Recipe from the Garden: Strawberry Mojito

Strawberries are in season and boy do I love strawberries. I don’t grow them in my garden, but I always try them from different farm stands in the area until I find the sweetest ones. When I was a kid we used to go to a farm where you could pick your own. We would come home with tons of strawberries. My mom would make strawberry pie, strawberry shortcake, strawberry jam, you name it, plus we’d eat them plain. One year I ate so many strawberries that I broke out in a rash from them! Yep, that’s actually true. I had a strawberry-red rash all over my belly.

Last year I posted one of my favorite drink recipes: mojitos. This year I thought I would try a strawberry mojito. I found this particularly refreshing last weekend after working in the yard all day. I feel like it had too much sugar, though. Next time I will try less sugar.

This recipe is by Jolene from www.allrecipes.com

Strawberry Mojito

Ingredients:

• white sugar, for rimming
• 2 large limes, quartered
• 1/2 bunch mint leaves
• 7 strawberries, quartered
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup white rum
• 2 cups club soda
• 8 cups ice cubes

Directions:

Pour 1/4 to 1/2 inch of sugar onto a small, shallow plate. Run one of the lime quarters around the rim of each cocktail glass, then dip the glasses into the sugar to rim; set aside.
 
Squeeze all of the lime quarters into a sturdy glass pitcher. Toss the juiced limes into the pitcher along with the mint, strawberries, and 1 cup of sugar. Crush the fruits together with a muddler to release the juices from the strawberries and the oil from the mint leaves. Stir in the rum and club soda until the sugar has dissolved. Pour into the sugared glasses over ice cubes to serve.

A pitcher of Strawberry Mojito and Molly enjoying the strawberries.

Molly jumped in my shot just as I took the picture. I’ve heard that strawberries are an aphrodisiac, but I didn’t know that they had an effect on cats. Molly went nuts when she smelled the berries. She started rubbing up against them. I had to take them away from her for fear of her getting cat hair all over my precious strawberries!