Apple Sangria

Marisa's September 2010 Cooking Light magazine had a lot of great fall recipes I really want to try.  I love fall.  It is by far my favorite season for so many reasons.  The air is cool and crisp, so I can blow dry my hair and it won't fro out.  Sweaters, leggings and boots are great outfits.  The subway trains aren't 1,000 degrees and I don't sweat buckets on my way to work (no, I was not in spin class...just waiting for the 6 train).  I love apples and pumpkins and fall squash.  I also love halloween, which is the best fall holiday EVER.  Coincidentally, I also love sangria.  Apples and sangria?  Sold.  

Well, we were heading to Julee's goodbye party, and thought it would be nice to meet up beforehand. So I decided to try out my Apple Sangria recipe.

Tasty and sweet honeycrisp apples.  Crisp alright! 

How do you like 'em apples?

Well, this is packed with antioxidants! Apples and oranges...cinnamon, ginger and cloves...

When I told the dude at trader joe's that I was making a sangria with apples and oranges, he suggested this wine, from no other than Willamette Valley! This reminded me of Marya, since she went to law school there.

Per Lavina and Val's suggestion, I should have used the left over fruit in my Monday morning greek yogurt! Heh heh...weekend doesn't stop on Sunday! 

Apple Sangria, loosely adapted from cooking light

Note that this recipe yields only 4 servings.  What?  only ONE glass per person if you have 4 people over? Lame!  But I guess that's "healthy"? If you want more, I'd double up the wine and put in 2 bottles and not just one.  Also, the recipe as called from the link above had WAY TOO MUCH FRUIT.  I had leftovers that I ate the next day.  So keep that in mind too.  I didn't include the apple schnapps because I couldn't find it, and also left out the club soda.  Didn't want any dilution.

• 3 1/2 pounds of diced honeycrisp apples (you could probably reduced that to one pound)
• 1/4 cup honey
• 4 whole cloves
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 2 slices fresh peeled ginger
• 1 large navel orange, quartered
• 1 bottle fruity red wine (I used a Pinot Noir)

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl, or your sangria pitcher.  Make sure that it chills for at least 4 hours, if not longer. 

Serve in wine glasses, garnishing with a thin slice of apple if so desired.  

I def loved this recipe, but next time I would use less fruit and throw in another bottle of wine to serve 3 guests.