Sparkling wine jelly and a giveaway

I want to share something with you: my kitchen is one of my favourite places. It has a southern exposure, that means scorching heat in the summer but simply lovely autumn and winter afternoons... Like right now. I go through my many cookbooks sitting there on our bar stools, at our table, and sometimes I take my laptop too. I was there when I received another CSN gift code to giveaway among my readers (are you there?). It's time to start planning Christmas shopping already, don't you think? Maybe you'll also fancy the main ingredient in this recipe for your celebrations. This is a great way to use up sparkling wine or champagne leftovers, now that Christmas is approaching (yes, summer was over and the next thing you know is Christmas is around the corner). But my conscience is at ease because, after all, this is a fridge-cleaning recipe... ahem. Although in my household it is not a common occurrence that there is sparkling wine left while I am around. I know that the first step to overcoming a problem is acknowledging it, and I acknowledge it bluntly but I do not want to change. Nononono, no matter what. I looove a good cava. Slurp. But despite my dedication to the cause, life recently provided us with half a bottle that was quietly degassing, poor thing, and I decided to try this concoction I had seen in a French magazine, here. And I liked it, because in addition to having it for dessert, I find it could make an excellent addition to other dishes, also savory... Can you imagine a good liver terrine with diced cava jelly? And pink colored cava can be very decorative.


As for the giveaway, it amounts exactly to $75 to be spent on any of the varied CSN Stores (my favourite is the kitchen&dining section... go figure). And what do you have to do?

• Just subscribe to my blog on Google Connect and leave word of it in a comment. All readers already subscribed just need to say so to enter. Complicated? ...
  
• Deadline: you have till November 20th, 12pm GMT, to do so, each comment will be given a number and then I will use a random number generator to pick the winner.
  
• As usual, unfortunately the giveaway is open only to US and Canada residents.

And now to the recipe. This dessert is so easy to make that I feel almost embarrassed to explain how. Here we go.

Sparkling wine jelly
Yields 2 plentiful glasses or 3 scant glasses

• 350ml cava brut or other sparkling wine (watch for the sweetness, cava brut is not very sweet, so reduce the sugar or agave nectar if using a sweeter wine)
• 4 sheets gelatin
  
• 2 tbsp agave syrup (say 3 tbsp sugar)
• Red berries for garnish

1. Hydrate the gelatin sheets in a bowl with cold water according to the package instructions.
   
2. Take a cup of the wine and warm it up to about 60-70ºC, the minimum amount possible in order to dissolve the gelatin. Only a portion is used to prevent degassing the wine completely. Add the softened gelatin and stir in the warm wine until it is dissolved.
   
3. Then add the remaining wine and mix thoroughly. Choose some nice wine glasses and pour the jelly very carefully to avoid splashing on the sides, for the sake of an "elegant" presentation just like we deserve... Cool to room temperature first (do not put hot things in the fridge, that's ecological terrorism.) When cooled, transfer the glasses to the fridge to finish setting.
   
4. Serve chilled garnished with the red berries, a perfect match.
   

So what do you think? Do you fancy a glass of chilled cava? I do. (And how very eye-catching are glass objects...)