Cooling Down Part 1

I must admit, ever since I did the Peach Tea post I've been thinking of other summer drinks. So over the  past week I've been having fun with some cool drinks. Tea came first to mind, understandably after the last one :) But I did take the time to get at least a little more creative with most of the drinks... the first one though was very similar to the Peach Tea - but it's not sun tea or peach so I did grow a little :)

Generally I am all about water in all honesty. It's my go to drink of choice and I honestly do enjoy a good tall glass of water. I'll drink it hot - and I mean like hot tea water without the tea :) Or room temperature... sometimes iced, but in all honesty iced is usually my least favorite. I don't know what it is about it - but I like water. However, that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy other drinks to get my daily dose of liquids - sometimes a little flavor is pretty nice :) The tricky part is not getting too  much sugar - and yes, I generally like my tea sweet so therein lies a small problem... Since I don't drink it as often as water though, I figure a little bit of extra sugar isn't horrible.

Anyways - I've been messing with drinks ever since... so much so that I have more than one post to share :) I guess I could put it all in one, but then you get so many recipes all in one that the post just gets huge... plus there is one that I haven't finished yet (it sounds great in my head though) and I don't want to have to make you wait for me to finish the rest of the drinks in the fridge to be able to create it and share it.

So here are my first three refreshing drinks to share. One is a little sweet, one is really light and refreshing, and one is just a wonderful treat.

Sweet Strawberry Ice Tea

8      Bags      Black Tea
1      Cup       Sliced Strawberries
3/4   Cup       Sugar
8      Cups     Water

Place sugar and strawberries in a small bowl. Cover and allow to sit in fridge until sugar is dissolved and strawberries are sitting in the sugary juice.

Strain liquids into pitcher and add water and tea bags. Place in fridge and allow to steep over night.

What you get is a nice sweet tea with a light strawberry flavor.

And to top it off, you can enjoy the rest of the strawberries with a dessert or something too - which is way better than adding them into the tea and then needing to throw them away.

Watermelon Water

6      Cups     Watermelon Chunks  

5      Cups     Water

1                   Lime (juiced)

2      Tbl        Honey

Puree watermelon with lime juice and honey. Strain into your pitcher and then stir in the water.

Serve with a garnish of watermelon or mint. 

I also made some watermelon balls, froze them and tried them as ice cubes :)

This makes a lightly watermelon sweetened water. You could keep out the water and double the recipe and enjoy the watermelon juice by itself as well. All depends on the desired level of sweetness. I also think it would be very good with coconut water and add a little more depth to the flavor.

Chai Iced Tea

2 1/2   Cups       Water
1         Whole     Star Anise
1         Whole     Cinnamon Stick
5         Whole     Cloves
4         Whole     Black Pepper Corns
1          tsp          Ground Cardamom (or 5 - 6 crushed pods if you have them whole)
6          Tbl         Turbinado Sugar
5          Bags       Black Tea

In a medium saucepan combine the water, spices, and sugar and bring to a boil. Cover and remove from heat letting the spices steep for 15 minutes.

**as you can see in the photo above, I have a little packet of something in there - 

that's my cardamom as I didn't have the pods and didn't want to make my tea grainy**

Return to heat and bring back to a boil. Remove from heat and add tea bags, cover and allow to steep for another 8 minutes.

**the packet you see in this photo is two tea bags worth of tea in 

one bag since I used the other to put my cardamom in earlier**

Remove the tea bags and spices, cover again, and allow to cool. Pour into ice cube trays. Once frozen, you're ready to go. When you're ready to enjoy, place 3 - 4 cubes in a glass and pour milk over the top (this depends on how big your glass is and how strong you like it really...). I like it with regular milk as well as vanilla coconut milk :) As the cubes melt your tea will get stronger.

*makes two trays of ice cubes - I will admit I had to have a glass right away so I didn't have enough to completely fill the two trays :)

Mmmmm Mmmmm good!