Meet Paloma...Margarita's skinny friend.

When the temps warm up and daylight sticks around a bit longer, two things happen. One, you want to be outside, on a patio. Two, you want to be drinking a margarita. Or at least I do. This time of year, I find myself with a major hankering for a good margarita. But I also find myself feeling guilty about consuming the ridiculous amount of calories that come along with said margarita. Did you know a modestly sized restaurant marg can have as many as 500 calories?! Yikes. I've tried some lower calorie store bought mixes in the past. The ones that tasted decent still had a lot of calories, and the ones that were truly low cal tasted not so bueno.

Last night, when the Mr. and I found ourselves wanting a margarita to go with our quesadillas, he got online and looked for recipes that only required ingredients we had on hand. Margarita mix was not one of them. He found this recipe for a Paloma, a drink very similar to the beloved margarita. It calls for Squirt soda. We just so happen to have diet Squirt at the moment. Which is very unusual.

{photo from here}

To make it...

Start off with some salt on the glass rim. Fill the glass with ice. Squeeze one lime (a whole lime, not just one wedge!) into the glass with a pinch of salt. Add one shot of Tequila, or to your taste. Fill the glass up with (diet) squirt or grapefruit soda. Stir a little & voila!!

We both really liked these. And since we used diet Squirt, our version was only about 100 calories per drink. A-mazing. I recommend you make a batch, find a patio, and enjoy!