How hard could homemade Sangria be, really? Who could screw up something so easy? That would be me.
The real bummer is that I even got a couple of not-too-bad pictures for once, and now I can only use them to tell you about my flop! So first, check out these shots, and then I'll tell you what happened…
We had family coming over for the 4th of July and were having one of our very favorites: Fajitas with marinated grassfed flank steaks. We also had homemade guac. What else goes great with those foods than Sangria, right? I should have just found a recipe online but noooooooo, I had to go and try to make my own. I made two huge pitchers full, thinking we'd sip on it all afternoon on that hot day. {Wrong.}
I threw in some of my favorite red wine (I like the cheap sweet stuff that comes in a gallon glass jug) and lots of fruit, along with homemade kefir soda, thinking that would give it a nice fizz. It wasn't fizzy enough so I also added a sparkling water, and then a little bit of coconut sugar. Lastly, I added some fresh lime juice.
It was just too sweet. Even for me. BUMMER!
One thing that did go over well, though, was the “Kids Sangria” that I also made, which was basically just homemade kefir soda, some fresh lime juice (just enough so the kids see what you're doing and it looks like what you did to the “adult” one) and lots of fruit. Maybe it's because they don't get sweet drinks much, but my kids were all over this and my nephews liked it, too.
Have you had any food (or beverage) flops lately? I'd love to know that I'm not the only one, so tell us about it in the comments!
Want to learn from more of my mistakes?
Read about my past Food Flops. You'll have to scroll past this one, which will show up first. I'll list a few here:
- I burned my nuts
- Lessons in how NOT to make your pie crust
- Globby apple cake dough
- Recreating restaurant food…NOT
Dani says
Oh, I have to tell you, when I first saw “sangria,” I thought, “Oh, I’ll bet she put raspberries in and they disintegrated…” Cuz that was MY personal sangria flop!
Jeanmarie says
I love your photos, Kelly! I’ve had so many food failures, I can’t remember anything memorable, though. Nothing is a total loss, however, unless the dogs won’t eat it. In fact, if the dogs won’t eat it, usually the chickens will. My compost pile is starving because the dogs, goats and chickens eat all our scraps.
KitchenKop says
You all are cracking me up!
JCF says
When my husband and I were first married, he was a vegetarian. A vegetarian friend had given us a Moosewood cookbook for a wedding gift, and so I tried a recipe in it called “Tofu Nut Balls.” Honestly, I have no idea why I even chose that recipe to try, because the name alone sounds horrible, but I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time. Anyway, the recipe called for a TON of ingredients, and took kind of a long time to make. Long story short–they were totally inedible. It is the only thing in 7 years of marriage and cooking dinner almost every night that has just gone straight to the trash because it was just so bad (and I don’t even think I messed up the recipe–it was just a gross recipe). We joke about that constantly, and I spent the next few years trying to convert him to eating meat (I won eventually, about 3 years ago).
Commenter via Facebook says
Sounds like you could fix it by adding something unsweetened?
Robin says
Hi Kelly! We LOVE sangria, and I finally decided to try making it myself and used this: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/red-wine-sangria-recipe/index.html
It. Was. Awesome. It was actually a little strong for me, but I’m a total lightweight when it comes to alcohol. My husband LOVED it though. I think next time I would use less brandy overall, and maybe just let him add more if he likes to his own. You can really be flexible with the fruit/juices, depending on what you have on hand, but I don’t think I would use kefir (and I’ve never had sangria that was carbonated???). Anyway, DEFINATELY worth trying again :-).
Also, if I’m looking for recipes, I usually try foodnetwork first and have had great luck with that if you know which chefs to look for (there are a handful who never used processed stuff and usually have great recipes, like Bobby Flay, Ina Garten, etc.), but using that as a starting point really helps to narrow down the options and find something quickly.
It wasn’t recent, but my biggest food flop ever was years ago, not too long after college and living on my own, and I had bought and decorated a pumpkin for halloween. Well, not wanting to throw away all that great pumpkin, I thought I’d make pumpkin bread! It was completely unedible, truly the nastiest thing I’ve ever made. I couldn’t figure out why, until I learned that you don’t use the stringy stuff from inside the pumpkin to cook with!!! Yep, I used all the gooey orange stringy stuff that you scoop out, not realizing that it was the wrong part (and also didn’t realize at the time that you don’t use those large field pumpkins anyway for cooking). Still makes me kind of laugh at myself to think about! 😛
Linda says
I am not proud of this. I made mayo yesterday and I had forgotten to take an egg out earlier to get to room temp. Well, I was in a hurry and threw it in anyway. I guess that’s why it never emulsified. It looks a little like mayo on the bottom, but you can see the olive oil sitting on top. I don’t know if it can be fixed, but I can’t throw it out. I used expensive olive oil, which I hope is pure. It may just become salad dressing.
I have made mayo many times before and it never failed so It is important to use room temp eggs.
By the way, I have been wanting to make sangria, just haven’t gotten around to it. I never thought to use kefir pop.
KitchenKop says
Linda, have you tried this to fix your mayo?!
https://kellythekitchenkop.com/2011/09/what-to-do-when-your-mayonnaise-wont-set-how-to-thicken-failed-mayo.html
Linda says
I just checked out your link. That’s a good one. What I did was take the jar out of the fridge to warm up to room temp, then use my immersion blender to mix it up again and it worked! Hopefully, next time I will remember room temp egg before I start.
Leah says
in this house there is usually at least one flop a week but the big ones always come when we’re having company. it’s usually the one thing i’ve worked the hardest on. today we get to decant our first batch of blackberry wine. crossing fingers that its going to be GREAT. All I can say is that its a sign we’re just a bit more adventurous. I mean who else has 8-9 things fermenting on the counter at any given time?
Laura @ StealthyMom says
That flop does not sound near as bad as my cauliflower muffins. Had a cauliflower, see…they are moist and sweet when you cook them, so why not blend them up and disguise them as chocolate? The batter tasted divine, and the baked product was moist and velvety. Somehow, a chemical reaction upon baking made this into the worst tasting thing I have tried in a long time. Even the squirrels in the yard would not touch them.
KitchenKop says
LOL!! Darn those chemical reactions anyway! 🙂