Category: Recipes

Mother’s Day White Peach Sangria

Happy Mother’s Day Smileys and Wine Enthusiasts! Here is a delicious and refreshing Sangria that you can make for yourself, your mom or your friends!

Salu’d, XOXO Smiling Danny

*Please excuse my Barefoot Contessa reference *

Tasting Scout and Cellar’s Bookbinder’s Apprentice White Wine

Hello Smileys and Wine Enthusiasts,

I wanted to invite you all along with me as I tasted this delicious White Wine Blend by Scout and Cellar. It has notes of green apple, melon and peach and pairs well with sushi, salads and soft cheeses. This wine is crisp, fruity and contains 13.1% abv (alcohol by volume). The grape varietal is a Colombard grape that was planted in California. Colombard grapes are a combination of Chenin Blanc and Gouais Blanc grapes. This wine has medium acidity and is quite refreshing.

You will see in this video that pairing this wine with a cucumber salad really opened up the melon notes in the wine. Although I used a hard cheese in my dish, the wine also hi-lighted the subtle spice of the jalapeno in the Muenster cheese. Typically, the wine pairs nicely with soft cheeses; such as: brie, cream cheese, feta, ricotta, Roquefort, gorgonzola, cottage cheese and Chevre’.

To find out more information about this wine or to purchase, visit my website at: http://www.scoutandcellar.com/smilingdanny.

As always, Thank you so much for visiting my blog and for supporting me for another year! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from My Wine Cellar to Yours! XOXO, Smiling Danny

Salu’d

Danny’s Cucumber Salad consists of cucumber, roma tomatoes and jalapeno muenster diced and mixed with 1 tsp of white vinegar. Add salt and pepper to taste.

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Wine Cocktail: Pinkie Promise with a Twist

Leftover Wine?
Here’s a Wine Cocktail Recipe using Fre Wines’ White Zinfandel.

Pinkie Promise with a Twist:
You will need:

  • Fre Wines White Zinfandel
  • 100% Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice
  • Juice of 1/2 Lime
  • Lemon wedge for garnish

Directions:
Pour equal parts White Zinfandel and Cranberry Juice in a white wine glass. Next, juice 1/2 a lime and add to the wine glass. Stir and garnish with lemon wedge.
Salu’d

XOXO, Smiling Danny

It’s Tea Time

Hi Smileys!

I thought I would share one of my favorite tea recipes with you this month. A lot of people love Tazo’s Passion Tea; especially, the Passion Tea Lemonade from Starbucks!

I love my passion tea hot with no added sweetners or chilled with a few extra additions.  Check out my recipe below and tell me what you think.

Sparkling Cranberry Passion Tea:

  • 2 parts Tazo Passion Tea
  • 1 part Ocean Spray, No Sugar Added, 100% Cranbery Juice
  • 1 part Cherry Bubly Sparkling Water (usually lime)
  • Squeeze of a half of a lime
  • Lime wedge for garnish
  • Ice

Prepare your tea as normal. Meanwhile, grab your favorite glass and fill with ice. Pour prepared tea over ice. Add the remaining ingredients and stir. Add lime wedge for garnish. Sip and enjoy.

Note: One packet of tea should provide at least 2 servings unless you use a very large cup.

Cheers, XOXO, Smiling Danny

 

 

 

It’s Cinco de Mayo and Taco Tuesday!

Hello Smiley’s and Wine Enthusiasts!

Today is a day of double delights because I will be featuring two wines in today’s blog post in honor of Cinco de Mayo and because it’s Taco Tuesday!

The first wine that I will be sharing with you is a White Wine Sangria by Eppa. This Sangria was a surprising treat that reminded me of Talenti’s Mango sorbet. The bouquet  had notes of peach, white grape, mango popsicle and candy dancing throughout my senses. The wine is very sweet and quite refreshing. If you are a sweet wine lover, you would enjoy this wine. This wine is also versatile as you can add other ingredients to make this even more of a special treat.

Recipe: Berry Sangria

  • You Will Need:
    • 1 Bottle of Eppa White Sangria
    • 1 Cup of Berries
    • 1 Cup of Seltzer
    • Mint Leaves (optional)
  • Directions:
    • Add Sangria and berries to a pitcher. Stir. Refrigerate for 3 hours. Then add seltzer and stir once more. Serve over ice and garnish with mint leaves.

