It's still true: Desperate times call for desperate measures ... like iced tea

And the times lately have certainly been desperate as far as heat and humidity are concerned, not to mention the ever-present stress and strain from our current world situation.  So I'm updating and adding to this post from two years ago, in hopes that others may find it useful.

As a rule at our house, we no longer drink sweetened beverages.  Mr. T does use a little stevia in his coffee.  But for cold beverages, our first choice is always nice cold water.  Sometimes we will have kombucha.  I enjoy unsweetened iced tea with lemon, but my hubby does not, so I don't usually bother making it just for me.  Usually, water is the most refreshing and most usual cold drink for us.

However.  There are times when a lightly sweetened iced tea is just the ticket.  We've had an unusually long spell of heat and humidity and I have found myself making a jug of iced tea nearly every day during it.

I think maybe it all harks back to when my mother and grandmother made iced tea every summer, and it also brings back memories of my first job, washing dishes in a very busy local restaurant.  No AC in the kitchen, of course -- not sure window air conditioners were even a thing in the mid=1960s.  I think there were a few strategically placed fans.  The dishwasher ran on propane, so there was a pilot light and it got very, very hot in that kitchen!  When the bus people brought in their overflowing bins of dishes, there would almost always be partially finished glasses of iced tea, complete with ice and lemon.  Oh, the clinking sounds of the ice and the zesty lemon scent tempted me!   But don't worry -- I never succumbed to drinking from a stranger's discarded glass.

I did, however, drink my share of iced tea at home and I still find it one of the most refreshing beverages I can think of.

I have often used my daughter's recipe,  which is a good bit healthier than my mother usually made iced tea.  (She used a can of lemonade concentrate, replete with high fructose corn syrup I am sure.  Though, in her defense, I do remember many, many years ago when she used lemons and sugar instead.)

I have copied and pasted Carrie's recipe just as I wrote it in a 2007 blog post.  When I've made this during those desperate times in past summers, I've  usually made half a batch.  And I've used brown sugar, which feels just a tiny bit healthier and adds a bit more depth to the flavor.

CARRIE’S ICED TEA

12 cups boiling water
12 green tea bags
1 cup sugar
4 Tblsp. orange juice
4 Tblsp. lemon juice

Pour the boiling water over the tea bags in a large bowl. Let steep 5 to 7 minutes only. Stir in sugar and juices. Stir well; let cool. Transfer to a pitcher and let chill in refrigerator. Serve over ice.

This recipe may easily be halved and is very adaptable. I often add in some lime juice along with the other citrus juices, and usually when I halve the recipe I still use the full amount of fruit juice. Sometimes I use regular tea in place of the green tea -- just as tasty! Sometimes I use 11 regular tea bags and 1 flavored one such as mint, raspberry, or peach. Gives a nice, different flavor.

Since our 40-day sugar fast this spring, however,  I decided to try and make a healthier iced tea that didn't use sugar.  So this is what I am doing, just about every day:

MRS. T’S ICED TEA

8 cups boiling water
7 black tea bags
1/3 cup agave nectar
1/4 cup lemon juice
Pour the boiling water over the tea bags in a large bowl. Let steep at least 15 minutes or according to your taste.  I often let it steep for an hour or more. Stir in agave nectar and lemon juice. Stir well; let cool. Transfer to a pitcher or jug and let chill in refrigerator.  Serve over ice.  Makes about a half gallon.

We had one of these!  How about you?

If heat and humidity (not to mention hype and hysteria) have you desperate, too,  you might like to give one of these recipes a try.

Weekend baking report: Chocolate Chai Tea Loaf and more

Photo from Taste of Home

This Sunday it was my turn to provide the snacks for our coffee break at church.  I made several baked items in addition to taking cheese and crackers and a large container of fresh strawberries.

All of the baked goods went over well, but this Chocolate Chai Tea Loaf was absolutely amazing.  Thankfully I had left one smaller loaf at home!

