Twisted Pinot Grigio

Description on the bottle:

Here is a Limerick of a wine that is Twisted.

In a glass, it cannot be resisted.

Whether a Cab, Chard or Merlot, Pinot Grigio, Zin - all great to know.

Pour me another glass I insisted!

Twisted Pinot Grigio is an enchanting taste of summer - regardless of the season.  This crisp white wine sparkles with bright Meyer lemon drops, pear, yellow apple, and subtle hints of cinnamon spice.  Enjoy this delightful sipper with fish tacos, angel-hair pasta with bacon and fresh peas, peel and eat shrimp, or Cobb salad.

Sarah says:  I didn't drink this wine with any of the foods listed above, and it was still very enjoyable.  I had it on Christmas Eve with my in-laws as we ate ham and sat around talking.  I figured a pinot grigio was a safe bet for a group of people, and it worked out wonderfully.  We all ate, drank, and enjoyed the night.  The wine was delicious, and the company was comfortable.  I wished we could have spent more time together, but the kids had to get to bed so Santa could come!  I would certainly get this wine for a family function again.   

Overall rating:  Thumbs up

Sarah says:  The sticker on this bottle says it has won 18 gold medals, and 5 best buys since 2007.  While I believe the wine is worth all these awards, my cooking as I finished this bottle up last night, was not.  Without going into the details, we've decided that Liam is going gluten free.  We decided this a few weeks ago, and have been low gluten since, meaning I've been giving him special bread, pasta & cereal, but I haven't really been looking into much else.  But starting 1/1 - we're going all the way.  To prepare, over the past few weeks I've been reading and reading and reading all about this diet.  I think I have enough knowledge to jump in with my nose unplugged.  I've also learned over the past few weeks, that gluten free isn't cheap.  The frugal side of me, and the mom-that-wants-whats-best-for-her-kids side of me are having a huge conflict.  To attempt to settle the fight between them, I decided I'd try to cook some gluten free muffins.

So are so many things wrong with this plan that I don't even know where to begin.  The first being, I do not cook.  And even worse, I do not bake.  I can occasionally cook a semi-decent dinner, but baking, baking just never works out for me.  But, all this reading I've been doing - those stinking authors had me thinking it would be easy.  The second issue, my lack of cooking/baking has me with a lack of tools.  I pretty much have one mixing bowl, one spoon, a hand held mixer that was probably $5 on a black friday special, and a blender that is 10+ years old, with blades that are probably super worn down from making margaritas!  My kitchen is not adequately prepared for the cooking that this diet demands.  Third, I was going to bake with ingredients that I never heard of, could barely pronounce, and sounds like they are a little finicky to begin with.  This project was doomed from the start.

Either way - after putting the kids to bed, I poured myself a glass of wine, propped open my cook book, and got started.  First task was to make some rice milk - here's the thing, the recipe called for any type of milk - and we aren't going casein free (casein is basically the protein in dairy products, kind of like gluten is the protein in wheat), but from all that I've read, it sounds like it might be a good idea too.  While I'm only focused on gluten right now, I figured I might as well pull out the casein where I can.  So I made rice milk - which looks as gross as it sounds by the way.  Then, I put my yeast packet into my rice milk, which was supposed to bubble for 5 min, it did for about 4 seconds...  then I melted some butter, which resulted in a stick of butter exploding all over the inside of my microwave.  I'm trying to blame the end results on the fact that I only ended up with a half a stick of butter, since the rest was all over my walls, but I'm thinking that wasn't the problem.  Then, and here is another spot that I may have gone wrong - I decided not to just start with the normal, simple, gluten free muffins.  I figured if I was going to do this, I was going to DO THIS.  I live by the statement, anything worth doing is only worth doing if you give 110% into it.  I was not about to make regular muffins, I was going to make the super charged healthy muffins, where you sneak in purred veggies and applesauce without you kid even knowing.  So I threw some of that in there too.  Then I baked.  Here is what came out...

