"mojito" fruit salad

Well, okay. This fruit salad — while very delicious —isn't exactly like a mojito. I think you may know about my love of mojitos? But it does have alcohol (wine) and mint. Pretty much any time I pull out mint leaves and start chopping, my mind thinks it's cocktail hour. And when paired with fresh summer fruit and sweetened, cooked wine... can you blame me for the comparison?

Can I be very honest? I think I have a crush on this fruit salad. Normally, my fruit salads are just chunked fruit, thrown in a bowl together and tossed. But lately it's come to my attention that the juices don't always pull it together well enough, and that a really good fruit salad will have some kind of slight, subtle "dressing" kicking it up a notch in flavor. This is that kind of salad.

The sliced fruit (I used watermelon, strawberries and green grapes) is sprinkled with a healthy dose of shredded mint leaves before being covered in white wine that's been cooked with sugar, and left to soak it up in the fridge for a while. The result is an incredibly sweet summer mix, swimming in juices, with an added freshness from the mint. A big bowl of this is currently chilling in my fridge, and, yes, you should be jealous.

"Mojito" Fruit Salad

adapted from Giada

1/4 large watermelon

roughly 2 1/2 cups strawberries

roughly 2 cups green grapes

1 1/4 cup white wine (I used Barefoot's Moscato)

1/3 cup sugar

mint leaves

Clean and chunk all the fruit into even, bite-size pieces. Toss together in a large bowl.

Finely slice a small handful of mint leaves. Sprinkle over the fruit.

Melt sugar into wine on medium-high heat, until the sugar dissolves (this will happen just as it starts to boil). Let cool.

Pour wine mixture over fruit and toss well. Let cool in refrigerator for a couple of hours before serving.