I made just a couple of tiny changes in this recipe which is linked above.  Instead of 2 ounces of chopped semisweet chocolate, I just used 2 ounces (1/3 cup) of semisweet chocolate chips because it was simpler.  Also -- the chai latte tea mix (Oregon Chai)  I used came in packets, so I measured it by the tablespoon right from the packet.  When it came to the frosting, the recipe called for only 1 tablespoon, but there was more than that left in the package -- nearly another tablespoon, I would say.  I just used it all in the frosting rather than have a small amount left in the packet.  No doubt it gave the frosting a more pronounced flavor of tea and spices, but it was delicious!  Also, I made this recipe gluten free by means of the Bob's Red Mill 1-to-1 gluten free baking flour.

Although I carefully measured my loaf pans to be sure they were the size called for in the recipe, I still ended up with batter left over, so I used another, smaller loaf pan for the extras.  If you didn't have one, you could probably make a couple of muffins with the excess batter.

🍓🍓🍓

Since yesterday was St. Patrick's Day, I also took along a pan of Gluten Free Irish Soda Bread which also went over very well.  It goes over well at home, so I was pretty sure people at church would also enjoy it.  This recipe doesn't rise as high as traditional Irish soda bread, but it has a rugged rustic look.

🍓🍓🍓

And then lastly I made a pan of very simple Cheese Danish.  Here is what you need for this recipe:

SIMPLE CHEESE DANISH SQUARES
2 cans crescent roll dough
12 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup melted butter
Cinnamon-sugar for the top

Unroll 1 can of the crescent rolls and press into the bottom of an ungreased 13x9 pan.  Press carefully to seal all of the perforations.

In a bowl combine the cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla.  A beater will work but using a wooden spoon works just as well.  Spread the cream cheese over the dough in the pan.

Open the second can of crescent rolls and arrange the dough over the top.  Seal perforations if you can, but you don't have to get too finicky about it.

Spread the melted butter over the top as evenly as you can, then sprinkle liberally with cinnamon-sugar.  Bake at 350º for 25 to 30 minutes.

These always go over well.  I have a perfectly wonderful recipe for traditional Cheese Danish pastries (find it here: Cheese Danish) but it is a lot of work.  I may make those for Easter, but for just an ordinary Sunday the quick recipe works fine.

And that was my weekend baking!  You might enjoy trying these recipes, too.

Desperate times call for desperate measures ... like iced tea

And the times lately have certainly been desperate as far as heat and humidity are concerned.

As a rule at our house, we no longer drink sweetened beverages.  Mr. T does use a little stevia in his coffee.  But for cold beverages, our first choice is always nice cold water.  Sometimes we will have kombucha.  I enjoy unsweetened iced tea with lemon, but my hubby does not, so I don't usually bother making it just for me.  Usually, water is the most refreshing and most usual cold drink for us.

However.  There are times when a lightly sweetened iced tea is just the ticket.  We've had an unusually long spell of heat and humidity and I have found myself making a jug of iced tea twice during it.

I do use my daughter's recipe,  which is a good bit healthier than my mother usually made iced tea.  (She used a can of lemonade concentrate, replete with high fructose corn syrup I am sure.  Though, in her defense, I do remember many, many years ago when she used lemons and sugar instead.)

I have copied and pasted Carrie's recipe just as I wrote it in a 2007 blog post.  When I've made this during those desperate times this summer, I've made half a batch.  And I've used brown sugar, which feels just a tiny bit healthier and adds a bit more depth to the flavor.

CARRIE’S ICED TEA

12 cups boiling water
12 green tea bags
1 cup sugar
4 Tblsp. orange juice
4 Tblsp. lemon juice

Pour the boiling water over the tea bags in a large bowl. Let steep 5 to 7 minutes only. Stir in sugar and juices. Stir well; let cool. Transfer to a pitcher and let chill in refrigerator. Serve over ice.