After 2 hours of mixing, measuring, swearing, and explosions, I got 12 of these babies.  Not bad looking, right?  I was actually pretty pleased with myself after cleaning up.  I put 6 in the freezer, and 6 in a Tupperware for the next day.  Liam and Mary saw them the next morning and couldn't wait to get their hands on them!  Mary called them cupcakes, Liam called them treats.  We were so excited, we didn't bother waiting for dinner (their original purpose - since they are more like rolls), we dug into them for breakfast.  Liam shoved a whole half into his mouth, and about 3 chews later starting dry heaving and gagging.  I tried to tell him to take a deep breath, chew slowly and swallow.  It didn't work.  I happened to be emptying the dishwasher at the time, so I had a sauce pan in my hand, which I threw in front of him and he threw up the entire thing.  I tried to convince him he took too big of a bite and to try again, taking smaller bites... he refused.  Mary took one small bite - her excitement quickly drained from her face and she pushed her plate away and walked away from the table in complete silence, but turned back to give me a glance of ultimate disappointment.  How dare I give her such awful food?  I figured they were just being difficult, how bad could they be?!  Bad... trust me.... so so bad.  I popped a piece into my mouth.  At first, I thought, "this isn't the best thing I've ever eaten, but it's ok"... a few chews later, I thought, "oh god... this is bad, chew slowly, breath, swallow... swallow... darn it sarah, swallow!" A few seconds later... I spat it out in the sink.  

My poor children!  I tried to kill them with these awful healthy muffins!  I seriously don't even know how to describe the taste - lets just say it's not something you want to eat.  They even smell bad!  I was going to just toss them out, but my frugal side smacked me upside the head and told me I spend $15 on all those ingredients, they were not going in the garbage.  So, for dinner, I heated them a bit, hoping that would make them better, and smothered them in ranch dressing, which kind of defeats the purpose of making them casein free, but whatever.  Mary still refused, but Liam ate it, which I guess is all that really matters.  I didn't personally taste it this way, I figured if they still wouldn't go for it... then I'd just take their word for it.  That's good parenting right there!  Maybe tomorrow I'll put BBQ sauce on them, BBQ sauce is good on anything.  Wait maybe I should look and see if BBQ sauce is gluten free first, shoot, I'm still new at this!

So anyways - my first adventure in gluten free baking didn't go so well.  Even with that disaster, tomorrow I'm going to try making bread!  I just can't force myself to keep spending $5 for 14 slices of bread when I used to spend $1 for 30!  Please wish me luck - any advice is welcomed! 

:-)

Red X Part II

Sarah says:

I mentioned here that I liked the taste of this wine.  Well, I've had a change of heart... tonight this glass is awful.  My new recommendation would be to only drink this wine if you plan on consuming the entire bottle, because after day 1 it's no longer good.  Ew.. I feel like it's giving me a headache, and I've only had a few sips.

Speaking of X's - I give myself one big parent fail for last weekend.  Even after all the snuggles and extra special time that was had just the weekend before, I found myself failing as a Mom just the next weekend.  It's so easy to react when tragedy strikes, but even easier to fall back into our simple routine just days later. 

It was the Saturday before Christmas, I generally get all my preparations done early, so I was good to go, but was avoiding leaving the house because I knew anywhere we went would be madness.  Jon was working, so it was just me and the munchkins.  We sat around, I let them watch TV, I stalked around on the internet, I let them run around outside, but I found myself saying the words "I'm bored" over and over again.  GASP!  Mom's are not allowed to be bored, we don't have time to be bored, we have bigger more important things to do, boredom isn't allowed.  Yet, I was, in fact, bored.  It was my sweet Mary that snapped me out of it.  The words that came out of her mouth were as follows:  Mom, play with me.  It wasn't a question or a request, it was a statement... as in... YOU WILL BE PLAYING WITH ME NOW.

What's wrong with me?!  I was so caught up the previous week in being busy, that when I was finally done being busy, I forgot what it was my real job in life is... to play with my kids!  So playing we did.  Of course, by this time, it was 4:00 so the day was mostly over, so I tried my best to make it up to them.  We pulled all the train stuff out of Liam's room and set it all up in the living room.  We made the biggest track our new home has ever seen, there wasn't a single piece of track that wasn't utilized.  The kids... they loved it.  I wouldn't say it was my most favorite activity, but I certainly wasn't bored.  

