iced ginger lemon green tea

Do you want to know what's not a good idea?

Drinking too much wine, staying up way too late, getting 3.5 hours sleep, and being responsible for a small child while massively hungover. 

That was my Saturday morning. The sound of the coffee brewing sounded like nails on a chalkboard. 

My head was pouring, my mouth was like a desert, I was still in the red wine fog, yet I had to feed/change/entertain a 3 month old. 

Bad, bad, bad, very horrible situation.

Lesson learned. Next time, drink non-red wine drinks.

Ginger lemon green tea. Much better. Clean, fresh, sweet, spicy, no risk of hangover, much better choice. 

Unless you add vodka or gin to it......

Not saying that's a bad idea......

Iced ginger lemon green tea

[ from the Kitchn ]

1/4 oz good quality Chinese green tea leaves

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup agave syrup

3/4 ginger syrup (recipe below)

lemon slices for garnish

Place the tea leaves in a large bowl. Boil 3 1/2 cups of cold water and then let rest for 5 minutes. pour hot water over the tea leaves and let steep for 5 minutes. Strain, keeping the liquid and throwing out the tea leaves. 

In a large pitcher, mix together the lemon juice, steeped green tea, agave syrup, ginger syrup, and 8 cups of cold, filtered water. Stir well and let sit the refrigerator overnight. 

Serve with lots of ice and lemon slices for garnish.

Ginger syrup

This recipe makes about 5 cups, which is much more than the 3/4 cup that you need in this recipe. Keep the extras for more of this delicious tea or add 3 tablespoons a cup of club soda and you've got homemade ginger ale. Aren't you fancy?

1/2 lb fresh ginger root, with skin on

3 cups white sugar

2 cups water

Cut the ginger into 1/2-inch nubs and whizz in the food processor until the pieces are fine and stringy, like small wood chips. 

Place the sugar and water in a medium-sized saucepan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer until sugar has dissolved. Add the ginger and turn off the heat. Let saucepan cool on the stove and then place in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day, strain the syrup twice through a fine mesh strainer to get all the little bits out. Store unused syrup in an airtight jar. This syrup will keep for a couple of weeks as long as it is refrigerated.

homemade chai concentrate

I try to only go to Starbucks once a week.

I think of it as my weekly treat. A fancy coffee for myself, if it's only once a week it's not bad.

The problem is, I love their chai tea lattes. I could drink them everyday.

Not so helpful to the budget.

Why couldn't I make it at home? The tea bags you buy at Starbucks don't seem to do the trick and I'm not spending the money on the pre-made concentrate you can buy in the stores.

Thank you to my endless hours of browsing food sites, because you solved my problem. Make my own chai concentrate.

All it took was a few trips to store to find some hard to get ingredients, a pot of boiling water, and 20 minutes to spare.

The best part is, the total cost of ingredients, if you can find them in bulk, was less than what I was paying for 1 chai latte at Starbucks. Plus I got a ton more to make multiple batches.

So for my Sunday morning, I heated up some chai concentrate, steamed up some milk and made my own chai latte. Warm, spicy, sweet, creamy, all those things that I love. And I don't even have to get dressed or brush my hair to get it.

Homemade chai concentrate
[ from Tasty Yummies ]

Makes about 4 cups or enough to fit in a 1L mason jar.


4 1/2 cups cold, filtered water
8 bags black tea, I used Tetley orange pekoe
2 cinnamon sticks
1 vanilla bean, cut lengthwise in half ( or 1 tablespoon of extract added at the very end)
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 3-inch section of fresh ginger, cut into sections
10 whole cloves
8 black cardamom pods
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 whole star anise pods
1/2 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
1 teaspoon orange zest
1 tablespoon honey (leave out if you want to make this vegan or if you don't like your concentrate sweet.)


Prepare the teabags by removing any tags and tying them all together, if necessary.

