word on the street sangria

on a whim this weekend me and lisa - my friend from college - decided to make up a pitcher of sangria based on what we "knew" what was in it... and it was amazing. we basically combined two of our favorite wines - bottles we just happened to have laying around - and then we picked up some tasty fruits from meijer, juice, and some club soda and we had our very own sangria mixed up.

i like how my first legit recipe i made up is a giant gallon pitcher of an alcoholic beverage... aha i guess we all need to start somewhere -

Ingredients

1 bottle Menage a Trois Red

1 bottle Woop Woop Shiraz Red

1 bottle Everfresh orange juice, 10 oz size

2 bottles Everfresh cranberry juice, 10 oz size

½ liter club soda

1 orange, pinwheel slices

½ red delicious apple

½ asian pear

1 jar peaches, strained, but not rinsed

Method

Combine both bottles of wine into a large pitcher, atleast 1 gallon in size. Add the orange juice, cranberry juice, and the club soda into the wine mixture. Cut the orange into large pinwheel shape slices, and dice the remaining fruit into bite size pieces and add to the pitcher. Refrigerate for atleast an hour and serve with ice.

i love sangria. this was a definite success. the menage a trois balanced really well with the woop woop and with all the fruit juices and fruit bits it didn't taste like i was downing glasses of wine... it was like glasses of juice, and yeah, i like juice. and alcohol.

this sushi is legit

yep. looks amazing right. spicy california rolls with inarizushi sushi pockets! this recipe makes a ton of rolls and theres way more then enough rice to stuff an entire can of inarizushi pockets as well.

the method to rolling sushi is pretty standard, but making the rice mixture is key to really legit sushi, and i found this one from my beloved food network chef masaharu morimoto and i will use it until the day i die -

Ingredients

3 cups short-grain Japanese rice

⅓ cup rice vinegar

3 tbsp sugar

1 teasp kosher salt

Method

Make the rice - no need to rinse sushi rice

Combine the vinegar, sugar and kosher salt in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Transfer the cooked rice to a large bowl, plastic or glass, and drizzle a quarter of the vinegar mixture over a wooden spoon or spatula onto the rice. Fold the rice gently with the spoon to cool it and break up any clumps; be careful not to smash the grains. Fold in the remaining vinegar mixture and let the rice cool to room temperature. (Covering the bowl with a damp paper towel will help it from drying out. )

this was a success! an absolute success! sooooo tasty! inside my inarizushi pockets along with the sushi rice i added some furikake flakes, and then i like to throw in whatever i have with my sushi, like the spicy crab salad mix - which is really just imitation crab flakes shredded up with sriracha sauce and kewpie japanese mayonnaise - and it was heaven. honestly if i could sustain life just by eating stuffed inarizushi pockets, i would do it. sometimes after i go running i'll treat myself to a couple of pockets with rice and avocado and it makes my day. yum yum.

oh and just a note, i love kewpie mayonnaise, for my spicy mayo it was just a combination of sriracha sauce and kewpie mayonnaise to taste and its just like what i get at all those god forsaken sushi restaurants i go to on a weekly basis to spend my paycheck on. kewpie mayonnaise - way lighter then hellman's and what not, and totally worth the trip to the asian grocery store.

thank you morimoto for sharing your tasty sushi rice recipe

*http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/masaharu-morimoto/vegetable-sushi-recipe/index.html