Ginger Lime Soda

I know it's not a tea recipe, but I just HAD to share this tasty concoction with you! It's so refreshing on these hot Texas summer days, where your flip-flops will melt into the sidewalk if you stand in one place for more than 2 seconds. I'll keep this short and sweet, because if you're in need of a icy beverage, you won't want to wade through a long-winded blog post. I have to give a shout-out to the blogger, Kelly Yandell, at The Meaning of Pie blog for her excellent recipe. I made some minor adjustments because I wanted a little more heat from the ginger. If you like a little less of a bite, I'd recommend reducing the amount of ginger.

Ginger LIme Soda

Ingredients:

• 1 cup water

• 1/2 - 3/4 cup granulated sugar (depends on how sweet you want it!)

• 1 cup grated ginger

• 1 cup lime juice (approx. 7-8 large limes)

• Club soda

• Ice cubes (for serving)

• Lime (for garnish); optional

Instructions:

1. Peel and grate the ginger. I use a food processor to make the grating quick and easy. If you end up with more than a cup of ginger, you can freeze the rest for later.

2. Add water and sugar to a saucepan and bring to a boil (stirring well to dissolve the sugar.) Remove from heat. Add the ginger and allow it to steep for 20 minutes.

3. While the ginger is steeping, you can go ahead and juice the limes.

4. Strain the ginger using a fine sieve. Add the lime juice to the ginger syrup.

5. Allow to cool before serving.

6. When ready to serve, measure 1/2 cup of the ginger-lime concentrate with 1 cup of club soda. Serve over ice and enjoy!

The Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe You Need in Your Life

It's almost 100 degrees here in Texas, which means I really haven't had the urge to fire up the oven lately. But, I just got a text that my brother & sister-in-law are going to be dropping off some delicious home-cooked Thit Kho (Vietnamese braised pork and egg) for dinner. I certainly can't let them leave empty-handed, so I just whipped up a batch of my famous chocolate chip cookies. My nieces and nephews love these cookies and request them anytime there is a family gathering. These cookies are extremely easy to make. They only require a single mixing bowl and a few common baking ingredients. There is one "secret" ingredient, though. Without it, these cookies just won't taste the same. The secret ingredient is actually Quaker High Fiber Instant Maple and Brown Sugar Oatmeal. It needs to be the "high fiber" version because the maple flavor seems to be more prominent in that variety. I also like to think that the "high fiber" content makes these cookies more healthy. Well, maybe not, but they sure are tasty!!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

• 2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar (packed)
• 2 packets of Quaker High Fiber Instant Maple and Brown Sugar Oatmeal
• 2 sticks butter (melted)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups Nestle Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix all dry ingredients. Don't add the chocolate chips yet, though!
3. Mix in the melted butter (must be melted all of the way); add in eggs and vanilla.
4. Stir well.
5. Add in the chocolate chips last. If you add them before adding the melted butter, the chocolate will melt and cookies will be dark.
6. Use an ice cream scoop to measure out dough balls so cookies are all uniform.
7. Bake the cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet for 9-11 minutes.
8. Let the cookies cool for 15-20 minutes to set (if you can wait that long before stuffing them into your mouth!)

The "secret" ingredient.

Comfort Dish: Ground Pork Stir-Fry

Happy Saturday! I'm glad for a couple of free days this weekend to get my ducks in a row. I have no official plans other than to get a few things done around the house and run a couple of errands. I'll devote part of the time to meal planning for the upcoming week. I usually cook a big meal on Sunday that will last for the first part of the work week. One of our favorite go-to meals is my mother-in-law's famous ground pork stir-fry. She gave me this recipe several years ago (it's one of my hubby's favorite meals, so it was an important recipe to master) and we make it frequently. It's extremely easy to prepare and is very versatile. It can be served simply over rice and goes well with a variety of vegetables, including cucumbers or green beans. It can also be wrapped in lettuce for a refreshing twist. It is easily transformed into pork fried rice with just a couple of extra ingredients. It's definitely a favorite comfort food. Give it a try sometime!

