06.18.2014

Hot Nights and Ice Cold Sangria.


Putting outfits together is such a fun and easy thing for me to do, but hair challenges me a little bit more.  And makeup? Let's just say I haven't quite won that battle yet. But I thought I'd tackle the biggest battle I've faced so far in womanhood...cooking (well, kind of). The idea came to me when Kelli and I were walking through the aisles of Walgreens trying to decide what we should drink for our Saturday night pre-game besides Redbull-vodka and vodka lemonades. We literally stood there in the middle of the aisle Googling "easy mixed drinks", got frustrated, and ended up settling for a cranberry-strawberry mixed juice that was slightly underwhelming.

My craving for Sangria came on when Tyler and I went to dinner last night at Malo (located in the Des Moines Social Club) and I was in dire need of a drink after a long Tuesday at work. Oddly enough, a lush like myself had never tried Sangria before and it happened to be one of the cheaper things on the menu ($5), so I thought i'd give it a try. It was love at first sip. So now here we are with my newest post on how I made my very own jug of white wine Sangria.

I was pretty excited to get home from work to get to cooking (ok more like mixing). I told Tyler I was extremely busy blogging and Kelli was busy studying, so I had the whole apartment to myself. I stopped at my neighborhood Dahls to stock up on groceries for my Sangria adventure. I decided to get oranges, peaches, and mango because those always seem to go well together and then stopped by the liquor aisle and picked up a 1.5 liter bottle of wine, and of course a bottle of champagne for good measure. I figured I would be masking the taste of wine with lots of fruit so quality wasn't my biggest concern and ended up splurging for the $7 liter of Moscato. I may or may not have grabbed a $50 bottle of Veuve Clicquot to put it in my basket before quickly realizing how poor I really am and how many outfits at TJ Maxx that one bottle would buy me. So once I came to my senses, I settled on the good old $10 champagne and called it quits.

Besides cutting the fruit (and my finger) and setting it all up for a picture, this was probably one of the easier things I've ever made. I also had to feature my beautiful star gazer lilies and peonies that I got last weekend from the farmers market for $7.50. Since everyone can use Google I won't give you a step by step on what I did. But I did break this down and 1.5 liters of wine made into Sangria only cost me $1.50 for juice, $2.90 for oranges, $1.00 for mangos, $4.25 for peaches, and $7.00 for wine, which ends up being around $2.75 per cup. I was pretty proud of that since Malo charged $5.00 a glass and mine was just as good if not better!

I had to include pictures because the Sangria looked just as good as it tasted. Boo was even interested in wtf I was doing placing flowers and booze on the living room floor in the middle of the afternoon. Even though this may only last Kelli and I a day or so, it is a fun and easy summer drink that we could enjoy on a Saturday night. In conclusion, Sangria may or may not be my new favorite drink.