This recipe may easily be halved and is very adaptable. I often add in some lime juice along with the other citrus juices, and usually when I halve the recipe I still use the full amount of fruit juice. Sometimes I use regular tea in place of the green tea -- just as tasty! Sometimes I use 11 regular tea bags and 1 flavored one such as mint, raspberry, or peach. Gives a nice, different flavor.

If heat and humidity have you desperate, too,  you might like to give Carrie's recipe a try!

Cookies and tea part 2

As promised (or maybe threatened?) here is part 2 of my recent post, Cookies and tea with Judy and Vee.  As you may recall from that post, I was inspired, both by Judy's post concerning her White Crackle Cookies and Vee's post That Promised Chat, in which she referenced her mother's very similar Oatmeal Cookies, along with some other topics.  Both cookies reminded me of an old favorite recipe for Angel Cookies, which is in my last post if you didn't see it.

I spun my Cookies and tea post off that one, with Vee's blessing (and I'm hoping Judy didn't mind, either).  At the time, I mentioned it would probably take a second post to cover all the topics.  So here goes:

First off, there's another cream-of-tartar enhanced cookie that I want to share: Crunchy Toffee Crackle Cookies.

Many years ago, the bakery in our town had a similar cookie among their cookie offerings, and I always loved these.  On the rare occasions we went to the bakery for a treat (my mother was an inspired home baker) it was always a difficult choice.  Lemon bars, raspberry bars, coffee rolls, jelly doughnuts, these cookies -- so hard to decide!

Even as a grownup, I always remembered the crackly, melt-in-your-mouth cookies with their veins of toffee running through and hoped to duplicate them.  One day in Taste of Home I saw a recipe that I thought might make a good base for these.  It was a spice cookie, but no matter.  I left out the spices, and added some vanilla, some almond extract and some toffee bits.  The result?  Very, very close to the bakery goodies I remembered.  I had my cousin (who also remembered these cookies) sample them, and she agreed.

Then, tea.  In the last post I shared about the gorgeous package of Irish Breakfast tea I found at Ocean State Job Lot.

But I would be remiss if I did not also mention the lovely rooibos tea which a friend just brought me from South Africa.

 Here is the back of the package.  (I had to open it up so that all the writing could be read, so the package looks a bit untidy.)

Such a sweet remembrance!  It was so kind of L. to think of me!

And then, Vee also mentioned a couple of unique sewing projects: bowl cozies and a petal pouch. The bowl cozies are made from cotton fabric and cotton batting, to protect a bowl of microwaved food from burning one's hands.  I had barely heard of these, and would have been quite sure that I'd never use one, but just this past weekend I came close to burning my hands a couple of different times when microwaving leftovers.  I now think it's a great idea and I plan on making some soon!

The petal pouch was made by Vee to hold her makeup.  Since the pouch will open out completely, it's easy to see the contents -- much better than a regular makeup bag.  She found the tutorial here: petal pouch.  I think this is a wonderful idea and it looks like a very enjoyable project too. 

Now what I found so interesting about this is that I actually own a petal pouch (a much smaller one) that a friend made for me.

~ closed ~

~ open ~

She gifted it to me with a pretty necklace inside.

the roses are made with rickrack

I'm sure that at the time, my friend told me how the pouch was made, because she is very generous with sharing unique crafting ideas she finds.  But I must not have been paying attention, because as I look at Linda's tutorial, this looks fairly simple ... easily within my sewing abilities. 

And I think that wraps up my thoughts on Vee's Promised Chat.  I've enjoyed this "conversation" and hope that my blog friends have enjoyed it too.

Cookies and tea with Judy and Vee

(Being a shameless spin-off of My friend Vee's recent post, That Promised Chat, in which she discussed tea, cookies, craft projects, and more.)

After reading Vee's post, I had so much that I wished to comment on; really, too much to just leave in a comment on her post.  I asked if she would mind if I wrote a post of my own concerning her chat, and she told me, "Go for it!  We all get ideas from each other."