Ground Pork Stir-Fry

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. ground pork
• 2-3 cloves garlic - chopped
• 1 yellow onion - chopped
• 1 bunch green onions - chopped
• 1 jalapeño (optional) - chopped
• 2 Tbsp. Oyster sauce
• 2 Tbsp. Hoisin sauce
• 2 tsp. granulated sugar
• Dash salt/pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Brown ground pork; drain off fat.
2. Continue sautéeing together with onions and garlic, jalapeño, Hoisin Sauce, Oyster sauce, sugar, salt and pepper. Cook until the yellow onions are translucent.
3. Serve with jasmine rice and a side of sliced cucumber or green beans or with lettuce leaves for wrapping.

The key ingredients: Oyster sauce and Hoisin sauce

My Ongoing Quest for the Perfect Masala Chai

I love coffee, but I don't drink it very often because it makes me too jittery, so my alternative choice of morning beverage lately is an iced chai latte. The coffee shop version is pretty expensive, so I've been making my own at home with this boxed concentrate from Tazo. When blended with milk and ice, it's tasty, quick and easy to grab on my way out the door. However, I've been experimenting with ways to make a "punchier" homemade version with a spicy, warm kick and packed with enough bold flavor to wake me up in the morning.

So, I did a quick search online to see if any recipes caught my eye. I learned a few things about chai in my search for this recipe. First off, the word "chai" just means tea. I'm guilty of calling my beverage "chai tea", which is redundant. The proper term when referring to this spicy concoction is actually "masala chai", which means spiced tea. After reading through a few recipes, I found this one from The Hathi Cooks blog that looked like it might fit the bill. Besides the title "How to Make [the best] Chai [ever]", the introduction describing the origin of masala chai in India was intriguing. And knowing that the recipe has been passed down for many generations of the author's family makes it very special. The author includes a scientific tidbit about how the flavor molecules/aromatic compounds dissolve best in alcohols or fats. The fattier the milk, the more flavorful the chai will be.

With recipe in hand, I made a trip last weekend to my favorite source for spices, a local Indian market. Luckily, there are quite a few of these stores nearby and they are great sources for getting spices in bulk. I can generally find a much larger amount for a lower price and possibly fresher (due to higher turnover of inventory) than a small jar of the same at a regular supermarket. For instance, a small jar of 1.1 oz ground nutmeg at the supermarket sells for $4.69. I found a 3.5 oz bag for $3.49 at the Indian market. A small container of whole cloves at the supermarket costs $4.86 for .62 oz. I found 3.5 oz. of whole cloves at the Indian market for $2.49, so there's a tremendous savings if you have access to one of these stores. If I have more than I can use, I can always share the extra spices with my baker friends. If you're unable to find an ethnic market nearby, try the bulk spice section of a whole or natural food store, or search online.

Once I arrived home from the store, I set to work grinding the whole spices in a coffee grinder (reserved for the sole purpose of grinding spices; don't grind coffee in a grinder that you've used for spices, unless you like pepper-flavored coffee!). I've heard it's better to grind whole spices as you need them, rather than using pre-ground spices. The grinding process tends to release more of the natural oils which means bonus flavor! Shelf life is considerably less for ground spices, as they tend to deteriorate faster than their whole counterparts. Let me just say that my kitchen smelled Ah-mazing after all of the grinding. I did not use the full spice amounts suggested in the recipe. The author calls for using entire CUPS of spices and the recipe makes a huge amount even by making 1/5th of the recipe as is suggested in the recipe instructions. I also used the suggested method of weighing the spices on a food scale (I found an inexpensive one at Walmart) as it is more accurate for measuring whole spices.

