Cranberry Champagne Cocktail – for a Happy Thanksgiving toast

This easy and delicious Cranberry Champagne Cocktail, was created by my husband, to pair with the Cranberry Tiramisu that was served for our Halloween Italian Cooking Class/Pop Up Supper Club in Support of the Bastrop County Emergency Food Pantry.

I was not planning to post this recipe because it is so simple. However, it turned out to be the favorite drink during the event. Many of my guests requested the recipe, so here it is.

Ingredients:

  • Your favorite Champagne or sparkling wine – here we used almond flavored sparkling wine from Messina Hof
  • Cranberry Fruit Wine – the one we used is from Texas South Wind vineyard and winery

Mixing The Drink:

  • Add Cranberry Fruit Wine to a champagne flute until it is filled 1/3 of the way
  • Top it off with Champagne or your favorite bubbly wine.

Its so simple. Feel free to use Cava, Prosecco or any other sparkling wine you like. My friend, Anissa, took some great pics during the event. Here are two of my favorites featuring the Cranberry Tiramisu paired with the Cranberry Champagne Cocktail.

Everyone at the event had such a great time. Most guests ended up staying till midnight. Unfortunately, Roy Blanco, who has attended my previous events was not able to attend this time because of a last minute scheduling conflict. However, he was generous enough to still make a donation despite missing the cooking class and pop up supper club.

I saved dessert for him and invited him to visit with us the next day. Here is a photo of Roy enjoying his Cranberry Tiramisu and Cranberry Champagne Cocktail.

I first met Roy 9 years ago when he helped me establish an account at our local credit union. He has been very supportive of me, and has encouraged me to pursue my cooking project to support the Bastrop County Emergency Food Pantry. Roy has also served on the board of the food pantry for the last seven years.

On this day of Thanksgiving, I am very thankful for Roy’s support and encouragement. I am also thankful for the all the work Tresha Silva, the director of the food pantry, does on a daily basis. And Of Course, I am thankful to all who have attended my events, for their good will and contributions.

This time we were able to raise $1,175. All of the proceeds went to the Food Pantry’s Nibbles Backpack Program. This program provides weekend meals and snacks for children from low income families at Lost Pines Elementary, Red Rock Elementary, and Bastrop Intermediate schools. Especially during this time of crisis, the Nibbles Program provides food for children that may otherwise go hungry when school meals are not available. For every $10 donated, we feed a student for a whole weekend.

Again, my thanks to everyone who supported our community. Your help is greatly appreciated. 😀🙏

Hope you are having a great Thanksgiving. 💕

I have lots of photos, taken by guests at the last event. I will share them in a future post as soon as I get a chance.

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays and a prosperous New Year to everyone.  I have not been at home for most of November and December.  In November I was on the road for work–worked extra so that I could take time off in December for traveling and fun.  My husband and I started our travels in New Orleans and then took off for Europe.  Our vacations tend to be food centric.  It consisted of great dining, wine tasting and cooking classes.  I took lots of photos and videos to share with you in future blog posts.  I have posted some of my photos on Instagram at cookingwithloveandspices if you would like to see a preview.

Here are a few photos of holiday decorations in Europe.  The feature photo is from a small town in southeastern France called Bormes-les-Mimosas.  We went wine tasting in the area.

We went around the Mediterranean on a medium sized cruise ship.  I like small to medium cruise ships because it is like having a floating hotel.  I don’t have to pack and unpack as I go from place to place.  Here are a few holiday decorations on the ship.

Happy Holidays Viking

They also had a few ginger bread displays.

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One of the best food destinations on the trip was in France.  We were supposed to stop in Marseille, but were detoured to Sete because of riots in Marseille.  This was a lucky detour.  Sete is known for its oysters.  They were amazing.  Here is a pastry case in Sete filled with holiday treats.  YUM!!! So much to choose.

Happy Holidays Pastry

Here are a couple of unique Christmas Trees in Spain.  The first one is made of wine bottles.Happy Holidays Bottle Tree

The second one was in a beautiful Andalusian restaurant where I participated in a Master Chef Class cooking with a variety local sherry wines.  Happy Holidays Christmans Tree

Will share my Sherry tasting experience and the dishes we cooked in a future post.

Again, Happy Holidays and a fantastic New Year!!! 🙂