[Guilt-free] Ginger Mint Slush

Last year when I saw The Soho's recipe for a mint ginger slush I immediately thought, "Ooo, I need to try that!"  And I had every intention to, but then, as you all know, there was a drought and my mint refused to grow.  But this year is a different story and my mint (both kinds) are thriving!  So I decided to adapt Natalie's recipe a bit to make my ginger mint slush a little zingier and guilt-free.

Ingredients:

• 12oz of Canada Dry Ten (or any diet ginger ale)
• juice of 1/2 a lime
• 10 to 14 mint leaves (I used sweet mint and my leaves were pretty small, so I used about 14)
• a small piece of ginger (the size of about 4 nickels stacked together)
• 2 to 3 cups of ice (depending on the consistency you want)

Combine all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth. Serves 1 to 2 people.

In the end you're left with a really refreshing, cool treat that's perfect for a warm day.  I was experimenting and had all these ingredients on hand, but you could really tweak it to your liking.  I originally thought of adding the ginger because diet/low cal ginger ale tends to have less of a ginger taste to it (though I'm crazy about the Ten right now).  I was a little worried that the fresh ginger would be too overpowering, but it wasn't at all.  The flavor was definitely there, but it didn't smack you in the face or anything.  It would also be really tasty (if a little less guilt-free) with any of the Joia sodas or the Fresh Ginger ginger ales (though you wouldn't need the additional fresh ginger with these), but I've been having trouble finding both brands in Cincinnati lately.  Hopefully they turn up soon!

Unrelated to the ginger mint slush, I just found out some sad Cincinnati news...Mayberry, our favorite brunch spot in the city, will be closing after their brunch service on July 7th.  Such sad news!  It's such a great establishment with wonderfully delicious food and I will definitely miss it!  Antoine and I are hoping to go for brunch two more times before they close and I urge you to try it out if you've never been!  In case you missed it or have forgotten, I've blogged about Mayberry several times in the past: here, here and here.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!