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Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Dinner with Friends: Pineapple Sangria

So.
Cleaning out our house to ready for packing and moving also means we need to drink more.  Neither J nor I are particularly big drinkers, although I do enjoy my gin and J likes spiced rum.  In my profession, I seem to get a lot of wine as gifts.  It's not that we don't like wine, we just don't think of it until the meal is over and then we think that perhaps we should have had some, but polishing off a bottle now doesn't seem like a good plan.
In having people over, we find that we usually finish a bottle or 2 of wine...but that our dinner guests bring us a replacement.  With our last dinner guests, I decided to try something different and offer a summery beverage that used a bottle at the same time.
In April, J and I went away for the weekend and had dinner with a good friend of mine at an Italian restaurant.  They had a sangria on the specials that night that was spectacular:  light and berry tasting.  It used white wine and melon liqueur.  This is nothing like that, but it's good all the same, and can be made ahead so the flavours meld.
I present to you now Pineapple Sangria.

Ingredients:
1 bottle red wine
1 cup fresh orange juice
1 cup pineapple juice
1 cup fresh berries
1 cup diced pineapple
1 lime, sliced into thin rounds
1 orange, sliced into thin rounds
3 cups club soda
Method:
Combine all ingredients except for club soda in a large pitcher or jug. Let chill for 24 hours to allow the flavors to mingle. Add club soda before serving. 
 From Can You Stay for Dinner?

I used whatever bottle of red J brought up for us (his instructions to find a bottle were, "Anything but Yellowtail"), and used sliced strawberries because it's strawberry season!  How could you not?
I liked the addition of the club soda.  A little fizz was nice.  I did have too big and orange, though.  The slices were huge in the pitcher.  They did, however, make great stir sticks when I added the club soda.
Sangria:  A pitcher of summertime yum.

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