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boilingwater2010-04-12 06:11 pm
maewyn) wrote in boilingwater2010-04-12 06:11 pm
drinks for when it's hot out
Hopefully these recipes will come in handy when it gets hot where you are. I'm a bit of a bumbling, inattentive cook, but I love me some sweet summery drinks!
Iced tea from any kind of tea you like, as long as it comes in bags
Delicious, especially if you're sick of lemon Nestea and have a lot of bagged tea in the cupboard from a cold winter. I suspect this would work for loose tea, too, but I haven't tried it.
1. Pick the kind of tea you would like. Some good choices are mint teas, green teas, and fruit teas. Celestial Seasonings makes a bunch of "Zinger" fruit teas.
2. Pour hot water over the tea bags as you normally would, but use twice as much tea. I usually put 4 tea bags in a glass measuring cup and fill it a little above the 2-cup line.
3. Let steep for a good long while. Half an hour would probably be good enough. I normally wander off to do something else and later realize I had tea steeping, so this is an estimate. ;)
4. Remove the tea bags and add sugar. I like it really sweet so I use a little more than 1/4 c. sugar if I started with 4 tea bags. Use less if you're not as fond of sweet tea, but you'll probably want at least a little sugar.
5. Put the tea in the fridge to cool. This usually takes a couple of hours, so if you're impatient, skip the fridge and add about half as much cold water (in this case, about 1 cup) and pour the mixture into two 16-oz glasses over ice.
6. Enjoy! This makes a particularly strong glass of iced tea, so if it's stronger than you like (or if you're trying to make the tea stretch), dilute it with a little cold water.
Iced coffee from a regular drip coffeemaker
This is fabulous if you don't have an espresso machine and it's too hot for coffee. Same principle as above: Make it double strength and add sugar.
1. Set up the coffeemaker as you usually do -- add water, add a filter if yours doesn't have a reusable filter -- only add half again as much coffee as usual. I have a 4-cup coffeemaker and I normally use 4 scoops of coffee, so to make iced coffee this way, I use 6 scoops.
2. Brew the coffee as usual.
3. When it's done, pour the coffee through the grounds again. Don't forget, you'll need the carafe in place! I transfer the once-brewed coffee into my trusty glass 2-cup measure, put the carafe back, then pour the coffee from the measuring cup into the basket of grounds and let it drip back into the carafe. You'll probably have to stand over the coffeemaker and pour in a little at a time.
4. Add a proportional amount of sugar. For 2 cups of twice-brewed coffee, I add a little less than 1/2 cup sugar -- for 6 cups coffee I'd probably only add 2/3 c. sugar, and for 10 cups coffee about 1 c. sugar plus another 1 Tbsp or so. (Remember, with hot coffee, sugar will melt right in. You'll be stirring forever with cold coffee.)
5. Let the coffee cool for a bit, and then transfer it to the fridge to get cold. (Don't put hot glass directly into the fridge, or you risk cracking it!) If you have planned ahead, you can make the coffee the night before so it's ready to drink in the morning.
6. To make the drinks: Add about 1 cup of the coffee to each of two 16-oz glasses, then add a little more than 1 c. milk to each. At this point you can stir in chocolate syrup or caramel syrup if you like. Then add ice to fill each glass. Voila!
Iced tea from any kind of tea you like, as long as it comes in bags
Delicious, especially if you're sick of lemon Nestea and have a lot of bagged tea in the cupboard from a cold winter. I suspect this would work for loose tea, too, but I haven't tried it.
1. Pick the kind of tea you would like. Some good choices are mint teas, green teas, and fruit teas. Celestial Seasonings makes a bunch of "Zinger" fruit teas.
2. Pour hot water over the tea bags as you normally would, but use twice as much tea. I usually put 4 tea bags in a glass measuring cup and fill it a little above the 2-cup line.
3. Let steep for a good long while. Half an hour would probably be good enough. I normally wander off to do something else and later realize I had tea steeping, so this is an estimate. ;)
4. Remove the tea bags and add sugar. I like it really sweet so I use a little more than 1/4 c. sugar if I started with 4 tea bags. Use less if you're not as fond of sweet tea, but you'll probably want at least a little sugar.
5. Put the tea in the fridge to cool. This usually takes a couple of hours, so if you're impatient, skip the fridge and add about half as much cold water (in this case, about 1 cup) and pour the mixture into two 16-oz glasses over ice.
6. Enjoy! This makes a particularly strong glass of iced tea, so if it's stronger than you like (or if you're trying to make the tea stretch), dilute it with a little cold water.
Iced coffee from a regular drip coffeemaker
This is fabulous if you don't have an espresso machine and it's too hot for coffee. Same principle as above: Make it double strength and add sugar.
1. Set up the coffeemaker as you usually do -- add water, add a filter if yours doesn't have a reusable filter -- only add half again as much coffee as usual. I have a 4-cup coffeemaker and I normally use 4 scoops of coffee, so to make iced coffee this way, I use 6 scoops.
2. Brew the coffee as usual.
3. When it's done, pour the coffee through the grounds again. Don't forget, you'll need the carafe in place! I transfer the once-brewed coffee into my trusty glass 2-cup measure, put the carafe back, then pour the coffee from the measuring cup into the basket of grounds and let it drip back into the carafe. You'll probably have to stand over the coffeemaker and pour in a little at a time.
4. Add a proportional amount of sugar. For 2 cups of twice-brewed coffee, I add a little less than 1/2 cup sugar -- for 6 cups coffee I'd probably only add 2/3 c. sugar, and for 10 cups coffee about 1 c. sugar plus another 1 Tbsp or so. (Remember, with hot coffee, sugar will melt right in. You'll be stirring forever with cold coffee.)
5. Let the coffee cool for a bit, and then transfer it to the fridge to get cold. (Don't put hot glass directly into the fridge, or you risk cracking it!) If you have planned ahead, you can make the coffee the night before so it's ready to drink in the morning.
6. To make the drinks: Add about 1 cup of the coffee to each of two 16-oz glasses, then add a little more than 1 c. milk to each. At this point you can stir in chocolate syrup or caramel syrup if you like. Then add ice to fill each glass. Voila!
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Hope there's delicious iced tea in your future!
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Thanks again for the recipe. ♥
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You need a Big Damn Pot (holds at least a gallon), a dozen tea bags (or one of those nifty gallon-sized teabags that Lipton makes), a gallon of water, and 1 2/3 c. of sugar. (For what it's worth, for this recipe and this recipe only, I measure the sugar in a glass liquid-measure cup.)
Put the water and the tea in the pot. Bring to a rolling boil. Turn off the heat (if you're using an electric stove, move the pot off the burner you used). Immediately stir in the sugar until dissolved.
Let it sit til it cools enough to squeeze out the teabags with your bare paws (a couple hours.) Pour it into a Very Large Rubbermaid (or equivalent) pitcher, or two smaller ones, and chill. I recommend serving with much lemon.
Like the recipe above, this provides some serious knock-you-on-your-tail tea flavor, not to mention the caffeine punch. But there's nothing quite like lounging in the yard with it on a very hot day.
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