Why is it so easy to forget to be grateful for what we have?  The whole time I was bored, I kept trying to think of something amazing to do, when really, the most amazing thing to my kids was right there in front of them.  When do we reach the age where we are no longer fascinated with the simple things, such as setting up trains with Mom, and instead need more and more entertainment?  And, even worse, when are my kids going to stop wanting to play with me?  

I haven't officially declared my New Year's resolutions yet, but I'm going to try to get something worked into them about spending more quality time with the kids, or living in the moment more.... something like that.

I'm thankful for my kids, who usually get me out of a down state pretty quickly.  What do you do to appreciate life?  

Red X

Description on the bottle:  California Red Wine.  

Bad at rules.  Good at wine.

Always wear pajamas when sleeping an strange beds.

Never lick a steak knife.

Never give yourself a haircut after three glasses of wine.

X Winery's Reed Renaudin is as fed up with rules as you are.  He explores possibilities more traditional winemakers never consider because the only rule he does follow is making wines people love to drink.  Curious?

Red X is a harmonious blend of several sumptuous wine varietals that perform like musicians in a great band, each bringing their own talents to the show.  After you taste this blend, we're sure you'll have your lighters raised high pleasing for an encore.

Sarah says:  I didn't want to like this wine.  Usually I would find the humor on the description of this bottle entertaining, but tonight I just wasn't in the mood.  My mood is down, sad, angry, confused.  The bragging about breaking the rules just made me want to smack this guy.  Rules are supposed to be followed!  They are there for a reason.  With that being said, I like the taste of this wine.  It's got that smokey thing that I generally don't like, but it's so subtle that I can handle it.  It's not sweet, which is great.  It's a nice, easy going, red wine.

Overall rating:  Thumbs most of the way up.

Sarah says:  Like most of the world, I'm still in shock over the events that took place on Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  My initial reactions were full of anger.  I wanted to scream at this guy -  what is wrong with you?!  Kids... you shot and killed kids, 20 of them!!  Plus their teachers!  What is happening to our world?!   I couldn't wrap my head around it, and still can't.  Then the parent in me kicked in, and I just cried.  I listened to the President's speech over and over, and cried.  I hugged my kids, and cried.  I felt this overwhelming emotion and sadness for these children that I never knew, for their parents, for the survivors that had to witness such violence at such a young age.  These 1st graders have seen more violence first hand than I have now in my life.  I feel fortunate, but sad by the unfairness of it all.  I feel helpless, there is nothing that I can do to help these people.  I feel almost guilty that I was able to go home and kiss and hold my kids, something these parents will never be able to do again.  

Then there's the confusion.  I want an answer, and the reality that I may never get this answer is making me crazy.  I have been glued to the news stories, frantically reading articles after my own babies have gone to sleep the past 3 nights, hoping to find out the reason that this happened.  And yet, no reason can be found.  And that just makes me feel confused and sick.  Are our kids safe anywhere?  Not at school, not at movie theaters, not in our own homes, not even in churches anymore.  I just don't understand it all.  Why would someone kill so violently like that?  They say that every single victim had multiple bullet wounds - between 3 and 11.  Really?  I've never shot a gun - so I don't get the thrill - but just shooting a bunch of innocent kids wasn't enough, you had to shoot them over and over again...?!  I just cannot understand it.  Ugh.

I wish I had some great insight to say - but I don't.  I take comfort in believing in God, and I do believe that these children are in a better place now.  One that doesn't know the violence they endured.  Unfortunately, as a parent, I don't know how I'd feel if someone told me that after my own child was murdered.  So, although those words comfort me, I don't know how well they work on anyone else.

Because my own words fail me tonight, I'll repeat some words that I found meaningful over the past two days:

Someone on Facebook named Matthew Nicholas wrote these words:

Hey kids. You. The Ones that left us today. The ones who experienced the worst that humanity can do. You little angels who closed your eyes in a living Hell this morning. I'm so, so very sorry that this world didn't give you a chance.

I'm a nobody guy from a small town in Michigan. You would've never known me. But in all of this overwhelming sadness of today, I just want to let you all know that you matter.

Even though you didn't even have a chance to realize how big the world is, today, the sad end of your lives affected MILLIONS of people. It's probably little comfort for you at all, but tonight in America, in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, Australia....everywhere.... mommies are holding their kids a little tighter and a little longer. Daddies are listening to their kids and showing them more love.

