A very belated note on my Thanksgiving

I have been wanting to make this post for a while, but haven't had a chance. Better late than never.

My Thanksgiving was wonderful, but I wanted to highlight one recipe in particular. Martha Stewart's bay-leaf infused champagne cocktail was absolutely wonderful. They were incredibly easy to do, and a good way to make very cheap wine special and delicious.


Ingredients
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup water
2 dried bay leaves
2 bottles sparkling rose, preferably cava
4 blood oranges, cut into segments

I didn't add the oranges because I forgot about them. For wine, I used a $6 bottle of rose cava from Trader Joe's.

Directions
Bring sugar and water to a boil, stirring until sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat, add bay leaves.

The recipe suggests leaving the bay leaves in for 20 minutes. The syrup didn't really have much of a bay taste or scent at that point, so I just left the bay leaves in overnight. I figured I could always redo it the next day if it was too strong. It wasn't - it was perfect. So, I suggest leaving it in as long as you'd like.

Pour 2 teaspoons syrup and 1/2 cup rose into each of 16 glasses, and stir. Garnish with orange segments.

And that's it. Really easy and really festive.