Sangria to Celebrate One Year of Blogging

       I can’t believe I have been blogging for One Year!  It is kind of a milestone.  I am glad I started and pretty sure I will continue another year. It has been fun and hopefully you have enjoyed some of the recipes and maybe tried a few out for dinner at your house.  I do wish my photos had improved more and that I had time to post more often. .  Still, I started this blog to share the recipes I had developed or tried with friends and it has been great for that!  I know there are lots of great ways to stage food in natural light or lighting tricks after dark but honestly, I am just sharing what I cook for dinner and I usually have a table full of hungry diners waiting for to eat. I don’t want to take the time to set up photos better, I want to cook and feed people and then share the recipe. So I suppose for what I aim to do, this blog is just fine. I wish I was reaching more people but I am always thrilled when someone comes up to me and says’ “I tried the recipe on your blog and we loved it!” or when I see another comment or like!

A huge thank you to everyone who reads my humble little blog and extra appreciation for those who have commented or follow it or like it on fb!! You all are the greatest!!!   I would love to hear from you if you have suggestions for improving my blog and recipes. Are the easy to read and follow? Are they the recipes you are interested in?   I know I have a long way to go and I have appreciated all I have learned from fellow bloggers and the encouragement from those who read my blog. Thank you!

I was hoping to cook something wonderful  this week end to post for my one year Blogiversary, but  I have not done any cooking this  week. Instead, I have been sick the whole week with the flu and have not done much beyond sleep, cough and sip on water. It has been long week but I am finally feeling a bit better. It has been extra difficult to be stuck in bed since the weather has been ridiculously nice- in the high 60’s and 70’s under sunny blue skies.  Happily, the nice weather lasted longer than my flu and I was able to enjoy some slow strolls in the sun over the weekend.  I know we could have more heavy snows at any time but it was delightful to enjoy spring-like weather.

One of the special treats was this beautiful little crocus right outside my front door! It is the first flower I have seen this spring and just like last year, it is in my own front yard.

You know, living here in Colorado I have come to really appreciate spring and all the seasons with their changes. We live in a flowerless winter expanse that makes me long for the first flowers of spring.  Back in California, we had flowers year round and that was one reason I loved SoCal. But here, the first flower is as welcomed as Christmas morning because there is such flowerless anticipation. I love living in four distinct seasons and that is one thing I love about Colorado!

  

The warm almost-spring weather inspired me with a celebratory recipe for my blogiversary: Sangria!  We love the fruity, refreshing taste of sangria, especially when we cook out on the grill.  Sangria is our friend's sam favorite drink to order so we have tried it at several different restaurants. We have asked servers for the recipe plus I asked numerous friends who served it what they liked in their sangria. It seems pretty simple and most are some variation of this basix recipe. Feel free to play with this as everybody seems to come up with their own twists :-)

Fort Collins is known for its micro-breweries and beer enthusiasts but I think everyone can enjoy dry red wine infused with citrus and berries that can be turned up a notch with some brandy or triple sec or mellowed with ginger ale and fruit juice. If there are those who do not drink wine, I like to make a well-marked non-alcoholic version of this by substituting some tart red juice (cranberry-grape, perhaps)for the wine/brandy  and omitting extra sugar. Tonight, we skipped Brandy since we were all tired and one visitor had a long drive home later.

By the way, there is an excellent syrup you can use to flavor sangria- Monin Red Sangria Mix Syrup. When we have some of this on hand, we like to use it instead of other sweeteners.

Red Wine Sangria

1 Cup Orange juice (or lemonade)

¼ cup sugar or honey ( more or less to taste)

3 ½  cups nice dry red wine- I prefer cabernet sauvignon , shiraz or a fuller bodied Zinfandel like Gnarly head Old Vine Zin, but I am not a wine expert!!

1/2 – ¾  cup Brandy (optional)

Juice of 1 lemon ( and perhaps a lime)

1 orange sliced

1 lemon sliced, Meyers are great!

Pinch of cinnamon

     Other Fruit options- Choose 2-3

1 small can of pineapple chunks with juice or fresh pineapple

1 cup strawberries halves or quarters, or raspberries

1 cup pitted sweet cherries

1 cup ripe peach slices

1 Cup sliced ripe pear

1 sliced lime

2-3 cups ginger ale (to be added at serving if desired)

ice

Earlier in the day or even night before serving

In a small saucepan, heat orange juice and sugar stirring until sugar is dissolved. You may skip this step if using honey. Set aside to cool.

In a large pitcher, add wine, brandy, juice of lemon, lime, cooled orange juice and fruit. Cover and refrigerate for 3 or more hours for optimum flavor.

To serve, you may add ice to the glasses, if desired and a splash of ginger ale and then fill with sangria and garnish with fresh fruit slices. Repeat as necessary J

This should make enough for 6 people.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

It is nice to have a favorite recipe for particular people when I want to make them feel appreciated. When it comes time to make a special dessert for my husband, there is a very good chance that he will choose Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp. I think it will be on the menu for Father’s day this year since we recieved rhubarb in our farm CSA share.