I think, actually, I am going to have to divide this into two posts.  The discussion of the cookies alone is going to take a lot of space.  I must admit, too, that I am cheating in that I have not actually baked cookies myself for the post.  I've baked cookies from the recipe I'm sharing,  many a time (it makes nine dozen), but not this time.

It actually all started, I guess, with Judy’s White Crackle Cookies, which she posted on her blog, Cranberry Morning.

Photo by Judy at Cranberry Morning

When I saw those cookies and read the post, I thought, "Those look a lot like my old favorite Angel Cookies!"  When I noticed that the recipe called for cream of tartar and brown sugar, I was quite sure of it.

I must explain that I own Farm Journal's Homemade Cookies, a perfectly wonderful 1978 cookie cookbook edited by Nell B. Nichols.  That is where I found the Angel Cookies recipe many years ago.  If you like to cook and bake and enjoy country-style recipes, and if you have never read or cooked from any Farm Journal cookbooks, you owe it to yourself and your family to do so.  One of the things I love so much about these books is the chatty descriptions with many of the recipes.  (I'll get back to this in a minute.)

I thought I would at least comment on Judy's post and tell her I had a similar recipe, but didn't find time to do that.

Enter Vee.  Judy's cookies reminded Vee of something, too: her mother's oatmeal cookies.   The recipe is very similar, but Vee's mother rolled the cookie balls in oatmeal prior to baking them.

Photo by Vee at A Haven for Vee

Unlike me,  Vee got busy and did something about it.  She not only baked cookies and took a gorgeous photo of them, but she wrote a blog post all about it -- That Promised Chat -- which also included a number of other interesting topics.

And that, in turn, galvanized me to write about my Angel Cookies.  I've already told you the recipe came from Farm Journal's Homemade Cookies cookbook.

Photo from ThriftBooks, where the book is out of stock.  My own copy has long been missing its dust jacket.

I told you, too, about the fun and folksy descriptions of many of the recipes, and I'm pretty sure that's what motivated me to to try the recipe in the first place.  Listen to this:

"An upstate New York woman says: 'They are our best-liked cookies.  It's a big recipe that makes about nine dozen so I make four different kinds.  
"I divide the dough in quarters and bake the first portion plain.  I roll the balls of dough from the second portion in flaked or cookie coconut.  To the third, I add 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate pieces, to the fourth, 1/2 cup chopped salted peanuts.'
 "You may think of other ways to introduce variety and interest to the cookie plate or tray."

Now, doesn't that just make you want to bake up a batch?

Here's the recipe as I have adapted it:

ANGEL COOKIES

1 cup butter or real margarine, softened 1 cup butter-flavor crisco
1 cup sugar 1 cup brown sugar 2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
4 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cream of tartar
2 tsp. salt
Optional ingredients/techniques*
Sugar for dipping tops

Cream together the butter, crisco, and sugars. Beat in eggs, one at a time, to mix thoroughly. Add vanilla.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt. Add to creamed mixture to blend well. If you like, divide the dough up and add some optional ingredients to each section to make different flavors of cookies. Chill dough for 1 hour or until it is easy to handle, if necessary.

Shape dough into 1-inch balls and dip tops in sugar. Place cookies about 2 inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle 1 or 2 drops of water on each cookie (to make them crackle nicely). Bake at 350º for 15 minutes.

Remove cookies and cool on racks. Makes 8 to 9 dozen cookies.

(Recipe may easily be divided in half to make fewer cookies.)

* Optional ingredients: chopped peanuts, coconut, toffee bits, chocolate or butterscotch chips, etc. I think mini chocolate chips would be even nicer than the standard size.  Optional technique: Dip tops of cookies in cinnamon-sugar for a Snickerdoodle effect.

The actual recipe calls for lard rather than shortening.  I have never used lard in them.  Crisco works very well.

I haven't a clue as to why these are called Angel Cookies, but I imagine it may have something to do with their light, melt-in-the-mouth texture -- which, I think, is a hallmark of cookies made with cream of tartar.

