Greetings from Hatteras Island, North Carolina, where I am vacationing with my favorite two sister-wives and their families. You can read all about these awesome women in my New Year’s Eve post here. While some people might think vacationing with fifteen people might not be relaxing, you haven’t met us! We have managed to spend a harmonious week together and also squeezed in a decent amount of activities (sure, my “activity” might be beach reading and online shopping while others chose kayaking to a remote island, but there is no judgement here). Preparing meals for fifteen people is surprisingly less daunting than it sounds if you have good helpers, good music, and good cocktails. Okay, that’s not true, exactly. The good cocktails may lead one to say, ehh, let’s skip dinner and just eat appetizers and ice cream and dance all night. But you will press on and feed the children anyway, since you are a responsible adult plus six of the children don’t belong to you.

Warning: These go down very easy.

This is my favorite margarita in the world. Its beauty is in its simplicity. This is so flavorful, refreshing, and somewhat virtuous/healthy feeling since there are three pieces of whole fruit in each pitcher. Nature’s scurvy fighter with a kick! I never really liked margaritas until I discovered “better” grade tequila and not the crap I drank in college, so I would suggest springing for halfway decent tequila if possible. Cheap triple sec is fine, though.

This is a Vitamix recipe, so if you don’t have a Vitamix, be sure to use another heavy duty blender that can easily handle the fruit (seeds included) and the ice. My only modification from the original recipe is that I use less ice; they call for six cups of ice, which is overkill and cannot really fit in the blender anyway. It’s also very good with “only” five tablespoons of sugar instead of six. Each pitcher serves four to six, depending on your glass size and need for strong drink. Cheers!

Whole Fruit Margarita

• 1/4 cup (60 ml) water
• 6 ounces (180 ml) tequila
• 2 ounces (60 ml) Grand Marnier or Triple Sec
• 1 orange, peeled, halved
• 1 lime, peeled, halved
• 1 lemon, peeled, halved
• 6 Tablespoons (75 g) granulated sugar
• Ice cubes

Directions

1. Place all ingredients into the Vitamix container in the order listed and secure lid.
2. Select Variable 1.
3. Turn machine on and slowly increase speed to Variable 10, then to High.
4. Blend for 45 seconds, using the tamper to press the ingredients into the blades.
5. Pour into salt-rimmed margarita glasses.

This recipe has been written for the Vitamix 5200 with Standard 64-ounce container. If you are using a different Vitamix machine or container size, you may need to make adjustments to the Variable Speed, processing time, and/or ingredient quantities.