Outdoor eating and requisite beverages

I'm home in California for two weeks, and this limited frame of time has me cramming in as much mom-food as I can. The weather is beautiful, and so is the backyard (our plum and apricot trees are keeling over from the weights of their fruit! I'll post pictures soon); thus, dinner, lunch, breakfast, and snack on the deck (and in the hammock) are both joyous and necessary.

All I wanted from my first meal home was a hearty, healthy salad, and my mom and I constructed the following: spinach with kohlrabi, strawberries, pistachios, red onions, pickled beets and kidney beans dressed in balsamic vinegar, with bleu cheese on the side for everyone who isn't my vegan brother. Delicious though it was, it begged for accompaniment, and thus, the Lemon Basil Mojito was repeated.

This isn't an original concept; a standard mojito is made with sugar or simple syrup, lime, white rum, mint and carbonated water. But somewhere along the road, we were out to dinner and someone ordered this variation. We've got both basil and spearmint growing in the yard, and so we've come up with this approximation of the recipe.

Lemon Basil Mojito
(serves 1)

1 Tbsp white sugar or simple syrup
2 large leaves basil, cut into small strips
1 sprig spearmint, cut into small strips
juice from one-half of a lemon
crushed ice
2 jiggers white rum (Mount Gay)
soda water to the top

After adding the sugar, basil, mint, and lemon juice to the bottom of a tall glass, muddle the mixture. (This was my first time using a muddler- a pestle that releases the oils from herbs or fruit rinds for optimum flavor. I enjoy any kitchen tool that provides a mandate to mash things together). When the mint and basil have been broken apart and are leaching their essences all over the place, you're golden.

Add crushed ice to preference and pour in the rum. Fill to the top with soda water and swirl everything together with an ice-tea spoon. Take care when opening your soda, lest you totally wet-t-shirt-contest yourself like I did. I'm a class-act, clearly.

Tasty! Garnish with mint, if you want more leaves in your cup, and drink it with a summery hors d'oeuvre or supper. Must be enjoyed outside, and if you're underage (like I might be), with a responsible parent or guardian! lolz.


On a different note, I tried this recipe for Persimmon Bread from Fatfree Vegan Kitchen this morning (with our tree's persimmons we had pulped and frozen in the fall), and I must say it was DELICIOUS! I made it sans walnuts for my allergic bestie, adding more raisins to make up for their lack. So good. Unseasonable. But goooood. :)