Terre Pruitt's Blog

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Posts Tagged ‘champagne’

Ending With A Little Chocolaty Sparkle

Posted by terrepruitt on December 30, 2019

Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia in the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Gentle Yoga, Group Ex classes, YMCA, Zumba, Nia Technique, SJ City Fit, SJCityFit, City of San Jose Exercise Classes, Cambrian Yoga & Cardio Dance, CYCD, Yin YogaWith the last post of the year there are so many ways to go . . . talk about the past year and review posts; ones that were popular, ones that weren’t, ones that need follow up, ones that were favorites. Or talk about the New Year; goals, dreams, where we want to be, things we have planned. Just so many ways to go. Well, in an effort to be brief yet celebratory I am going to go with a fun little recipe to allow you to ring in the new year with a little bit of liquid sparkle.

We once belonged to a winery up in Auburn. I would love to share the story but then that would take away from the “brief” so, I will say they used to pour their sparkling wine and their chocolate port together. It was yummy.

I have since tried to find a port to make it but have not yet found the perfect port. Theirs was much more chocolaty or something . . . I don’t know, but it made a FABULOUS cocktail. When I offer to pour one for someone they wrinkle their nose and I say, “Ok, fine. You can try mine if you want.” And they do then they want one of their own.

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Chocolate Bubbly

Your favorite champagne/sparkling wine
Your favorite chocolate port

Fill the champagne class with champagne/sparkling wine then top with the chocolate port. Enjoy!

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You have to experiment with the amount of port to get it to the desired chocolate flavor that you want.

Happy New Year!

Posted in "Recipes", Food | Tagged: , , , , | 8 Comments »

White Sangria

Posted by terrepruitt on July 15, 2019

For some reason around the time of Fourth of July I was craving Sangria, but I didn’t know how to make it. I was craving red sangria, but I also wanted white sangria. I thought that I would make the red for my hubby and me prior to the fourth.  Then make the white for our company on the fourth. I thought it would be ok to have left over red, but not left over white because I was going to use champagne and it would have gone flat by the time we had company.

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Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia in the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Gentle Yoga, Group Ex classes, YMCA, Zumba, Nia Technique, SJ City Fit, SJCityFit, City of San Jose Exercise Classes, Cambrian Yoga & Cardio Dance, CYCDWhite Sangria

3 nectarines
1 small container of raspberries
1 bottle rosé
1 cup white rum
4 cups peach juice
1 bottle of champagne – note only 1 cup goes into the Sangria
lime juice

Cut the nectarines into chunks. In a large pitcher or bowl, combine the nectarines, raspberries, rosé, rum, and peach juice. Stir until mixed. Add a bit of lime juice to taste. Add 1 cup of champagne. Stir again.

You can serve over ice and even top it off with a bit more champagne.

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I am not a fan of peaches, so this – without the champagne topper, was too peachy for me. I think I will opt for a different juice. The original recipe I had seen says to use peach nectar, but the store I went to had a very limited juice selection and no nectar.

This was good . . . with the champagne topper. It was very refreshing. It was pretty much what I was looking for . . . . once I figured out I need to add a bit more champagne.

I think I will keep experimenting.

Do any of you have a good Sangria recipe? Red or white?

Posted in "Recipes" | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

Who Gave Me That?

Posted by terrepruitt on September 24, 2018

I recently received a lot of wine and/or champagne, as it was my birthday. I have a birthday every year (funny how that is, huh?) but I don’t normally let everyone know about it, however this year it was a significant birthday so I insisted on a bit of hoopla.  Usually I will get a bottle of wine or two so I have no problem remembering who gave me what. But this year I received quite a few bottles.  I think wine is a great gift to receive.  I have a problem giving it as I am not a fancy wine buyer/drinker so I never know what to give. But that makes me a great wine receiver as anything that tastes good works for me regardless.  Well, while writing all my thank you notes I realized I would not be able to remember who gave me what and down the line while my hubby and I are enjoying the wine I would like to know who gave me what. There are a lot of ways to label a bottle and at first I just wrote on the label, but some labels are black so a blue pen would not show up, plus writing on the label mars the label. So I decided to use that roll on white out tape.

Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia in the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Gentle Yoga, Group Ex classes, YMCA, Zumba, Nia Technique, SJ City Fit, SJCityFit, City of San Jose Exercise ClassesI just rolled a line of the correction tape on the bottle and wrote the name on it. Now I know who gave me what, but I can also easily remove the information if the need arises. I don’t necessarily want have the gift givers names on the bottles if I have company over and I want to share a bottle with them. With this method I don’t have bottles with notes taped to them and I don’t have names written on the labels, but the bottles ARE labeled.  The white out tape can be easily scraped off.  If you decided to use any tape . . . like masking or scotch tape, that would even be easier because it would just pull off – no scraping necessary!  Scotch tape might be hard to read.

