ooh pretty

Oh Crap! Completely forgot about Thanksgiving!

Read this blog and then come back to me....

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Ok, done yet?

Goodness.  I have to admit I used to make a killer cranberry salsa.  Ok, crash course - cranberries, jalapenos (or serranos), fresh lime juice, chopped shallots and ......  tequila!

Face forward to today, er two days ago.

Cranberry Margaritas (my way)

4oz FRESH cranberries, not frozen, ground or otherwise

1/2 of a tangerine or an entire clementine

1 jalapeno pepper

1 1/2 oz of agave nectar

1oz grand marnier (or cointreau noir)

2oz of tequila - lets go with platinum on this one, ok?

30 second prep:

muddle the clementine, jalapeno and cranberries

add nectar, tequila, the orange liqueur and 5oz of ice

shake like the dickens

and strain into a martini glass that's been 1/2 rimmed with sugar

Who knew?

Recently I had the opportunity to submit a recipe for a "low-calorie" cocktail reminiscent of the beach.  Immediately I started throwing a margarita to end all margaritas.  But, was told that they wanted, shudder, a pina colada.

Uh, low fat coconut milk? Let me just pull that one out .....  oh yeah, its over here, next to the Neverending Story book...  Whatever!  So, needless to say, I pulled it out and this is what I came up with:

Coconut water - 30 calories but fat free and we're only using 4oz.  The best way it to create ice cubes out of the coconut water but who wants to give all the secrets away, right?

Fat free vanilla yogurt -  4oz as well.  I like yoplait source but anything will work. - 17 calories and fat free.

Some fresh pineapple - 1/3 cup.  20 calories

Some rum - roughly 80 calories.....

Some agave nectar (60 calories) or stevia (0 calories)

And, voila - not too bad and its less than 150 calories and virtually fat free!

So, here's the "who knew" part.  Agave Nectar has quite a bit of calories considering how little is actually being used in a cocktail.  Regardless, stick with me and make the drinks properly and you'll cut calories and fat.  No matter how many calories found in Agave Nectar, its still less than in that pre-mixed crap...