Fantastic Sangria - Alcohol optional

In high school, I was very involved in a class called ProStart, which in a updated version of the culinary side of home ec. I competed in several Iron Chef type team competitions, and got to get my picture taken with Keegan from Food Network Challenge.
Ah. The perks of high school.

Some other activities in class involved catering.... a lot of catering. So, when my mother asked me to make some things for a colleagues retirement party, I said sure... I'm not doing anything else.

I spent the next several days relizing that I was enjoying all of that doing nothing...

However, I got to try out some pretty great recipes. And when else am I going to have a reasonable excuse to make 96 mini-cupcakes?

I'll show pictures of some of the baking I did later, but I wanted to share the terrific, easy punch recipe I'm using.

Red Apple Sangria
courtesy of Martha Stewart (but I made it a lot less work)

1 bottle of Apple Juice (2 quarts, but trust me, the big bottle in the store is 2 quarts)
1 quart Orange Juice (4 cups so you don't have to look it up)
1 cup Lemon Juice
2 tablespoons Grenadine (check next to the liquor, or just steal the liquid from a jar of Maraschino cherries)
1 Orange, sliced thin
1 Lemon, sliced thin
1 Apple, you guessed right, sliced thin
1 Bottle of Sparkling White Grape Juice (it's there, not just at the holidays, you just need to look up in your local juice aisle)

This recipe makes about a gallon, so make sure you are using a big container... Or learn the hard way, like me, and run out of room for your orange juice.

Now, pour the apple juice, orange juice, lemon juice, and grenadine together, and mix. Or slosh around. Either way.

Then, layer on the fruit. If this is not being used immediately, stop here. You want to add the sparkling stuff right before you serve, or there will be no zing in your Sangria.

(Doesn't all the fruit make it pretty? It tastes better than it looks)

When you are finally ready, go head and pour in the whole bottle of the Sparkling White Grape Juice.

 (Now, I am underage, so I feel funny recommending adding any sort of liquor to this, but if you are -ahem- of age, or at least pretending to be, a bottle of wine,  a bit of rum, or any sort of citrus liquor would not be out of place in this punch.)

Enjoy! I'll post more of the recipes I used as I get time :)