Oh -- and a quick hint about cream of tartar.  If you live in New England (and maybe other places too) you do not need to spend big bucks for a teensy container of cream of tartar.  You can buy a wonderful New England product called Bakewell Cream and get a much larger container at a far better price.  I buy it at my local grocery store, but it can also be ordered online from New England Cupboard or from Amazon.

Photo from New England Cupboard

I found a picture of someone else's Angel Cookies since I didn't have time to bake any.

Photo from Bitz & Giggles

The recipe is shared by Sara of Bitz & Giggles as a guest post on I Heart Naptime.  The link will take you to her recipe, which is pretty like much my recipe cut in half.  Sara's grandmother used to bake them for her, and the recipe has been in Sara's family for as long as she can remember.  This cookie recipe has obviously gotten around over time.

Now, how about some tea with those cookies?  I recently found this package of Irish Breakfast Tea (80 teabags!)

Front of package

Back of package

at  Ocean State Job Lot for not much money at all.  It's very good, and the package is so pretty that it's currently serving as part of the March decor on my hutch.

This post has rambled on for long enough.  Time for a break for cookies and tea.  I'll post Part 2 another day.

A berry sweet gift

Our kitchen has strawberry-themed wallpaper, and I have somewhat of a collection of strawberry items.  I've always liked them, and once people realize you collect something, they tend to find things for your collection.  You can see some of my strawberry items here: Vintage Strawberries, or just click on "strawberries" in the label cloud to the right to see even more.

Interestingly, I have no duplicate strawberry items in my collection.  One would think it would become harder to find unique things after awhile, but that hasn't been the case.  Recently, my mother-in-law gifted me with the little set pictured above.  She was so worried that I probably had one just like it already.  But no, I don't.  This is a very pretty mug, and the set also includes a little tray, which is a nice idea for enjoying a mug of tea with a few cookies or a muffin.

The set also included a coaster, seen under the mug in the photo above.  A berry sweet gift that I am enjoying so much!

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Photo from Faithfully Gluten Free

Lately I just haven't seemed to have a lot of interest in baking.  Maybe it has to do with all of the baking I did over the Christmas season!  But on Thursday I noticed a couple of overripe bananas on the counter and decided to find something simple to do with them.

I checked my folder of gluten-free recipes and, lo and behold, there was one for Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins.  I'd made these before and knew they were good.  I had a friend coming by for tea on Friday morning, plus I knew my hubby would enjoy these as well.

Although I don't have celiac disease, I do seem to be somewhat sensitive to gluten.  I went gluten free for several years and all of my joint pain disappeared, so I don't think it's just a coincidence.  I've found over the last couple of years that I can eat small amounts of wheat without a problem, but over Christmas I ate much more wheat than I should have.  I just didn't feel right.  So with the new year, I am trying to be much more careful.  These muffins are gluten-free and are delicious.

One of the flours called for in this muffin is oat flour.  I like oat flour but was all out.  So I substituted millet flour.  It worked admirably.  I also used dark chocolate chips in these muffins.  Mm-mmm!

In fact, anything you find at Faithfully Gluten Free will be delicious.  Jeanine absolutely has the knack of developing gluten-free recipes that taste wonderful. If you know anyone who is gluten sensitive or does have celiac disease, be sure and share this site with them.  It's a lifesaver!

Sharing these muffins, which are perfect with a cup of tea, with Bernideen's Friends Sharing Tea.

A few of my favorite winter things

It's a busy day and I'd really like to get some photos or scans of a few things to share today.  However, other matters must come ahead of blogging, so I will settle for a few winter items I already have photos of.  The frost patterns above are a winter favorite; however, now that we have more energy-efficient windows, they may be a thing of the past.  I will miss their wintry beauty, but not the extreme cold (and drafty rooms) that they represent!

So here goes with a very random assortment of winter favorites ...

This was my winter ribbon board one year.  It looks a little different every time.

As you can see!

A skate ornament I made from a pattern in a vintage magazine

Tea is always a good thing in winter...

