the crushed mint leaves float to the top of the glass, so you have to get used to sipping a drink that has leaves floating up towards your mouth!). What a refreshing drink, that went down so easily! Trish wasn't a fan of the strong mint though, so she gave hers up & JP & Rich split hers.

The hilarious part of all of this was on Sunday, Julie had JP help her make the drinks and failed to mention that the lime juice needs to be mashed in with the mint & sugar - she told him to mash up the stuff until it became juicy....well after a good few minutes of vigourously crushing & mixing, he showed it to her & asked if it was ok - she looked into the container & saw a mint pesto (without the lime juice, the leaves got reduced down to a pulp!). She showed me & said something like "this is what you get when you don't add the lime & you have a rough guy crush the hell out of the mint!" They kept the pesto in the fridge as we didn't want the ingredients to go to waste...I think Cyn was thinking of serving it up with the fresh strawberries that Trish had brought over, but we ended up not having dessert as we were so full from all of the meat & sides we chowed down on for dinner!