I turned 25. and survived 🙂
Sunday, my actual birthday, was the perfect day. However, i didn’t really take any pictures. but here are a couple from Saturday.
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| Birthday girls by the pool on Saturday. Where i spent the majority of the weekend. |
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| Pink Champagne in my Birthday Girl wine glass that Ang got me for my 24th, and pink champagne cupcakes to go with 🙂 |
The entire weekend was great. It consisted of numerous meals with friends and family, and spent most of my time at the pool. Oh, i forgot to mention i made red and white sangria? (i’ll put my recipe down below). Amazing. Not to mention, after a long pool day, the boys pick up stuff for dinner and we enjoyed dinner and a movie at my house. Can every Sunday be like this?
So yeah, i am a pretty happy girl at 25 so far.
But onto the Sangria. I make up a different recipe every time. You can’t really go wrong. But here is what i made this time.
Red Sangria:
- 2 bottles of Sweet Red Table Wine
- a little more than 1 liter of ginger ale
- 2 oranges, cut in 1/8ths.
- 1 lime, quartered.
- 1 bag of frozen mix berry fruit (strawberry, blueberry, blackberry, raspberry)
White Sangria:
- 1 bottle of Pino Grigio
- less than 1 liter of ginger ale
- 1 orange, cut in 1/8ths
- 1 lime, quartered
- 1/2 bag frozen peaches
- 1/4 bag frozen mangos
- 1/4 bag frozen blackberries
Cut the oranges, squeeze them in the pitcher, then put the entire fruit in there too. Same with the lime. Then add the frozen fruit, wine, and stir. Let sit for a few minutes and then add ginger ale. Stir well. Chill overnight for best result! The longer it sits, the more it all marinates together. But you can drink it right away if you can’t help yourself 🙂
The reason i use frozen fruit is two fold; one is price. It’s way cheaper when you’re making a bunch. And two, the frozen fruit is very juicy when it melts. Where as a peach might not be as ripe as you’d like it to be, once these frozen pieces melt they are so yummy! And the just saturate the sangria so well.
If you want it to look a little prettier, you can take out the chunks of squeezed orange/lime and put in pretty thin slices of orange, lemon, and lime. This works great if you’re doing a large punch bowl style.
If you’re looking to go low cal you can swap out ginger ale for diet Sprite. If you want a bit more of a zing, you can add rum (either a Mango Malibu or just a Clear Captain), or go old school and buy orange liqueur. But in my opinion, you don’t need it! this stuff tastes good just the way it is 🙂
Experiment! I love peaches and white grapes in white sangria, but i’ve been dying to try cherries in it. I also love citrus and berries in red, but really want to throw pomegranate in next time. My main conclusion is, you really cannot go wrong with wine and fruit.
And i’m open to anyone elses recipes – sangria is my favorite!!