Might sound odd, but I thought it the correction tape was somewhat cleaver. I like to give a “cheers” to the gift giver while enjoying a glass, plus if I really enjoy it I would like to let them know. There are so many ways people gift wine. A lot of people share their favorite and they like to know if the receiver enjoyed it, too. So now I will know who gave me what when we are drinking it months later.

What do you think?

Posted in Misc | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Fourth of July Potluck Dessert

Posted by terrepruitt on July 5, 2014

Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia at the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Zumba, PiYo, Gentle YogaIf you saw my last post you know that I was going to make something that I had seen on Facebook for a party I was going to.  I thought it would be a really quick thing.  WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?  Never, when I make a recipe for the first time, is it a quick thing.  Also, I was reminded why I never melt chocolate.  I don’t know how.  I think the hotter the burner/pan/water the better.  NOT THE CASE!  So I attempted to make pretty Fourth of July Strawberries.  Well, I ended up with yummy strawberries, but they were far from the pretty picture I originally saw on Facebook.  Also, they took WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY longer than I thought.  I started later than I wanted which had us arriving at the party WAY later than I wanted.  But . . . . that is what I get.  And I really do know better.  I just thought . . . . wrong, obviously.  So I made Champagne 4th of July Strawberries.  The “recipe” is here along with some things I learned and/or experienced.  Perhaps this will help you when you attempt to make them next year.

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Champagne 4th of July Strawberries

I used:

*A large container of strawberries
*mason jars
*a bottle of sparkling wine/champagne
*about 3/4 of a package of white chocolate chips
*sugar
*blue food coloring

Wash the strawberries.  Put them in the jars, fill the jars with champagne.  Seal the jars.  Let the jars set in fridge at least 24 hours.  When you are ready to make the dessert, take the strawberries out of the champagne and let them dry.  (The dryer they are the better!)  Mix the food coloring into sugar.  Melt your chocolate.  Dip the strawberries in chocolate, then the sugar.  Place on serving tray.

 

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Ok, FIRST of all . . . . one of the best things that comes out of this is strawberry flavored champagne.  Yeah, it is flat, but . . . then it is just like strawberry wine!  (Oh, that reminds me, I have mine to drink tonight—yay!)

So, originally I used chop sticks to remove the Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia at the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Zumba, PiYo, Gentle Yogastrawberries because I just didn’t want to stick my fingers in the champagne because I was planning on drinking it later.  Only with the first jar.  Once one jar was empty of strawberries I poured the liquid in it and then just plucked the strawberries out with my fingers of the remaining jars.  I set the strawberries on a paper towel to dry.  I patted them “dry”.  They DID NOT dry.  The chocolate did not really want to stick to the strawberry.

I do not know how to melt chocolate, so something that should have taken a few minutes took forever.  I tried three different methods and the last one . . . .the one I should have started with . . . proved to be the best, but still, as most people know (except me) HIGH heat is not good for chocolate or white “chocolate”.  But I was thinking that it would get hard while I was dealing with each strawberry so I wanted it really “melty”.  Most of you will not have the trouble with the chocolate I had.  I had seen some recipes with frosting instead of chocolate, that does not sound as good to me so I opted for the chocolate.  While I was struggling with the chocolate I kept thinking, “I should have gone with the frosting!  I should have gone with the frosting!”

I ended up having to SPREAD the chocolate on each strawberry.  So I would spread, then stir, then spread, then stir all the while battling my “too hot” chocolate.  After the first tray my husband walked by and bravely said, “Can I do anything to help you?”  And I made him stir while I spread the chocolate on the rest of the strawberries.

I prepared WAY too much sugar.  So that is why I did not give an amount in the above “recipe” because I have no idea.  I later saw something that said 1/4 of a cup.  I think I make 3/4 of a cup of sugar.  Also, I couldn’t find any type of sugar in the store besides powdered, regular, and extra fine.  So I just used regular sugar.

I found that pouring the sugar on worked well.  I used a spoon to pour it on the end of the strawberry.  Although, I think if you properly melted the chocolate and waited a bit before dipping in the sugar, it would be fine.  But with my seized chocolate (see I knew WHAT it was doing, I just didn’t know WHY) the pouring method worked great.

Put the strawberries down where you want them to remain.  Once they were on the tray they were NOT moving.  Again, that could be because of the overheated chocolate.  I will try this again.  In fact, I didn’t use all the chocolate so I am going to attempt it again.  Although I am using my seized, crumpling, leftover chocolate . . . so we will see.

The people at the party were very kind and said the strawberries were pretty.  I think they were admiring the colors not the texture.  And then once a bite was taken it didn’t matter.  Chocolate, whether white, milk, dark, or semi-sweet, on a strawberry is really yummy.  So these were ok.  Not the pretty thing I envisioned, but they were yummy.

And I learned a lot.  I look forward to my next attempt!

So, how was your Fourth of July?  Does a white chocolate dipped champagne strawberry sound good to you?

Posted in "Recipes", Food | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »