Sangria

My husband travels quite a bit for work and he goes to Michigan often to visit our friends/business partner and do sales there. They got him hooked on this Sangria you can buy at the grocery store in the wine aisle. He loves it. I'm not the biggest fan because I dont typically like sweet drinks but he and my sister can down a bottle in a night. (Don't worry there's only 4 glasses in a bottle so there's no drinking problems involved.) Anyway, it's $6.99 a bottle. And of course being the ever frugal-foodie I thought to myself...."hmmm I bet I can make this for half the price." So, I did. And they liked the results.

Sangria is just wine mixed with other liquor, juices and/or fruit so I parused a few recipes online and made up my own. It makes more than double the amont of Sangria that you get in the bottle and thanks to Trader Joe's and Charles Shaw I got the wines for $2.99 each so that's a pretty great deal on a whole pitcher of Sangria. I'll definitely be making this for our next party or get-together. I used Chardonnay and Cabernet because that's the type of wine we usually drink, but if you like it sweeter or drier you can go with any type or red and white wine.

Sangria

1 750 ml bottle white wine

1 750 ml bottle red wine

1/2 cup simple syrup (recipe below)

1 cup orange juice

1 orange sliced

1 lemon sliced

1 apple peeled and chopped

Prepare and cool the simple syrup. Mix all ingredients together in a pitcher and let it chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

For the simple syrup mix 1 c. water and 1 c. sugar in a small saucepan. Bring it to a boil stirring constantly until the sugar is all disolved and its...syrup-y. You only need half of this recipe for the sangria. Unless you like it really sweet, then go for it!