Girl Scout Cookie Wine Pairings

I don’t know what it’s been like around your neck of the woods lately but here, it’s GIRL SCOUT COOKIE SEASON. Now, with this whole healthy eating thing that we’ve been doing, Girl Scout Cookies aren’t exactly part of our “approved diet”. Thank goodness for cheat days.

If you remember my post about pairing Halloween candy with wine, then you know I have awesome friends willing to do pretty much anything if it includes wine. Well, thanks to the internet, a friend found this post about pairing wine with Girl Scout Cookies. Needless to say, this event was planned immediately.

The big night finally arrived and my friends even put up with me staging all of the cookies and wine together for blog photos before diving in. We had 8 different cookies and 10 different wines – waiting was no easy feat. But, everything looked so amazing when it was all put together. It made the whole thing seem very official!

We also learned some things about cookies since we couldn't find all of the flavors on this list. Apparently there are different bakers and so not every cookies is available everywhere! Who knew? So, our cookies and pairings were a bit different than the list above but creativity is good!

Here’s our pairings and what everyone thought about each one:

Rah-Rah Raisins with Cotes Du Rhone Reserve

Last year was the first time I had these cookies and they are AWESOME. According to other suggestions online, this one should be paired with a Bordeaux. This wine is technically a rouge but close enough. It was smooth, bright and the subtle fruits but deep flavor were a perfect match to the cookie. 

Savannah Smiles with Old Green Tractor White Blend/Framboise Raspberry Lambic

This was another new cookie for us and again - AWESOME. We paired this one with two different drinks - a local white blend and a raspberry lambic. The light, crisp and citrusy flavor of the wine was absolutely perfect with the cookie. And let me tell you, the raspberry lambic with the lemon also simply delicious. This cookie and the two drinks were the favorite pairing of the night!

Thin Mints with Beritage Lodi Red

The suggested pairing online for Thin Mints was Pinot Noir but we went a bit off the reservation with this interesting choice. It was one I had on hand from a fund raiser and wanted to try it. It was an easy sipping wine but still full of flavor. Mint is very difficult to pair with wine and while this one was good, everyone seemed to enjoy the cookies and wine separate.

Toffee-tastics with Chateau Ste Michelle Riesling

Most of us had never tried this cookie before either but it kind of fell short of expectations. There was really no flavor to the cookie at all. I think the Riesling was the right wine to pair with this cookie but since the cookie wasn't very good, we moved on pretty quickly.

Samoas with Agua de Piedra Malbec

This next pairing was another favorite of the evening. I mean, who doesn't love Samoas first of all? Then we paired it with this light, fruity Malbec. The light flavor of the wine held up well against the richness of the cookie.

Tagalongs with Magistrate Cabernet Sauvignon

Tagalongs are my favorite Girl Scout Cookie so I was excited to see them paired up with wine. Peanut Butter can be hard to pair so I wasn't sure how this one would go. I'm also not usually a huge fan of Cab Sauv. I was surprised though at how good this pairing was. The heavy wine was exactly what this rich, creamy cookie needed.

Trefoils with Barboursville Chardonnay

It was nice that we had a good balance of white wines and reds paired up with all the cookies. The Trefoils with the Chardonnay was a super light, easy pairing that worked really well. It would be really easy to down a ton of these cookies and a bottle of this wine so be careful!

Do-si-dos with James River Cellars Merlot

Our last pairing of the night was Do-Si-Dos with a local Merlot from James River Cellars. This Merlot is a bit lighter than most but the flavors were still deep enough to match up with the peanut butter. This one was good but again another one where they were better enjoyed separately.

So there you have it - our Girl Scout Cookie Wine Night! It was a huge success and we will probably make this a yearly tradition. 

What's your favorite Girl Scout Cookie and what wine will YOU pair with it?

The Possibility Dogs

The Possibility Dogs by Susannah Charleson
Publisher - Mariner Books
Publish Date - June 2014
Genre - Non-Fiction















My Rating:

I was gifted this book for Christmas by a co-worker. We are both dog lovers and many of our conversations seemed to find their way back to our four-legged friends. I don't read a whole lot of non-fiction but my co-worker raved about Charleson's other book "Scent of the Missing" and thought I would enjoy this one.

The Possibility Dogs is about how Charleson learns that her relationship with her search and rescue dog,

Puzzle, is much deeper than just a work relationship. This realization inspires her and she begins to delve into the world of service dogs.

She not only learns and gets involved with the service dog world, she focuses on taking abandoned shelter dogs and pairing them with people who could benefit most from a service dog pairing.

Charleson tells so many heartwarming stories about dogs she meets in shelters, people that already have service dogs and of her own dogs, Puzzle included. 

She ends up with an unlikely friend and service partner in Jake Piper, a scraggly, abandoned stray that was given a second chance at life. It's Jake Piper who turns out to be just what Charleson needed in her life.

