La Granja Cava Brut

We bought a bottle of this La Granja Cava Brut at the Winter Park, Florida Trader Joe’s to drink for New Year’s Eve 2016 – HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 

David, already excited and we have not even popped the cork!

I picked it out because we really like another La Granja wine so this one caught my eye (oh my goodness, I don’t think I have reviewed the other one we like!!  Shame on me – add that to my increasingly long “to do” list…).  Anyway, I figured if La Granja makes one really good wine, maybe this one would be equally tasty.

We do not usually buy sparkling wines, but since it was NEW YEAR’S, I figured we should follow tradition.  Don’t wanna screw up the whole year just by drinking the wrong thing at the stroke of midnight, ya know???  Instead of champagne, we went with this.

Pop this in the fridge and wait until New Year's Eve....

First off – the label is ADORABLE.  David says, “It looks like a duck (with blue feathers) that has just exploded!” (In all honesty, he made that observation after he had already drunk a bit of the wine…).  We served it chilled with an omelet, hashbrowns, eggplant, and broccoli. 

Adorable exploding blue duck.  Or goose...  

Here is my take:  sparkling wines and champagnes are usually not my favorite, but this is very good!  It is not too dry and not too sweet.  It is not so bubbly that it “hurts your mouth”.  It is just a nice taste with a bit of fizz.  I like it!  it is good for a special occasion.  I give this a 4.5.

David’s opinion:  This actually has a fair bit of fizz – it is in the champagne zone.  Most “good champagne”, which I tend not to like, has lots of bubbles and very little taste.  It tries to be “ethereal” that way.  But this one has a lot of TASTE, and I like that in a wine.  So sue me – I like a little taste in my wine!  J  Susan is right on all accounts: the bubble-age is correct for us, the flavor quotient is fine (nicely balanced between brut and sweet), and so if you hate champagne, you will love this!  Champagne is so over-rated!  But if you would like a sparkling wine, have a sparkling wine!  I give this a 4. 

CHEERS! (And yes, I know the glass is the wrong shape for a sparkling wine.  Hey, we are rule-breakers!)

We both agreed that this is a good choice to drink for a special occasion and that it would be nice to drink while sitting outside on a hot summer night.  We drank it in FLORIDA, so while it was warm, it was not HOT and we were not sitting outside, we were sitting INSIDE on a sofa (watching Anderson Cooper giggle at Kathy Griffin on CNN).

Significantly cheaper than other "fancy" wines, but just as tasty (in our opinions)

I also want to tell let you in on a little New Year’s Eve tradition that we have: at the stroke of midnight (when the ball drops in Times Square), we each eat 12 grapes.  It is a tradition from Spain, and they say if you eat 12 green grapes at midnight and finish them within one minute, you will get 12 wishes in the New Year.  MY take on it is if you eat 12 grapes (either green or red, I don’t police the color) and finish them within one minute, you will have a good new year!!  (Cuz why limit the goodness to 12 wishes, right??)  It is a very fun tradition and I recommend you try it!  It makes me giggle every year (which makes gulping the grapes harder, but I haven’t choked on any yet (knock on wood).

Here you see my patented TWO HANDED GRAPE EATING technique.
I do not want to take any chances of not finishing all 12 grapes in one minute, folks!

And let me tell you about ONE MORE THING while we are here – look at my new shopping bag!  Isn’t it fabulous??  I ordered it online at http://emilymcdowell.com/ . I had seen some cool pins that she was selling and when I went to get one for my big sister Sherry (I got her the one that says “Kicked Cancer’s Ass”, it was a hit) I saw this shopping bag and, well, I had to have it.  I carried to Trader Joe’s last night (and secretly was disappointed that people didn’t notice it and chuckle). 

My new Emily McDowell tote bag!  You need one!  Website listed above

But back to La Granja Cava Brut:  if you are not normally a champagne drinker, but you want to pretend like something is “fancy” and therefore calls for bubbles, grab a bottle of this.  It will do the trick.

Price:  $6.99

Rating: 4.25

Day 176 - Mushroom Mochi

Followers of this blog will know that a couple of months ago we hosted what we called a Trader Joe’s Dinner Party.  Everything we served was from TJ’s, and we had forms for the guests to fill out and rate each product.  Those scores were then averaged and used in the blog. 

 

TJ's dinner party ingredients - the Mushroom Mochi are on the far left of the photo near the kumatos and cheese...

Well, one problem was that we had purchased SO MANY items to use for the party (each review sheet had 26 products listed) that we FORGOT to cook and serve one!  Yes, the Mushroom Mochi stayed in the freezer until the middle of the dinner, when one guest saw it listed on the review sheet and said something like, “Can you pass the Mushroom Mochi?” to which I had to reply, “Ummmm….”, because I could NOT pass them, they were still frozen.

Oops - forgot to take the box out of the freezer...

And they remained frozen until last night.  We got home late from a rehearsal, I was exhausted, plus I have a bad cold.  So we needed something EASY and quick.  We ended up busting out the mochi and serving it with rice, fresh green beans, and peas. 

Here they are on a plate!

The box calls the little mochi “potsticker dumplings”.  I do not think that is a great description though, because they do not taste like any potstickers I have ever had.  There are 3 cooking instructions – microwave, steam, or stove top.  I did the stove top method and it was very easy and took a total of around 8 minutes. 

Cooking - heat in a pan (sprayed with Pam), then add water, cover, and steam

One word the box uses to describe these is “toothsome”.  Wow, that’s an adjective you do not see often!  In fact, let’s look it up.  Here is what dictionary.com has to say: 

1.        pleasing to the taste; palatable:   a toothsome dish.

2.        pleasing or desirable, as fame or power.    

3.       voluptuous; sexually alluring:   a toothsome blonde.

I am going to go with definition number one – pleasing to the taste.  These were pleasing to the taste! They were ODD, that’s for sure.  The first bite you definitely notice the TEXTURE more than the taste.  The mochi part is very gooey, but gooey in a good way.  It is hard to explain.  And the mushroom filling is really tasty. 

The box also tells us that in Japan they make mochi dumplings to celebrate New Year and guarantee good health in the upcoming year.  I will have to ask my friend Yanomi if this is true.  In any event, I think I will add these to our New Years Eve celebration traditions, right along with eating 12 green grapes in one minute at the stroke of midnight!

So even though we did not EAT the Mushroom Mochi at the dinner party, one clever guest still reviewed it.  Here is what she had to say:

-          “Probably would have been awesome but unfortunately we never got that chance.”

I say – get these.  Try them out.  My only other experience with mochi that I remember has been on top of frozen yogurt and I love it, but that is COLD.  This is a totally different taste and sensation eating it warm.

Quite cheap for such a taste experiment - go for it!

P.S.  – I dare you to try and casually throw the word “toothsome” into a conversation sometime this week!

Price - $2.99 (for 12 pieces)

Rating – 4.5