Mango Banana Daiquiris

Quite awhile ago, my friend Jen B. told me about a blogging group that makes recipes from the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks called Barefoot Bloggers. If you read my blog regularly, you know that I heart Ina Garten, so I was very excited to find this group and be accepted as a member!

Each month, two members each choose a recipe from one of the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks and all the members of the group make those two recipes. I missed the actual date this was supposed to be done, but I think as long as I post by the end of the month I'm still allowed in the group. ;)

The first recipe for August was Mango Banana Daiquiris, chosen by Veronica of Supermarket Serenade. The husband is from New Orleans, and if you've ever been to New Orleans you've probably seen (or gone through) a drive through daiquiri stand (apparently if there's a straw it's considered an open container but no straw is fine). He is always game for trying some kind of daiquiri. I thought this would be a great accompaniment to our grilled pizzas tonight (which actually might end up being baked in the oven instead of grilled because it's looking a bit stormy outside).

Mango Banana Daiquiris
serves 4 (or 2 if you're at my house!)

2 cups chopped ripe mango (1 to 2 mangos, peeled and seeded)
1 ripe banana, chopped
1/2 cup fresh squeezed lime juice (4 limes)
1/4 cup sugar syrup*
1 1/4 cups dark rum, such as Mount Gay
Mango slices, for serving

Place the mango, banana, lime juice, sugar syrup, and rum in a blender and process until smooth. Add 2 cups of ice and process again until smooth and thick. Serve ice-cold in highball glasses with the mango slices.

*To make simple syrup, heat 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water in a small saucepan until the sugar dissolves. Chill.

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Mmmmmm...I love me a good fruity frozen drink. I hate cutting up mangoes, so I took the easy way out and bought a bag of frozen mango chunks at Trader Joe's. My bananas aren't super ripe, but I'm not too concerned about it. Heck, it may give me a reason to try these again soon. ;)

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You know what I just saw? This is my 600th post! How exciting!!

It's Saturday night now and the husband and I just finished off ANOTHER batch of these bad boys. We had two batches last night. I think we've found our summer go-to drink (fantastic, now that it's late August)! These are so super yummy. When I said my bananas weren't that ripe--wow, that was the understatement of the year. They were still green and difficult to peel. I think with ripe bananas, these would be even better. I added a little more simple syrup to try and compensate for the lack of extra sweetness ripe bananas would have added to it. I found the first batch to be too limey (which may have been because I just haphazardly squeezed in juice from four limes instead of measuring it out), and we left the lime juice out of the second batch. Now, whether they were really better without the lime juice or if it was just because we were on batch #2, I'm not sure. The husband wanted to add more rum, and I tried to convince him to just try them as they were, but he insisted that it needed another shot. He added one to his and then said it was too much rum. He obviously doesn't know to trust Ina!! Although, I did add 1-1/2 cups rum instead of 1-1/4, so I guess technically I did add extra but not once they were done.

Ina, once again you've done me right!!!!