BOTW: Plum & Necterine Sangria

With summer time coming to a close in August and back to school right around the corner, fitting in that one last summer party can be tricky.  Why not serve a summer time sangria to your guests.  It's easy, refreshing and you can make a huge batch of it.  After searching the web, I came up with this sangria concoction from Williams-Sonoma for my 'Best of the Web' this week.

Plum and Necterine Sangria

Look for plums and nectarines that are ripe but still firm to ensure that they do not become too soft when soaked in the wine. Rinse the fruits well to remove any surface chemicals before slicing them. Use a dry white Rioja or Sauvignon Blanc for the wine.

Ingredients:
3 plums, halved, pitted and cut into thin wedges
3 nectarines, halved, pitted and cut into thin wedges
1 can (12 fl. oz.) nectarine nectar
1/4 cup orange liqueur
1 bottle (750ml) dry white wine
Ice cubes as needed
1 bottle (24 fl. oz.) sparkling water, chilled

Directions:

In a large pitcher, combine the plum wedges, nectarine wedges, nectarine nectar, orange liqueur and wine. Stir well, then cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 12 hours to blend the flavors.

To serve, fill glasses with ice cubes and add the wine mixture, dividing evenly. Top off each glass with sparkling water. Serve immediately. Serves 6.

Photo credit: Williams Sonoma

What's your favorite summer time party cocktail?

Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to leave a comment, I love to hear from you!. Have a fantastic day!

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Birthdays

We happened to have a few birthdays to celebrate within the last month; mine, Debbie's and Jody's.  Of course this is a great excuse to go out for a girl's dinner.  We again chose Wild Fox because for one, it's centrally located to all of us, two, the food is good and three the atmosphere is great.  They have indoor seating and outdoor patio seating. It was too cold to eat outside last night so we stayed indoors.

Why not start by telling you about dessert.  This was just one of the desserts we shared.  A bundt, brown sugar mini cake.  It's my new favorite.  I took one bite and instantly fell in love with all it's gooey, buttery, brown sugary loveliness.  Everything in moderation, right?

It was also half price wine night!  We had no idea and definitely took advantage of this offer.  We ordered one bottle of  the Beringer cab to share, which was just perfect.

We decided not to order any appetizers and moved straight to the entrees.

I ordered the Thai Coconut Chicken Curry.  I think I had this last time, but wanted it again.

The curry sauce was quite spicy, just how I like it.  I ate most of the chicken and curry portion but only half of the rice.

Lately I've totally been into all these sweet tea flavored vodkas and noticed they had Peach Sweet Tea on their cocktail menu, so I had to try it out.  Really liked it.  Also love that it's served in a mason jar.

Deb and Kellie.

A couple of the girls had one of the specials for the night, the Petrale Sole served on a bed of wilted spinach and rice which was really tasty.

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Our other dessert was the apple crisp topped with huckleberry ice cream.

I liked it but much preferred the bundt cake, probably because the bundt cake was a lot more sweet and I DO have a sweet tooth.

Kellie and Devi.

Present from Jody.  I love the hammered look in jewelry that I've been seeing a lot of lately.

Silpada earrings from Kellie.

Jody showed us her diamond encrusted hoops she got from her hubby as a B-day gift.  Loved them!

Another fun night at Wild Fox.  I don't think we'll ever get tired of that place.

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I didn't drink very much last night but for some reason my stomach was turning a bit this morning and I felt like I needed to eat something right away.  Maybe it was all that sugar in the dessert.

A nice hot cup of coffee topped with milk and cinnamon sounded good to me.

And my favorite cereal.  Have you ever tried this?  It has no added sugar but it's sweet enough for me to like.  Plus it has a ton of fiber and protein and made with whole grains.

I usually eat it dry, accompanied with my coffee. 

It definitely hit the spot.

Happy Tuesday!

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Date Night!

Last night Dominic and I had a date night.  It had been so long since just the two of us have been able to go out alone, we really need to do it more often. It's amazing how much conversation we can have without a 3 and 5 year old competing for talk time :)  The kids have been asking to stay over night at Nonny and Papa's house, so that's where they were.  Thank you Annette and George!

We chose to go to Semolina in Petaluma.  Italian food.  Neither one of us had ever been, but we had heard good things about it.

I didn't try the bread, but it didn't go to waste, Dominic ate every last piece with the 'cold' butter......we're very picky about butter.....it needs to be spreadable right?!

I did try the fried calamari that we ordered though.  It was a little more chewy than I like it, but it was good.

Ahhh.....one glass of La Crema Pinot.  Really good.

Calamari gone.

Dominic ordered minestrone soup which he said was really good.

I ordered the spinach salad which came topped with mushrooms and panchetta.  It was okay.  I don't like limp spinach, must have been the warm mushrooms - I don't recall the menu mentioning that the spinach salad was served warm....not sure.  But I was glad to get some extra greens into my system.

For an entree, I chose the salmon special which was topped with sun dried tomatoes, capers and a light lemon butter sauce.  Paired with fresh veggies and some potatoes.  I really like salmon and this dish was pretty good.  Dominic ordered linguine with clams in a white sauce but my photo was completely missing from my camera this morning!  I'm not sure what happened to it?! He liked his dish.

We shared a dessert.  I thought the Chocolate Raviolis looked good and something we have never tried before, so we ordered those.

Chocolate pasta filled with ricotta, white chocolate, Kahlua, and brown sugar with chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream.  The raviolis are fried and therefore crispy.  When you dig into one, the ricotta mixture oozes out.  I liked them and Dominc didn't, he thought they tasted too much like ricotta for a dessert.

After dinner we decided to head over to Kodiak Jack's for some prime people watching and maybe dancing. It had been years since we had been to this place. 

Barry the bartender has been bar tending at Kodiak's for many, many years.  It was early in the night and therefore slow in the bar so Barry and Dominic got to catch up a little bit.

We definitely scored on the people watching!  Because look what type of party they were hosting last night.  Not really our thing, but it made for great people watching.

Some line dancing....

Dominic had a cocktail, I didn't.....still full from dinner.

They also had Karaoke going on where we heard the good, the bad and the terrible. But I give people credit for doing it, I'm definitely not brave enough.  SO entertaining.

The DJ.

No bull riding action.....but it was still early.

Said 'Bye' to Captain Morgan on our way out.

It was only 9 p.m. and we didn't want to go home yet so we headed over to Graziano's which is a delicious Italian restaurant and bar.

The Lemon Drop I drank, but shouldn't have.

I only had the two drinks all night, but I woke up with the biggest headache this morning.  Luckily a couple of ibuprofen cured it in about 30 minutes.

Gotta go pack.  We're leaving for vacation in the morning.  No wi-fi available...Oh No!  But don't worry, I've scheduled some good blog posts for you to read and view while I'm away (if my blog host doesn't mess up with the automatic publish).  A few of them have to do with Grossi family history and some really cool photos circa 1940's - 50's.  I hope you enjoy them!

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