mulled wine, alcohol free

Agonising about how to make a good substitute for potent, punchy and booze laden mulled wine, for the school Christmas Concert I started researching how to reduce alcohol from wine, as well as the many varieties of spice used to give that lovely flavour. I do like a bit of heat and the alcoholic hum you get from hot spicy booze, but it just wasn't an option.

Alcohol in wine varies hugely, scanning the shelves most were 14%, the lowest I found was 8%. It seems a while since most wine maxed out at 11%. Received wisdom says that if you boil wine or spirits for 30 seconds th alcohol is reduced to almost nothing. That's still almost, not nothing. The answer? Grape juice.

1l grape juice (good quality red)
500ml cranberry juice
500ml orange juice
6 heaped tbsp demerera sugar
1 slice lemon
orange or clementine, sliced
cinnamon stick
6 cloves
heaped tbsp garam masala

make a bag out of an old bit of cloth (clean of course), knotting the corners on the diagonal
with all the spices inside

put the bag of spices (use a sachet if you like) and the sugar into a large pan
add lemon slice, grape juice, cranberry and orange juices
heat to just under the boil and allow to brew for 15m
taste and add more sugar if needed

This delicious alcohol-free mixture was very popular, and soon sold out. In fact quite a few people had several glasses, two said it had helped their sore throat and two others asked for my recipe.

drink up!

warming winter supper

This snowy weather is making everything look lovely, and causing us to wrap up warm. I'm sitting and typing in four layers with a scarf, because I'm not keeping the central heating on all day. I like to think I look poetic, although to the more critical eye I may look like a rather tall pile of unruly laundry.

Anyway, less heating from the outside concentrates the mind on heating from the inside, and of course cooking can keep you warm! Supper tonight: one pan coconut dhal, rice, ginger potatoes and cabbage stir fry. 

All the dishes for this supper can be made separately, this combo is for the greedy if there are few of you. It's a vege feast, you could of course add a nice bit of meat, chicken skewers maybe? The recipe for one pan coconut dhal is here.

Also I do love using lime juice, I love the look of limes. Still, I'm not shy of using the bottled kind. If you have no lime use lemon, the result is slightly less perfumed but still good.

I like to have a little fresh salad on the side too, chopped tomato, onion, cucumber, sprinkle of cumin, grind of pepper and salt, squeeze of lemon and pinch of sugar. Add chopped coriander if you want, too. I know there are people who feel it's an overwhelming flavour, so if you're one of them, don't. If you're one of them you probably won't be interested in most of the recipes on this page. I'm not one of them.

Recipes to follow:

Dry fried ginger potatoes

Cabbage stir fry

Rice