Now for the recipes:

(Note: I've included the recipe for the spice/masala mixture as well as a recipe for making the actual tea. The amounts below are 1/5 of the amounts listed in the full recipe; At this time, I only have the amounts in grams since I used a food scale; as I further refine the recipe later, I'll probably convert the measurements over to Tablespoons or teaspoons for pre-ground spices, since those tend to be more accessible.)

Chai Masala/Spice Ingredients (from THE HATHI COOKS REcipe):

• 32 g. whole black peppercorns (or finely ground, same weight)
• 25 g. ginger powder
• 10 g. cinnamon sticks (or finely ground, same weight)
• 10 g. whole cardamom seeds (or finely ground, same weight); I crushed green cardamom pods and ground up the seeds that are inside the pods.
• 1 g. whole cloves (or finely ground, same weight)
• 1 g. nutmeg (or finely ground, same weight)
• optional: 1 whole star anise (ground); this adds a hint of licorice flavor found in some chai recipes. It was not included in the original Hathi Cooks recipe, but I added to mine.

Instructions: Weigh the spices, and if using whole spices, grind them to a fine powder. Mix all of the spices together and store in an airtight container. Keep out of direct heat/sunlight.

Tea / Chai Ingredients (I modified this from the Hathi Cooks recipe for my own taste):

• 4 cups water
• 2 tsp. Chai Masala/Spice mix from recipe above
• 1/2 cup granulated white sugar
• 4 tsp. loose leaf black tea (I used one called Taj Mahal - see photo below, but Lipton also makes a Yellow Label tea that would work.)
• Milk (added to taste)

Instructions: Bring the water, spice mixture, sugar and black tea to a boil. Remove from heat and allow it to steep for 3-4 minutes. Using a french press or fine cheesecloth, strain into a container. Mix in 1/2 cup of the tea mixture with a bit of milk to taste. I like my tea pretty spicy, so I tend to add a bit more concentrate versus milk. Serve warm or with ice.

Additional notes:

I made a concentrate using the tea recipe above (minus the milk) and kept that in the fridge for the week. Each morning, I would pour a bit of the concentrate into a glass of ice and add milk for my morning commute. The spice mixture can be tweaked as desired. If too spicy, just reduce the amount of black pepper or ginger. If the licorice flavor is overpowering, just remove the star anise. The recipe was pretty tasty to start, but I will likely continue to refine the spice mixture as I have time in my ongoing quest for the perfect Masala Chai latte.

chai concentrate

black tea leaves

If you find yourself with too much of the spice mixture on hand, you can always use it on toast, sprinkle on apple slices or add to any baked goods calling for pumpkin pie spice for a delicious twist.

New Beginnings

I'm baaack! I'm blowing the dust off this old blog because it has sat dormant for way too long! The past few years (has it really been that long?!?) have gone by in a blur. There was a job change, learning lots of new things along the way and deep-diving into some projects around the house that took much of my creative energy away from this space.

Truthfully, I thought about shutting this blog down altogether. Is blogging even still relevant these days with all of the social media channels, podcasts and streaming videos out there? I've found that a lot of the blogs I followed before have gone by the wayside in favor of shorter Instagram and Facebook posts.

However, I did some research recently that led me back to blogging. It seems that people (myself included) are getting burned out on social media. This article from Dayle Hall explains more about it. It's difficult to cut through all of the noise from political controversy, fake news and abundance of memes taking over our news feeds. While social media is an important channel for brand and product promotion (and is a handy tool for driving traffic to websites and blogs), people are seeking genuine connections and comprehensive, thoughtfully-produced content, which can be found in blogs. A podcast by Darren Rowse at Problogger.podcast explains that written content will continue to be relevant. Another podcast from Jonathan Milligan at Bloggingyourpassion.com provides several statistics confirming that blogging is not on its way out, but can instead be used hand-in-hand with video and podcasts in the form of content stacking to reiterate a message and be more prolific. Here's a blog article from Webhostingmedia.net that further details the future of blogging.

So, I'm giving it another shot, folks, and I'm excited for what will come next!