This book was so much more than just the science

and process behind how a service dog comes to be. It makes you think, it makes you laugh and it makes you cry. The way that Charleson tells her stories and the dog's stories is captivating. It makes you really feel and understand the depth and importance of dog/human interaction. 

If you love dogs, want to know more about the healing powers they can bring or just love a heartwarming true story then read this book. You simply won't be able to put it down.


Pair This With: Portrait of a Mutt Zinfandel

I had to find a good "doggie" wine out there to share with you all and this Zin is just the ticket. It's fruit forward, medium-bodied and smooth. This wine comes from Mutt Lynch Winery and a portion of proceeds from every bottle sold goes to help local rescue organizations - how can you go wrong!?

30 Days - No French Fries

This post is a bit off my normal topic train but, I hope you'll come on this journey with me. It's been decided by the powers that be (aka my pants) that it's time to get on the healthy train and try to shed a few pounds.

Now, you might be thinking "This isn't a bad thing! Lots of people do this!" and you would be correct. I, however, am not "lots of people". I say this for two reasons: first, I admit that for most of my life, I have been blessed with a ridiculous metabolism and I've never struggled with weight. Then 30 happened. Second, I DON'T LIKE VEGETABLES. And, it appears that to eat healthy, you are supposed to eat a lot of them. You see this little girl? That's me.

But, my pants are winning this argument and I have admitted defeat in the vegetable battle. I figured it's much cheaper to eat better and try to lose weight than to buy new pants (note: this thought occurred BEFORE I made my first "healthy" trip to the grocery store. More on that later.)

So, here we are on a 30 day healthy eating adventure. It's not just dinner either - this is 3 meals a day plus snacks. All healthy. Broccoli help me.

Since I have an aversion to what I assumed was all healthy foods, my husband and I decided to peruse the internet for healthy recipes that we could combine together into our own 30 Day Healthy Eating Plan. I ended up finding this cool website that had 84 quick and healthy meals.I liked this site because it gave you breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for 4 weeks AND gave you a shopping list.

We have completed our first week and let me tell you - it's not the eating that's the hard part. It's all the planning and meal prep that goes in to this. No wonder you lose weight because by the time you are done slicing, dicing and containerizing you don't even WANT to eat anymore. OK - I'm lying about that part but you get the idea.

There are a lot of options for every meal every week so we aren't using all of them. Frankly, it's way too exhausting to think about eating and planning a different breakfast and lunch every single day. We doubled up on some of those to save time, sanity and money.

So, what did we eat our first week? Get to it already! Let me start by saying, I have NOT given up wine during this month. I know you were concerned. I'm trying to lose weight and eat healthy, not be completely miserable.

For breakfast each day, I toasted up a whole grain english muffin with a bit of almond butter with a side of fruit. In addition to vegetables, whole grains also seem to be important. Also, potatoes are not whole grains much to my dismay. Amazingly enough, the almond butter was delicious and the whole grain english muffin wasn't terrible.

It seems as though fruit is a completely acceptable snack so we went to the store and bought ALL OF THE FRUIT. It was kind of ridiculous how much we bought but we were convinced that we were going to be starving and in need of constant nourishment.

For lunch, we had 2 different recipes for the week. First was a chicken caesar salad complete with cherry tomatoes and red onion and a dash of parmesan cheese. I ate the tomatoes and onions and you know what? It was really good! I also made up some pizza pita pockets complete with whole grain pitas, low fat mozzarella and pepperoni. On the side was fruit and these DELICIOUS brown rice, sesame and flax seed crackers. Go find these - they are seriously good.

Now for our dinners. This was more of an adventure for us. Our week consisted of a cheesy chicken and veggie pasta (whole grain of course), cajun chicken breast with cous cous and roasted peppers, pork chops with balsamic green beans and brown rice, a steak and arugala salad and finally a walnut apple salad with grilled chicken. This was all healthy! I was as shocked as you are (or aren't as apparently I've been living under the anti-vegetable rock).

This was my first time ever having cous cous. I didn't even know what it was but the website told me to eat it. We got this rosemary and garlic blend and it was seriously good with the chicken and peppers. 

My favorite meal of the week though was the pork chops and balsamic green beans. While I HATED the brown rice, the beans and chops were so good. We seasoned up the pork with some delicious tuscany inspired spices and grilled them on our George Foreman. The green beans were fresh and cooked up with (bless the healthy food gods for not being completely horrible) ONE slice of bacon, balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper. I could eat these every night they were that good.

So, it's a wrap on week one and I have to say we not only survived, but I'm also not dying of starvation. Yea!

I'll be blogging more about the recipes as we go week to week and I'll even throw in some wine pairings for good measure. Just don't drink wine EVERY night. At least that's what Google tells me.