Memorial Day - Grilling & friends!

I love having people over - sitting around my back yard, talking about everything and nothing all at the same time, enjoying tasty food, and simply being in the company of good friends is the BEST! yesterday we celebrate Memorial Day with 2 other couples who have children around the same ages as our kids.  So much fun despite the funky weather! The children were digging in the dirt, running around, laughing, and playing with each other. The dads all gathered around the grill.  The mom's lounged in chairs trying to keep tabs on the kiddos and get caught up on life. Delightful!

And of course we had some great nosh! Beverages - Brazilian lemonade for the adults (although there is no alcohol, so you could share with the kids if you WANTED to) and juice boxes for the little ones. Grilled shrimp (with my new favorite condiment chimichurri sauce), three kinds of grilled sausages, hamburgers for the kiddos, fruit salad, corn on the cob, and a lovely new recipe for grilled sweet potato spears with lime and cilantro. For dessert we served strawberry bread pudding with vanilla ice cream, and some tasty s'more muffins.

While everything was D-LISH, the two standouts for me were both full of summertime lime flavor. Here is the recipe for the beverage with respective source link:

Brazilian Lemonade
(and yes, I do think it is odd to call a drink with no lemons a lemonade, but TRUST me! It is so smooth and tasty, yo won't really care!)

INGREDIENTS:
4 juicy limes
1 cup sugar
6 cup cold water
6 Tbsp. sweetened condensed milk

DIRECTIONS:
1) Mix cold water and sugar very well and chill until ready to use. This step can be done ahead of time.
2) Wash limes thoroughly to remove any wax. Cut each lime into 4 pieces and place 1/2 of the limes in your blender.
3)  Add 1/2 of the sugar water, place the lid on your blender, and pulse 5 - 6 times. Place a fine-mesh strainer over a large serving pitcher and pour the blended mixture through the strainer and into the pitcher. Use a spoon to press the rest of the liquid into the pitcher. Discard the pulp and skins. Repeat with remaining limes and sugar water.
4) Add sweetened condensed milk (THIS is the secret ingredient that makes this beverage SO yummy!) You may want to taste test it at this point - If it’s bitter, just add some more sugar and maybe a little more sweetened condensed milk.
5) Serve immediately over lots of ice. This will begin to curdle if it sits too long, so don’t make this in advance (although you can cut the limes, mix the sugar water, and measure the sweetened condensed milk in advance).

NOTES:  Serves 6 - you'll want to have another batch ready to go though, because your guests will want more! My husband said it reminded him of Key Lime pie and was surprised how smooth and not too sweet it was. I could see adding a splash of coconut rum to this for a truly tropical summer adult beverage!

Tomorrow I will share the recipe for the sweet potatoes!! They were even tasty reheated for lunch!  I think they will show up often on our backyard BBQ menus.