Chai Tea Recipe

Last Saturday Jason had to work all day, which sucked. But Rachel hung out over here all afternoon (attempting to do homework) and I tried out this awesome chai tea concentrate recipe. It was gone in two days, so of course this week I had to make more. Just not on the day I was cooking chili in the crockpot, because those would be conflicting smells. And chili is delicious, but I got tired of smelling it for eight hours!

Anyway. It's really simple -- you don't even need loose-leaf tea, although I'm sure that would be ideal. I just used eight plain black tea bags, some orange peel (being too lazy to zest it this time), two cinnamon sticks, anise seeds (use some other "pie spice" if you don't have these), 6-7 gently crushed cardamon pods, close to a teaspoon of peppercorns, about 1" of ginger root (peeled and cut into 4-5 slices), and 4-5 cloves. [The original recipe calls for a vanilla bean, too, but I didn't have any left. A little vanilla extract would be about as good.]

When I was done, I just put the chai concentrate in clean pickle jars and a swing-top bottle. All you have to do is heat it with equal parts milk and then add a little sugar or honey to sweeten it. Easy and delicious -- and it makes your kitchen smell wonderful. :)

Linksies

I am utterly exhausted at the moment - for once not exaggeration - but I think I should probably do some dishes since I don't want my house to develop any funky aromas. That kind of sounded like too big of a task until I got on pinterest and saw this homemade chai concentrate recipe a friend posted. Amazing how reading about/seeing pictures of tea and spices mixed together makes me start to feel better almost instantly... (And it's a lot cheaper and i bet tons better than going to Starbucks, which I was daydreaming about.)

I'll also post this link another friend shared, because I *wish* I were this crafty: really cool handmade gifts under $25. I actually am attempting to make some gifts this year, but obviously can't post pictures here. And I'm doing it with some trepidation, because I'm one of the least crafty people I know. Unless cooking counts? But the cool thing about pinterest is that browsing all these creative links makes me feel more inspired to do things, even if nothing I do turns out remotely as awesome as other people's. And it's kind of fun.