What to say about this past week?? We were supposed to head down to my parents’ summer house but the lack of air conditioning and the 100+ degree heat wave made that unappealing for my husband. He actually told me I could go without him. Julius didn’t seem to mind the heat and was very happy when we took him to Davis Farmland both mornings. It wasn’t hot enough for him to go within 5 feet of the spray and play area, but he did content himself “swimming” in an enormous pool full of bubbles. Will took him on Saturday and said he spent a great deal of time in the petting zoo area. Every time Will asked him to leave the area he said “no”. Eventually Will realized that he was just afraid of Peanut the camel, whose area is at the exit of the petting zoo. “Trapped in a petting zoo”, sounds like a horror movie.
We also stayed cool inside this weekend reading some books that I picked up from Savers. In addition to some cute kids books in great condition I also found a Skip Hop Hedgehog little kid’s backpack that I thought Julius would like. He LOVED it and has taken to wearing it around the house. I woke up this morning to find Julius strolling around the bedroom in his footy pjs with the backpack on his back. Adorable. His favorite book that I got for him is this book called “Bee and Me” all about how bees are actually nice and get a bad rap. It’s also one of those motion books where you can turn the pages and see the pictures move. I know I’m starting him early on the environmental propaganda but he organically decided it was his favorite and has read the book about 80 times already. (If you think bees are propaganda… I won’t tell you I also bought him a book on RBG…)
So what did Mama do to stay cool while Julius went to bed? Drank lots of my new favorite thing – wine slushies! They are freaking amazing. You need to go make them now. Oh, but first let me tell you how they came to be. As usual these are the ultimate in laziness, just mix, shake, smash and scoop. No blender required. I looked up lots of recipes online, but all of them required a blender either before or after freezing. Cleaning more kitchen appliances? No thanks. What I really wanted to emulate were the wine slushie mixes that you can buy at wineries. They just have a bunch of powdered citric acid, ascorbic acid and sugar, that you mix with water and a bottle of wine. No need to blend. I would like someone who knows more about the molecular structure of water to tell me why this works, but it seems like citrus works great to make the perfect wine slushy.
Wine slushies: left is orange pineapple riesling, right is cherry limeade sauvignon blanc
Wine Slushies
Ingredients
- *1 cup wine (we used cheap white wine – riesling and sauv blanc were both excellent. I wouldn’t recommend a chardonnay because a lot of cheap chardonnays have that nasty fake American oak flavor)
- 1 cup citrus juice (we tried pineapple, orange and pineapple-orange and my personal favorite cherry limeade – recipe below)
- gallon ziplock bag
Pour ingredients into a gallon bag. Shake vigorously for a minute then put the bag directly in freezer. Wait overnight for the mixture to freeze, then remove from freezer and squish or pound gently on counter to form into slush. Scoop into glasses and serve.
*to make in larger quantities just do 1 part wine to 1 part juice. If you prefer a more wine forward flavor you can increase the proportions up to 2 parts wine to 1 part juice. We tried this, but our personal favorite was still 1:1.
Cherry Limeade Wine Slushies
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup lemonade
- 1/4 cup lime juice
- 2 tsp grenadine
- 1 cup white wine (Riesling or Sauvignon blanc were perfect)
- gallon ziplock bag
Pour ingredients into a gallon bag. Shake vigorously for a minute then put the bag directly in freezer. Wait overnight for the mixture to freeze, then remove from freezer and squish or pound gently on counter to form into slush. Scoop into glasses and serve.
Shake vigorously
Freeze in gallon bags, then kneed until turns into slush