Glittery house and tree from Gooseberry Patch, card by my friend J. and a vintage plastic reindeer

This adorable house was made by my friend Les.  Notice the little snowman and the glittery tree

A favorite pattern for a snowflake hot mat (made this one for my daughter Carrie)

Hey, I need to find that pattern and make more of these.  Red and white would be pretty, too.

Snowball lamp, snowmen baskets, a tag made by me

Some snowmen mug rugs made for a friend

Back side of the mug rugs -- I'm getting inspired now!

A winter stitchery

This embroidery (above)was someone else's UFO that I completed.  Now I need to finish it off.  Maybe a pillow?

A winter flag I made for my grandkids' fort

Glitter house under glass -- love it!

After Christmas buy at Marshalls one year.  It's fiber-optic!

a favorite shelf on the hutch one year

Card made by my friend J. (who also made the garland below!)

A favorite sign and a "January" garland at the back door.

My winter hutch in 2009

Hope you've enjoyed this look at some of my winter favorites.  I'm sharing these today at Vintage Charm.

Free tea samples from Twinings!

From my collection of vintage advertising cards

 Just a quick post tonight with a public service announcement!  If you enjoy tea, you will want to check out this link: Twining’s Tea Samples!  You can choose three samples of tea for free, at least as long as the supply holds out.  Be sure and scroll all the way down the list of teas; there are some seasonal ones on there, some organic teas, some cold brewed ones and so on.  A huge variety to choose from, so head on over and see what you would like!

A simple tea rack

 
Many years ago when our daughters were at a boarding high school, they often brought friends home with them for the weekend.  At that time we kept our boxes of herbal and flavored tea neatly stacked in a kitchen cabinet.  Neatly, that is, until one went to pull out a particular box of teabags.  Then the stacking system revealed its inadequacies and instability.

I will never forget how embarrassed I was one weekend when some of the girls were making a cup of tea.  One of them reached for a particular flavor, and at least a half dozen boxes came out of the cabinet with it in a mini-avalanche of tea boxes!  Yes, we had come to the point where we had so many tea boxes that they began tumbling out of the cupboard.  Obviously, we had to figure out different storage for them.

 I had seen a rack for holding tea boxes offered in a tea catalog for around $80. It was beautifully constructed -- out of oak, if I remember right.  I showed it to Mr. T.  He figured he could make a “rustic” one out of pine to serve the same purpose, and he did. It's still serving us admirably after all these years. I couldn’t get a photo that showed the top shelf (too narrow of an area where the rack is located next to our back door), but the top shelf could be used either for display (which I do) or for 2 additional tea boxes.

Mr. T would want me to caution you, I know, that this rack is what he calls “rustic, very rustic.” It is  by no means fine carpentry and he realizes that. But it's a wonderful storage solution and is commented upon by almost everyone who spends any time in our kitchen.

It's fun, when visitors come and we offer them tea, for us to just point them to the tea rack and let them choose the flavor they like.

At the bottom of the rack, I have hung a teapot hanging made out of felt from a kit some years ago.
I’ve always wanted to make another, and saved the pattern just in case. And after many years, I did make another, this for a dear friend.

And then this final photo, which was not taken in my kitchen, but instead in an apartment kitchen in faraway Nevada. My daughter who lives in Nevada wanted a tea rack like mine, so on one of our first visits there,  Mr. T and our son-in-law worked together to make one. It’s so neat to think of her having something just like mine, that was handmade and designed by her dad, in her kitchen too.  Ten years later, with six growing children, they are no longer in a small apartment, but in a house, where the tea rack is on a dining room wall.


Hope you have enjoyed seeing this  simple tea rack.  If you also have issues with the current system you're using to store your boxes of tea, you might like to think about constructing one for your own use!  Mr. T won't mind a bit if you borrow his "rustic" idea!

I am linking up today with Sandi's No Place Like Home at Rose Chintz Cottage  and Bernideen’s Tea Time, Cottage and Garden Blog Party.  Also with Roses of Inspiration  and Share Your Cup Thursday.