Food Friday~ Spice it up!

Friday, September 24, 2010

Happy Friday, ya’ll! It’s Lu & I’m here to do my first food post! I’ve been really excited about this, because I wanted to share both a recipe & a hybrid-of-sorts gift idea.

With the seasons starting to change (not for me, but for others), my “tastes” start to change as well. I start craving comfort foods, steaming cups or bowls and yummy spices! One thing I discovered awhile back was Chai tea. I know this is nothing “new”, but it was new to me. And one thing I particularly love about it is, the recipe combinations are endless… it’s all about customizing (one of my favorite words). I have read recipe after recipe, experimented & tweaked,  and tweaked some more. Finally, I’ve come up with a recipe that suits my palette, to a tea (lol). This is what you’ll need for (2) mugs of tea:

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups of water
• 2-3 black tea bags
• 2 tsps ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
• 1/4  tsp allspice
• 1/4  ground nutmeg
• 1 tbsp of vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups of evaporated milk, half-n-half or whole milk (equal qty to water)
• honey to taste
• optional whipped topping
• a small whisk or milk frother

Directions:

• Pour water into 2 quart heavy saucepan.
• Add tea bags (with spices) & bring to just a boil. Add milk & heat thoroughly, do not allow to boil.
• Turn off heat, discard tea bags & add vanilla extract. Stir to combine. Now, my favorite part… the froth! Roll your whisk briskly between your hands to create the froth in the saucepan. It’s so much fun! Personally, I’ve found that evaporated milk “froths” better than just whole milk, lol.
• Add honey to bottom of mugs, pour hot tea milk over to dissolve and stir.  You can also top it off with some whipping cream. That’s it… enjoy!

I have to tell you though, as much as I enjoy my Chai tea, it’s a bit of a time consuming process. Don’t misunderstand me – I’m all about the experience of a thing, but I’ve got laundry to do, you know? I decided that I needed to streamline my procedure a bit, so I decided I’d make my own tea bags. This way, I can create my own little concoction without having to measure spices every time! I ordered these press ‘n brew tea bags, they come in different sizes and quantities. I also ordered some Darjeeling loose tea leaves & filled the bags with the tea leaves and the spices. You don’t have to that, you can throw in tea bags & the spices separately, but I prefer not to swirl spice “sediment”. It’s a texture thing. I can’t eat mushrooms, either. But back to the spices…as for the ratios, I do not care for too much spice (I can’t take the heat, lol) so you may find my recipe a bit subtle.  By all means, add to or take away to suit! 

You could just stop here & really enjoy your day. Or you could share the love! I found this mixture on ALLRECIPES.COM  & thought it was a wonderful gift idea. I made some up and used the cute little tags from the Fall Festival Confection Collection.  Aren’t they just the perfect touch? Puts me right in the mood for fall (and officially, too, as the first day of autumn was yesterday)! On one side, I have my greeting and on the other side I put the ingredients & directions.

These would make a wonderful hostess gift for any holiday parties in the not-too-distant future. Or hey, you could just mix it up & keep it on hand for yourself, lol!

I also created these recipe cards for both my “traditional” chai tea & for the gift tea mixture, hope you like them! Just click the image to download, or click HERE.

Just a note:   the allrecipes.com logo is being used with permission…actually – it is a requirment in their licensing that we include it on the recipe cards as well as here on the post.  Just wanted to let you know in the event you were wondering why there is a logo on one of the cards :o)

Give these little recipes a try, it’ll start your weekend off right!  And don’t forget to check back here for our first Monday LOTW (moving from Saturday)!  Have a wonderful & relaxing weekend!

LuFood Stuff, Hybrid Projects, Uncategorized 10 Comments