In a 6-inch square of cheesecloth, or in a handy little strainer bag I found at the natural store, arrange all of your spices, ginger, vanilla bean, and orange zest in the centre. Gather and tie together with kitchen twine.  If you are making the little pouch with cheesecloth, it might be easier to leave the cinnamon sticks out to make the pouch more compact. Alternatively, you can leave the spices out of a pouch all together, but you will have to strain it very well at the end.

Add the water and sugar to a medium saucepan. Over medium-high heat, bring to a boil. Once boiling, add your teabags, spice pouch, and cinnamon sticks (if you left those separate). Turn heat down to a simmer and let simmer for 20 minutes.

Remove pan from heat and remove the teabags, spice pouch, and cinnamon sticks or strain through a fine mesh sieve.  Add the honey, if using, and stir to combine. Let concentrate cool completely before pouring into jars or storage containers. Will keep for 1 week in the fridge.

To serve, mix one part chai concentrate with 1 part milk. I like mine warmed with steamy non-fat milk, you could also blend it with ice and make a frosty drink. It's all up to you.

wordless wednesday ~ I miss these......

lemonade

Finally, we had a beautiful day of rain.

Usually, I wouldn't care if I ever saw a day of rain in my life, but this baby cooking business has turned me into a sauna.

Real life.

Sunday afternoon, it was hot and humid, overall just horrible. I couldn't cool down. Nothing would help. I tried to make a salad and when I opened my cupboard to get some beans,  the entire top shelf fell backwards. Fantastic.

I made lemonade and then I had a pity party on the patio because I was hot and I needed to fix the cupboard.

The pity party didn't work so well, but the lemonade cooled me down.

Organic lemons + sugar + ice cold water. Simple, easy, refreshing. I don't add much sugar because I don't like my lemonade over-sweetened, I enjoy the tart taste of the lemons, but feel free to add more sugar if you need to.

Lemonade

7 large, organic lemons
1/3 cup white sugar
7 cups water

Cut each lemon in half, squeeze over a large pitcher to extract juice. You may also use a citrus press, but I don't have one, so I use my brute strength. Be careful to avoid getting any seeds in the juice, to help avoid that, place a fine mesh strainer over the pitcher. This will catch any seeds before they fall into the juice.

Add the water and sugar, stir until sugar is well dissolved. Serve in tall glasses with lots of ice to extremely overheated, pregnant women, sulking on the patio.

banana date smoothie

I finally figured out what to do with those dates my mom gave me.

Grind them into a pulp and drink them.

Well okay, it's a little bit more civilized than that.

I'm usually not a fan of drinking my meals, protein shakes give me tummy aches and I don't want to look like this lady . But I looooove milkshakes.

So, yesterday I was eating my snack of a banana and a few dates and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Banana date smoothie. Jennifer, you are a genius.

It's no earth-shattering news that bananas and dates go together like pb & j, but to me it was a big step in not trying to drink chocolate milkshakes for breakfast.

In the blender, I threw together some dates, half a banana, plain yogurt, skim milk and a eensty bit of vanilla extract and turn it on full speed and vóila ! Smoothie time.

The smoothie is icy cold, smooth, creamy, sweet from the dates and fresh from the banana. Perfect for mid-morning snacks or breakfasts or desserts or pretty much whenever. Maybe not real early in the morning if you don't want to wake the husband who, may or may not be an angry bear in the morning.

That may, or may not be the case in my house.

Banana Date Smoothie

Makes one good sized smoothie.

3 dates, pitted and chopped
1/2 banana
1/2 cup plain or vanilla yogurt
1/4 skim milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
handful of ice cubes

Place all ingredients into a blender and blend for 1-2 minutes or until desired consistency is reached.

Pour into tall glass and enjoy.

hot chocolate

I know I said this earlier, but man it is cold. Minus 18 with the wind chill. I think my mittens will need to be surgically removed.

I was out all afternoon yesterday with the husband and getting in and out of the car caused this bone chill that I could not shake. Do you know what the answer for that is ? Hot chocolate.