Apple Cranberry Margarita Slushie

This refreshing drink recipe combines fresh cranberries and apple cider for a frozen margarita that evokes Fall flavors no matter the temperature outside.

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It's Fall, and while the rest of the world has switched to pumpkin spice lattes, I'm still drinking my DIY Iced Chai Tea Lattes. I may fall asleep snuggled under the weight of my comforter and I'm grateful for the brisk morning air and the chance to break out my hoodie, but my plans for a hot hearty dinner are often thwarted by the warm sunny Fall afternoons where I'm feeling more salad than soup.


That's the kind of afternoon when I'm interested in this margarita slushie. It's got the Fall flavors that I'm craving this time of year but still in a frozen margarita form which tends to suit the weather a bit better. Those weeks where you just can't plan on it to be cold.  One year I hosted a party in early November. My ulterior motive was needing an excuse to clean the house before my spouse's return from a deployment. I planned to serve warm gluhwein from a crock pot. It was 60 degrees (F) out and no one wanted warm drinks! We sat around drinking wine instead, and the house got clean, so it was a win-win in my book.

The key ingredients of this recipe, fresh cranberries and apple cider, can be found in abundance this time of year. They both can be frozen, if you'd like to have these flavors in the middle of summer. If you're a seasonal eater like me and are craving more summer berry flavors than Fall cranberry flavors, by all means check out my Cheater Margarita Smoothie. This recipe is a riff off of that.


As always, you can make this a non-alcoholic drink by using lime juice concentrate or a margarita mix without the alcohol. One of these days I'll play around with the lime juice and simple syrup to make an entirely DIY version, but today is not that day. Today is the day to raise your glass and enjoy a refreshing COLD drink.

For more recipes using apples or apple cider, please see my Apple Recipes Collection. For more recipes using cranberries, please see my Cranberry Recipes Collection. These collections are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, the garden, the neighbor's garden, and great deals on ugly produce at the grocery store.

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Apple Cranberry Margarita Slushie (makes 1 serving, easily doubled)

Ingredients

• ¼ cup fresh cranberries
• ¾ cup (6 ounces) apple cider
• ½ cup (4 ounces) margarita mix (I use a full strength with booze kind)
• 1 cup ice

Instructions

1. Combine all ingredients in a powerful blender. I use my Vitamix, I've had it in 3 homes now--floated it across the ocean/carted it on a truck--and it's still going strong. Use whatever blender pulverizes ice for you.
2. I start the blender speed on low until all the cranberries are chopped, then gradually increase the speed until the ice is in tiny bits.