The second wine that I will be sharing with you is a Red Wine Sangria by La Diosa Cellars. Notes of citrus and fruit punch danced across my palate and left me wanting more. I loved the delicate notes of sweetness, followed by the subtle crescendos of citrus. This reminded me of my favorite candy: Sweetarts. La Diosa Cellars, meaning: The Goddess, celebrates the talent of artists and their artistry and is a true gem and local favorite in the city of Lubbock, Tx.

I hope you enjoyed this blog post and that your day is full of love, laughter and joy. Let me know your tasting notes on these wines in the comments below or on Instagram.

Until next time, Salu’d!

XOXO, Smiling Danny

Brats and Brews Tasting

Most of last month and so far this month, most of us have been home. It has been wonderful to see how creative people have become in order to make the most of this time. Before we were encouraged to stay home, I held a Brats and Brews pairing and thought that I would share my notes here with you today. Thanks to my friend, I saw that she had created her own Brats and Brews pairing for her Hubby a while back so I thought this would be the perfect time to create my own.

Here is what we had on our Menu:

Turkey Brat paired with the Local Buzz Honey Rye Golden Ale from Four Corners Brewery located in Dallas, TX.

Beer Brined Brat paired with the Red Bud Berliner Weisse from Independence Brewing Company located in Austin, TX.

Green Chile Brat paired with the Ugly Pug Black Lager from Rahr & Sons Brewing Company located in Fort Worth, TX.

These pairings were accompanied with Warm Buttered Pretzel Bread, Course Salt and a Trio of Mustards. The mustard trio included French’s original yellow mustard, spicy brown mustard and course ground mustard. There was also a nice bowl of sauerkraut for garnish.

The first beer served was:

Screenshot_20200321-164247_Chrome This brew is a golden ale comprised of Texas wildflower honey, pale malt, Munich and rye malt. The consensus was that the ale was crisp and refreshing with notes of bread and spice. This paired nicely with the pretzel bread and spicy brown mustard that accompanied the beer and brat.

Next Up:

Screenshot_20200321-164046_Chrome This brew is a German wheat beer with malts of white wheat, pilsen, oats and flaked barley. This beer left everyone with strong sour notes on their palate. The Brewer’s notes say that this beer pairs nicely with salty/oily/ starchy foods, sauerkraut and weisse wurst; so, this was a perfect beer to include in our lineup.

Last:

20200321_164605 This beer is a smooth, light-bodied, black lager with notes of caramel, chocolate and roasted malt. The sweet notes of the lager went well with the saltiness of the menu; but, we wouldn’t necessarily say to pair this beer with the brats that we had.

Of all the beers served, Local Buzz was the Star of the evening and voted best beer!

I hope you enjoyed this little switch up. Let me know in the comments if this is something that you are going to try.

XOXO (with mask and gloves), Smiling Danny

Salu’d

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Poached Mushrooms

Hello Smiley’s and Wine Enthusiasts!

I thought I’d kick off the month with a simple and delicious wine recipe. And since we have been encouraged to stay home this month; this month’s posts will be filled with tastings from my wine stash. Bon Apetit!

Poached Mushrooms

You will need:

  • 2 Cups of clean and sliced mushrooms (brown)
  • 2 Cups of Dry Red wine. Add more if it doesn’t touch the top of the mushrooms. You want the wine to cover the mushrooms but you don’t want the mushrooms to drown in the wine.

Directions:

Combine wine and mushrooms in a quart sized pot. Set temperature to high to bring to a rapid boil. Once boiling, drop temperature to  low for 10 to 15 minutes until your liquid boils down.

Serve and enjoy.

This dish can be served alongside red or white meat. Tonight, the mushrooms were served alonside pot roast, roasted pork loin and grilled chicken. The accompanied sides were sauteed spinach and buttered red potatoes. Deeelicious!

The wine that I chose this evening was from Llano Estacado Winery. It was their 2013 Due Compaesani.  This wine has notes of raisin and spice. It has full tannins and was enjoyed as a night cap. Because I have had this wine for a while, I thought it would be the perfect cooking wine. 

Wine tip: the longer you have a wine, the tasting notes may change.

I hope you enjoyed this Wine Wednesday Recipe and I look forward to sharing more with you in the weeks ahead!

Salu’d, Smiling Danny

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