A Recipe for Rose Sangria

   Summertime... and the livin's easy... 

The best summer days begin with blue-sky mornings, carry on with sunny afternoons at the pool or the beach, and end with lazy, comfortable chit-chat among friends as the sun dips below the horizon.  Of course, summer afternoons and evenings are made inevitably better if you are relaxing with a cool, sweet drink in your hand.  So when one of my friends and readers asked on my facebook page for a sangria recipe, I was surprised to realize I had not shared one with you yet.  Naturally I could not let her question go unanswered, so put out a request on Twitter and got some great links to share from The Pioneer Woman, Eat.Drink.Smile, and Aggie's Kitchen. 

And then promptly got straight to work making my own batch of Rose Sangria.    

Next to lemonade, sangria is probably the most quintessential satisfying summer beverage, and I love it.  With a glass of sangria in my hand, and my friends and family by my side, I am a happy lady.  

Regardless of whether you make your sangria with white, rose, or red wine, the best part is definitely the wine-soaked fruit.  Don't you just love fishing out those boozy fruits from the bottom of the glass?  For my summer Rose Sangria, I love adding in ripe peaches and strawberries, sliced oranges, and plump raspberries.  The sliced oranges are so beautiful, but my favorite to eat are the peaches - they soak up the sugar and wine to become tender and just perfectly sweet. 

Classic Mussels with Shallots and Thyme

Welcome to the 100th post here on The Cilantropist!  

Over the last year this blog has grown and developed, and I am relishing in every moment of it.  I can barely believe that I have shared 100 posts with you!  I am committed to bringing you fresh, seasonal, and delicious food (plus cakes and cookies, we can't forget those!) and I do my best to only share things that I think are excellent.  Compared to when I first started, The Cilantropist is so much more like what I dreamed it would be, and it is still evolving.  Keep your eyes peeled for a few changes and additions in the weeks and months to come, but be assured that you will still always be able to find great food over at this corner of the web.  

I also want to give a big shout out to YOU!  Each and every one of my readers, please know that I love love love having you here and it means the world to me knowing that you appreciate food, family, and friends.  I also adore your comments and emails - they make me smile and laugh, and they brighten my day each time I read one.  (And I read all of them!)   I truly appreciate that you share my blog and recipes with family and friends, since feeling connected to people is really at the heart of my cooking.  I hope you will continue to follow along with me as I create another 100 recipes and share stories from my adventures in the kitchen.  

I can also say that over the last year my passion for food and cooking has increased exponentially, and everything about it brings me so much happiness. I am more conscious of what I eat now, and more committed than ever to eating sustainably and locally, and working more towards living a hand-crafted life.  This doesn't mean eating only organic or natural foods - that is just not realistic for me right now - but it does mean shopping at the farmers market as often as possible and making dishes from quality well-sourced ingredients.  Very simply, I think it is a healthier way to live and eat.   

So I thought, for this 100th post, that I should share one of my favorite dishes with you since I can source all the raw ingredients from my farmers market.      

Are you able to find fresh bay leaves?  I think they are just beautiful. 

This classic dish of Mussels with Shallots and Thyme has its roots in traditional French cooking since it uses a broth made with cream, wine, shallots and herbs, to steam open fresh mussels.  I made this dish for the first time almost four years ago, when my boyfriend and I discovered we could get fresh Carlsbad mussels at the farmers market near my apartment.  Nowadays, I can get everything else I need to make it from the farmers market as well, including fragrant thyme and beautiful green bay leaves.   

A Luxury Dinner, with Leeks, Lemon, and Lamb

Have I told you before that I love having dinner parties?  Actually, I love having gatherings of any kind; afternoon tea, Easter brunch, Labor Day parties, you name it and I would be happy to host it.  Any day that I can bring people together to eat, drink, and be merry, is a good day for me!  I will usually use any excuse to invite friends and family over to my place, so when I heard that one of the challenges for Project Food Blog was to host a Luxury Dinner and to share entertaining tips, I squealed with delight.  

To me, luxury means a lot of different things...Buying fresh flowers from the farmers market; relaxing with a latte and a good book; treating myself to a beautiful trinket from a local boutique; or relishing in a well-prepared meal at my favorite restaurant surrounded by family and friends...I think all these things are simple luxuries.  When it comes to food, I think of the luxury that is more traditionally fancy, where crystal wine glasses, rich, creamy foods, full-bodied wines, and decadent desserts are involved.  I knew that I wanted to have this type of dinner party, although I didn't want it to be too over the top.                

For my dinner, I wanted my table to be colorful, elegant, and to have simple beauty.  I think one part of hosting a good party is making sure you have a space where your guests can feel comfortable that is appropriate for the occasion.  

If your party is casual or you are serving foods family-style, then keep it simple with an uncluttered table and plenty of room.  For a formal dinner party, I try to use coordinated place settings to set out everything before the guests arrive.  But here, lets be realistic: not all my silverware matches, I might not have four of the exact same wine glasses, and I am not Martha Stewart.  I work with what I have, and I usually add extra items like fresh flowers or matching napkins if they are within my budget.  I have a penchant for pretty glassware, so I used some of that for the table, along with a candle arrangement that I have had on my buffet for years.  The idea is to make it look fancy, but not put you out of a lot of time and money.  I also printed out menu cards (a first for me!) which made the occasion feel even more special.     

And speaking of menus...I decided to have a four-course meal with two wine pairings and turkish coffee with dessert.