First off – I am attempting Tom’s Sun Tea recipe from a few posts back.  Hopefully the clouds will part and I’ll end up with something a bit stronger than water.  I’m parking on the roof of my downtown garage – with tea jug atop and fingers crossed.  Adding the ice at the last minute.

The second recipe featuring mint is….a Mint.  Oddly enough, I found the recipe because I was inspired by Tom’s Sun Tea and was rooting around for other herbal + rays concoctions.  My finished product is an adaptation of the Garden Party Mints on this page.  Here’s what happened:

I doubled the recipe unsure of the quantity – which I probably didn’t need to do in the end because I made my mints a little smaller than quarters and ended up with about 110 (thirty of which were donated to research and development efforts).  I chopped up a whole lot more mint than called for (I used 14 large leaves all together) and omitted the drops of peppermint oil.  I found via the mixing process that I needed additional melted butter and condensed milk to get to what I thought was a reasonable consistency (dry paste that will hold together when shaped) – but I added extra of both ingredients slowly to be cautious.  The chocolate was overpowering when the mints were dipped on one side as the recipe indicates – after a few trials I decided painting a stripe of chocolate on each piece with a chopstick resulted in a good ratio. Other possible uses for this mint mix – thin it down with more condensed milk and it would make an awesome and powerful mint icing.