I'm back! After a far-too-long break, I've finally found my way home to the world of cooking, drinking, and writing about it.  Yes, I've been making plenty of time for drinking, but working has been getting in the way of everything else. I've even resorted to buying massive amounts of $1 scratch tickets in hopes of winning the big bucks. I realize this is counterproductive though, because I haven't won a thing and am just spending more money... A girl can dream, right?

So, after a string of losing scratch tickets, drunken nights out, wasted sunny days, and dreams about doing fun things, I'm turning a new leaf.  Its time to start opening up to everything thats out there.  The amount of cool shit there is to do and the amount of time that I have to do it doesn't quite match up, so I need to not let any more opportunities pass me by. By the way, I feel like this would have been an excerpt from my graduation speech (had I been valedictorian).  

In coming to this fun-stuff realization, the most logical thing I could think to do was pop some champagne. I took it one step further by making the champagne into sangria and serving it up with super fancy bruschetta.  

Here are my recipes:

Peach-Vanilla Champagne Sangria:

Ingredients:

• 2 ripe peaches
• 1 cup of pre-sliced peaches in sugar syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 bottles champagne

Directions:

1. Blend the first four ingredients until pureed
2. Get rid of any of the big chunks left from the peaches (I strained mine)
3. For each champagne flute, add about 2 tablespoons of peach mixture
4. DRINK UP!

Peach Tomato Bruschetta:

Ingredients:

• 2 ripe peaches- diced
• 2 ripe tomatoes- diced
• 1/3 cup fresh basil leaves- chopped up
• 1/2 red onion- diced
• 1/2 tsp salt & pepper
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1 fresh baguette- sliced and toasted with olive oil

Directions:

1. Mix up everything but the bread and let sit for at least 30 minutes.
2. Top the toasted baguette with the peach-tomato blend.
3. EAT!

The final (and most important) step: Sip sangria while delicately eating the bruschetta and achieve complete classiness! Congrats on being fancy! And cheers to livin' up the rest of 2012!