Melba sauce is often associated with this fancy desert called Peach Melba, but in my neck of the woods (Upstate, NY), it’s associated with the far more common mozzarella stick. This is about a combination of sweet, salty, and gooey that creates the most amazing flavor burst. …
Dill pickles are important stuff in this house. We go through a lot of them.
I realize now that all that time I spent complaining about the absolute on slot of cucumbers we had this summer was quite ridiculous. I should have been thanking my lucky stars.
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A good bloggy friend Chrystina came to visit me recently and one of the things she asked is where the good Chai place was. It was not a question that I was used to, since around these parts we don’t have a large number of café’s or tea houses within walking distance. I pretty much make everything from scratch. I probably should have explained that better while she was here, but instead, I’ll do a post about it. Side note I did wait until after labor day to post this recipe because August is not the ideal hot chai latte weather. I think that’s a long enough wait yes?
My chai latte recipe is one I perfected way back in college because it was a necessity. You need that creamy, caffeinated goodness to get through late night study sessions you see.
Side note: not every chai latte has caffeine in it. Many swanky cafés use a from concentrate chai mix that is mostly sugar and spices with no actual tea (caffeine) in it. Some tea houses have actual chai tea, where all the spices are mixed up in a bag and steeped. This is not a recipe like either of those.
Personally these days I’m more of a fan of the chai tea, the steep-able version. I like the stronger flavor and have been trying to avoid added milks and sugars. I think my taste buds have changed quite a bit because I generally prefer no sugar at all. The things we do for health man.
This recipe is not about health. This recipe is about flavor, comfort, and caffeine, because what else are we really looking for from our chai latte?
We have projects going on over here. I mean, do we have projects. Chuck has been working right along on the deck, while Alicia and I have been packing up her stuff, moving, it and reorganizing what’s left behind. I find myself asking again, why do we have so much stuff? I feel a purge coming on.
I also feel the need to revamp everything in the house. Crazy? Maybe. Call it a delayed spring cleaning. With all the other changes going on it just seems fitting to update the half moved into house right along with it. I swear one of these days we will actually settle into this place. Sometime in the next 10 years or so.
All this business has not made much time for food and cooking, the main topic on this blog, so the recipe posts have been lacking. We’ve been eating a lot of pizza and tacos. I forced myself to get together enough for this one though. It’s a simple light summer desert that really hits the spot. With only a handful of ingredients and a little bit of forethought it’s a great dish to make for an adult gathering as well as a quick after dinner treat.
Violets are one of the first things to pop out of the ground in spring, along with tulips and daffodils of course, but the great things about violets are that they are edible. Both the flowers and the leaves can be eaten, and are a great addition to salads, cocktails and to decorate cakes, I mean look how pretty they are!
These little babies have been used for centuries for their medicinal properties. Its recorded to have been used as far back as Ancient Greece to prevent headaches and dizziness. I found out that violets actually contain salicylic acid, which the natural “raw” material for aspirin. So it stands up to scientific analysis against these claims.
I had always known that these pretty little flowers were edible but other than salads, and maybe a decorations for sweets, I had no idea what to actually do with them. I mean tossing the leaves and flowers in a salad is easy enough but can get boring pretty fast and honestly I don’t bake all that often. This year however I put in a little effort (thank you internet) and came up with this delightful syrup recipe.
The sweet syrup is a great thing to have around because it can liven up a cup of tea, a simple cupcake recipe or even a cocktail. Because its a simple syrup it can be used to sweeten just about anything (use it like maple syrup or honey), so long as you don’t mind the floral touch or bright purple color it adds.
To test it out I made a pretty pink cocktail mixing rum, lemon juice and the syrup. We don’t follow exact cocktail recipes in this house, but it came out pretty darn good anyway. I also tried it in my chamomile & mint tea when I had a headache last night and it was a really lovely addition.
Using it as a cocktail got me to thinking about turning it into a wine next. I think a pretty purple wine would be awesome, so that might be on next year’s list of projects.