Crisps are a quintessential dessert in my house year round. It is my favorite baked fruit dessert because it is simple to make and allows the fruity goodness to shine through with notes of sweetness and a delectable crispy topping. I like the crumb topping better than piecrust and it is much easier to put together. I first learned to make crisps as a newlywed from a copy of Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer written in way back in 1931 and reprinted multiple times. I received it as a wedding gift. I learned so much about cooking from that book! My crisp has been changing through the years but has the same foundation.

I must tell you that for such a simple dessert, it is very well liked! I was once asked to bring two peach crisps to our neighborhood BBQ. After dinner, someone came out of the house to tell me that they had not been quick enough and all of the crisp was gone. I went into the house to check and heard giggling in the pantry. I opened the panty door to find five neighbor ladies huddled inside with spoons devouring the extra crisp. It is probably one of the best compliments my crisps have received.

I have been often been asked the difference between a crisp and a cobbler. While both are basically baked fruit on the bottom, the topping is quite different in texture and taste. Cobblers are baked with a biscuit like dough and crisp have a crumbly, streusel like topping of mostly sugar, flour and butter with perhaps oats, nuts or other add-ins. I believe the British call it a crumble.

My favorite crisp in the fall is apple and in late summer its peach or cherry but for spring and early summer- strawberry rhubarb wins out. Rhubarb is one of my husband’s favorites but as a child, I had tasted rhubarb that had been cooked to a slimy texture and did not like it until I tried it again in the last couple of years. This recipe does not cook the rhubarb down to a slimy consistency like some do and I prefer it this way! The strawberries add a nice sweet touch but tart cherries work equally well in this.

I have read somewhere that baked fruit desserts like crisps, cobblers, buckles, grunts and slumps were popular (and some even originated) in colonial America. They started out as a breakfast item not a dessert.

I like to add a bit of oatmeal to this because it is traditional in crisps, it gives it a nice texture and because it gives me an excuse to eat it for breakfast. I know many people from other countries are not so familiar with  oatmeal. I often have international students decline an oatmeal cookie based on other oatmeal experiences but once they taste it, they are amazed at how good oatmeal can be and it is also good for you. Oatmeal adds some nutrition to this. However, the oatmeal can be omitted if you don’t have any.

I do add in some things that not all crisps have and I like the result. If I have any cookies that go well, I crush some up and throw them in the topping at the end. I love nuts and if everyone is okay with it, I add some nuts on part or all of the top.

Feel free to adjust anything in the recipe to suit your tastes. Maybe less sugar or more topping . Do try this with other kinds of fruit. Most juicy, tart fruits can be used in this recipe whereas apples do not need mixing with cornstarch or sugar. You can add ½ tsp. vanilla extract to this or almond extract to peach or cherry crisp. You can make the topping a bit better for you by using ½ whole wheat flour, which works really well. You can also add in some good stuff like wheat germ or flax meal. My next test on this is substituting coconut oil for the butter and seeing how that works.

Go ahead a try a crisp with some summer fruit. Add a nice dollop of vanilla ice cream and enjoy!

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

2 ½ -4 cups strawberries

3-4 cups rhubarb ( try to end up with about 7ish cups of fruit total)

1 -1 ½ cups sugar

2-3 TBSPN corn starch

2 tsp lemon juice OR 1 TBPN orange juice, optional

Crust:

1 cup brown sugar ( white is okay if you don’t have brown)

¾ cup flour ( may substitute ¼c + whole wheat and a few TBSP wheat germ or Flax meal)

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, slightly softened( may use more if too dry)

½ - ¾ cup oats, optional*

½ tsp cinnamon, optional

½ - ¾ cup chopped nuts, pecans or walnuts, optional

½ cup crushed ginger snap or vanilla wafer cookies, optional**

Wash, hull and cut strawberries into thick slices. Wash and trim rhubarb and thinly slice or dice. Place in bowl with sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice. Use more cornstarch if you like a thicker consistency. Let it sit 15 minutes or so while making topping.

Preheat oven to 350. Combine sugar and flour in large bowl. Cut in bits of slightly softened butter(I let it set out for 5 minutes. ) Using two table knives or pastry cutter, cut and blend until mixture resembles coarse oatmeal. If you like a light, crispy topping, don't get butter too soft--it should not be a paste.

Blend in oats, crushed cookies, cinnamon if using. This may be done an hour ahead of time.

Place fruit in a baking dish – rectangular is optimal around 13x 7 or smaller and deeper but should hold at least 9 cups. Sprinkle with topping. Bake for about 40 minutes until bubbly and browned on top.

Great served warm with ice cream or room temperature with whipped cream.

Notes:

*Oats are raw oatmeal. I use either whole oats or quick, but NOT instant. If preferred, roll oats between your hands to break them up a bit.

**To crush ginger snaps, put them in a food processor or place in zip lock small storage bag and roll with rolling pin or smash with meat tenderizer, can or other heavy tool. I try to get them somewhat uniform.