Recipe Modification - Chai Green Iced Tea

Even though I've lived in the lower half of the US for almost 16 years, I've never quite taken a liking to iced tea. I can drink hot tea anytime, day or night, summer or winter, no problem. But I have never quite taken a liking to this Southern staple...until now...

Recently, after a long unair-conditioned car ride (yup, out again!) I had to stop for something cold. (It was 10 AM, too early for alcohol...at least for me...) I knew that there was a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf shop close to my destination, so I made a bee line towards it. I simply asked for an iced tea and the lady said it was blueberry and peach (or apricot or mint or something) iced green tea for the day. Holy cow! It was delicious!

So after going on about it for a while, Rhett, being the native Texan, told me that we should make some of our own iced tea, he had the tea bags and everything. But I was resistant. It's just going to be regular old boring iced tea, which he happens to love. (It makes an enormous impact on restaurant choices for him.) But he convinced me that we could try flavoring it ourselves. So we came up with Chai Green Iced Tea. Here it is...


Green Tea. You can also just purchase regular iced tea. But hey, maybe (who knows for sure) it is just a little healthier for you...doesn't hurt to try!

Chai tea. I love this one hot, so I figured I might like it cold too.

Anyway, there was a large discussion over what tea we would use as flavor. I was originally thing about an herbal passionfruit tea that we've had for a while that neither one of us really likes, but I thought it might be refreshing as a cold tea. Rhett thought that an herbal tea might be more overpowering than anything else and recommended that we try a black tea. He might have been thinking about using something more traditional, like an Earl Grey, but again, that just sort of sounds like boring iced tea to me, so we settled on the chai. This one in particular gives the iced tea a slightly spicey but coconut sweet flavor, very interesting being cold.

After boiling enough water according to the iced tea box, we steeped both teas together for 5 minutes then poured it into a pitcher. Rhett added a little extra cold water to top it off then we left is in the fridge to cool off.

BONUS!!! The flavor was great without adding any sugar, which is the last thing I need on a day as hot as today. And I used green tea, I mean what's the point of trying to be slightly healthier if I add all the sugar?
J.

Recipe Modification-Sweet Potatoes with Grapefruit

I'll never claim to be a professional anything and even more so when it comes to cooking. I never have the right ingredients and I'm always in a hurry so I think that high heat is the only heat and let's not mention the "fish spread" incident, (you really don't want to know.) So when I accidentally make something and it turns out to be edible and tastes good too, it's worth sharing.

This happy accident happened when I was making Southern Style Shepherd's Pie form Rachel Ray's Just In Time Cookbook...

(photo from Amazon.com)
If you don't know what shepherd's pie is, traditionally, it's sort of like a casserole covered in mashed potato, but Rachael Ray's is covered in sweet potatoes, which I suppose is the "southern" twist. And trust me, it's yummy!

But as I mentioned, I never have the right ingredients. The recipe calls for an orange and what I thought was an orange sitting on my counter actually was a home grown grapefruit, (smallest grapefruit I'd ever seen,) and the orange zest then had to be the grapefruit zest. Oh, and forget about the nutmeg, it became cinnamon. After the dinner had been eaten, it was decided that the pie was good but the sweet potatoes alone were great! Since then, I've modified it a little further, making ever so slightly healthier than the original recipe, (I don't really know how to calculate those things.)

Here's what I ended up with...

Ingredients:
(Milk not pictured...be sure to read the ingredients!)
3lbs. sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
3 TBS olive oil*
Zest and juice of one grapefruit
1/2 cup lowfat milk*
1 Banana
1/4 tsp cinnamon
Salt and pepper to taste

* The above is the "slightly" healthier version. For a creamier version, substitute 4 TBS (1/2 stick) butter instead of the olive oil and 1/2 cup heavy cream instead of lowfat milk.

How to:

1) Bring a pot of water to a boil and add the sweet potatoes. Cook for about 15 minutes, until fork soft. Drain and set aside.

2) Return the pot to the stove over medium heat. Heat the olive oil and slice the banana into the pot. Cook for 5 minutes.

3) Add the zest and juice of one grapefruit.

5) Return the potatoes to the pot. Add the milk, cinnamon and mash. Season to taste with the salt and pepper.


Enjoy!
J.

PS- Note how I have a potato masher and a microplane (grater) but nothing as simple as an orange...