You twenty little souls were set free this morning and there is nothing good that could be said about that. But because you left, and the way you were taken, millions of kids still here on Earth tonight will be shown more love than any other ordinary Friday.

Your short and precious lives had a value and a purpose.

Godspeed.

And he's right - All weekend long, I showed my kids more love than normal.  I hugged them more, I played with them more, I made our time a little more special, I told them repeatedly that I loved them.  I think as parents - that's all we can do.

I let my kids make and drink chocolate milk, right before bed... just because we could... and in the words of Liam "It was the best night ever!"  Words that will forever warm my heart.  Who needs wine when I've got these two?  :-)

Leelanau Cellars Winter White

Description on the bottle:  A celebration of Northern Michigan.  Winter White is lightly fruity and semi-sweet, this wine is perfect for light afternoon luncheons or fruit, cheese and sausage trays, or an as aperitif.

Northern Michigan enjoys four distinctly beautiful seasons, and it is in celebration of these seasons that Leelanau Wine Cellars offers our specially blended premium wines, each as unique as the season it represents.  The label of each wine is designed to capture the feeling of the season, while the wine itself emphasizes the fruitiness of the grape.  It is properly balanced and is complementary to most foods served in your favorite restaurant or prepared at home.  

Sarah says:  I think the more wine I drink, the more I realize what I like and don't like.  I already knew sweet wine is out, but I'm beginning to think that even semi-sweet it too much for me.  As much as I used to deny it, I like dry wines.  This wine was good, but still a little on the sweet side.  I wouldn't buy it again, but I could see someone who liked sweet wine really enjoying it.  It has a nice fruity taste that is easy to drink, but it's just not for me.  I didn't realize they had a wine for each season, I am intrigued and looking forward to trying the others.  I think I will like summer and fall!

Overall rating:  Thumbs half way up - a good wine if you like 'em sweet!

Now that it's winter, we have been spending a lot more time indoors.  To keep my kids entertained while trapped inside, we've been doing a lot of puzzles.  Mary has always enjoyed puzzles, but she is suddenly really good at them.  She completes two puzzles in the time that Liam does 1 (that isn't intended to be a harsh statement about Liam - everyone has different talents... Mary's includes puzzles, Liam's doesn't).  Mary has completed several 60 pieces, I think she's ready for the 100's! 

Mary gets it from me.  I love LOVE love puzzles.  Always have, always will.  It's been years since I've done them - I just don't have the time or the space for them.  I met one of my best friends through a love of puzzles, and that love entertained us for many years.  For some awesome reason, in the basement of the house I grew up in, we had an extra really big table.  Amanda and I spent countless hours hunched over that table doing puzzles, probably ruining our backs and our eyes from the dim basement light.  But we loved it, we even glued some of the best ones together afterwards and hung them on the wall.  Amanda, remember the Wizard of Oz one?!  That reminds me... I wonder what happened to those when my Dad moved out of that house? Hmmmm.... 

Anyways, I love the time spent doing a puzzle.  I usually put on some good music and just zone out for however many hours it takes.  Time seems to fly by when I'm doing a puzzle.  I love that there is a start and a finish.  There is a right or a wrong piece.  Everyone has a different approach, some people start with the edges, some sort everything by colors, others by shape - but at the end of the day, we all end up in the same spot.  Sometimes in life you can't tell if you've made any progress on something at all, or if you are even headed in the right direction.  With a puzzle, you can look and see exactly how much is done and what is left.  That is refreshing.  On the other hand, there isn't anything quite as unsettling as almost finishing a puzzle only to discover there is one piece missing.  That sense of working hard on something and not being able to finish is disturbing.  But overall, puzzles for me are relaxing and fun.

Here is a puzzle I did last weekend.  I like bigger puzzles, bigger challenge = bigger reward at the end.  But again, lack of space and time restricted me to a smaller one.  Still - I'm pleased with the results.  Might sound strange - but puzzles are a little bit of a guilty pleasure of mine.  I'm already like the biggest dork ever, so admitting I like to spend my spare time doing a puzzle doesn't really help my reputation.  I used to try to hide this love of mine and only do it in secret, but it's time I open up about who I really am... I'm a puzzle loving freak.  There you have it.

What do you do that gives you nerd status?