Aug 13, 2014, Updated Oct 04, 2023 When I return with my bounty, I am (1.) tired from the vast excitement of the Farmers’ Market experience and (2.) anxious to get back outdoors to enjoy the sunshine, so I don’t want to spend hours in the kitchen. Happily, throwing together fresh, simple-but-elegant meals is easy after selecting the best produce – because beautiful, farm-fresh ingredients just speak for themselves. I go for minimal preparation, but finish with polish – such as a showering of lush herbs and a drizzle of your best olive oil. It’s the culinary equivalent wearing luxe red lipstick with an easy, worn-in cotton sundress. Today, I used my fresh-from-the-orchard finds to bring you two more beautiful winetails to celebrate summer. They’re easy, and casually chic. The first one might blow your mind. It’s a winesicle! I’m so hooked. I blended Ecco Domani Merlot – a soft, smooth red – with fresh, pitted cherries and poured it into popsicle molds for a frozen wine cocktail. They’ve got serious style, and I’m sure they’d be a hit at parties – not to mention a great conversation starter. And so easy! The fresh cherries really play up the wine’s own ripe cherry flavour. Because of the alcohol content, these popsicles won’t freeze as hard and will melt faster than other ice pops. Run them under hot water until they release easily, or they might break. Serve them with cloth napkins to catch drips – don’t bother ironing them, I love the rumpled casual-but-still-classy look of natural cotton or linen. The second winetail is a stylish-but-approachable sangria. Ecco Domani Merlot is stirred with ripe plums and peaches, a splash of brandy, and topped up with ginger beer. The smooth, fruit-forward wine is a perfect canvas for a juicy, stone-fruit cocktail. The recipe is for two servings, but to make a pitcher, just triple the recipe (one bottle of wine is 3 cups). Some easy, elegant summer food pairings include: – Oven-burst cherry tomatoes tossed with linguine, garlic and olive oil, finished with parmigiano reggiano and lots of fresh basil. – Grilled steak topped with reduced-merlot compound butter (reduce ? cup merlot to 1 tbsp in a small saucepan, cool, then stir into ½ cup softened butter with minced shallot), finished with lots of fresh parsley. – Grilled lamb kebabs drizzled liberally with a fresh, garlicky, cilantro-parsley chimichurri.
Ingredients
1 ½ cups Ecco Domani Merlot 1 ½ cups fresh cherries, pitted 6 oz simple syrup 12 popsicle sticks
Preparation
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