Easy Iced Coffee

I have a bit of an iced coffee problem these days (see exhibit A, above). Luckily for my wallet, I prefer McDonald's iced coffee - - it is much cheaper (and tastes better) than Starbucks, in my humble opinion. Still, every time I buy one, I feel kind of guilty. I have made iced coffee with my Keurig in the past, but the K-cups specifically for iced coffee are too expensive, and hot coffee + ice cubes = very watery iced coffee.

Yesterday, I rememberd that Pioneer Woman did a post last year about making your own iced coffee, so I decided to look through her archives. Off to the store I went for supplies, and got down to business.

Pioneer Woman's recipe uses two gallons of water and a pound of coffee, but I didn't have a container big enough to mix that much in, so I halved the recipe and made just one gallon of concentrate. I recycled one of our gallon water jugs which worked out perfectly. I poured half the bag of ground coffee into the jug, and then filled the rest of the jug with spring waterThen, I let it sit at room temperature for about 8 hours.



When it was done steeping, I strained the coffee concentrate from the grounds, per Pioneer Woman's instructions. Then, it went into the fridge to chill overnight.

I decided to try Vietnamese iced coffee (using sweetened condensed milk as a sweetener). First, I filled my reusable cup with ice. then I filled it half-way with coffee concentrate. Next, I added 2 tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk, and a good splash of half and half. I went to stir it and of course, all of the ice cubes had fused together! So, I grabbed a cocktail shaker, poured everything in it, and gave it a good shaking. Everything got mixed, and it was actually nice and frothy when I poured it back into my cup. I think I will use this method from here on out!

The verdict? It is really, really good iced coffee. I wasn't sure that I would like it, but I actually love it. I'm so excited! Total cost? $8.67 for the coffee and the sweetened condensed milk (I always have half and half on hand so I didn't count that). I used approximately 1 cup of concentrate, and there are 16 cups in a gallon, so I should get about 16 iced coffees per batch. That works out to about 54 cents per coffee, as opposed to $2.11 at McDonalds. Yay!

As far as using sweetened condensed milk instead of sugar to sweeten the coffee? I really liked that, too. I had never heard of doing that before but I am glad I gave it a try. 

Homemade Ginger Ale

I recently stumbled across this recipe for homemade ginger ale at Food For My Family. I'm not a big pop drinker, but I do like ginger ale. I also frequently steep and drink fresh ginger root and lemon juice for chronic stomach issues, so I thought this might be a good alternative. Plus it just sounded refreshing.

First, get a big ol' hunk of ginger root at the grocery store. You'll need enough to equal 3 cups. This piece only cost me about $2.00. Peel it, rinse it, and then chop it up.

Once you have your ginger root all chopped, you'll also want to carefully remove 1 tablespoon of lime peel from a fresh lime. It can be a little tricky, because you don't want to get any of the pith (the white part) or it will taste bitter. Add the lime peel and ginger root to 6 cups of water. Bring to a boil, turn down to medium-low and simmer for 15 minutes. Add 1 1/2 cups of sugar and stir until dissolved. Simmer another 10 minutes.

Turn off the burner and let the syrup cool. Then, strain out the ginger chunks and lime peel, and pour the cooled syrup into an airtight container. Store in the fridge until ready to use.

To make a glass of ginger ale, pour 1/4 cup of the syrup over ice. Add 1 cup (or more, according to taste) of club soda. Stir gently and enjoy!

I really love this ginger ale - - it has quite a bite to it, but if you don't like it super-gingery, just add more club soda. I also think it would be great for mixing cocktails. Yum!

Caramelized Onions

I've mentioned a few times before that Friday night at our house is homemade pizza night. The boys all love it, and it is a guaranteed quick and easy meal for me to prepare. One of my favorite things to put on the "grown-up" pizza is caramelized onions. So easy to make, and so addictive and delicious. If you don't care for onions on your pizza, you still ought to give these a try, because it is a very different flavor than just chopping up some onions and throwing them on your pizza. All you need is one onion - - doesn't matter what kind. I have used red, white, and vidalia and all are great. Cut the onion in half, and then slice each half very thin. Meanwhile, heat 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Toss in your onions, and sprinkle 1-2 tablespoons of brown sugar over the top. Stir well. Continue stirring as they cook, for approximately 10 minutes.

If your onions start to brown at all, then you have the heat up too high and may want to turn it down a bit. You are looking for the onions to soften and turn a nice golden color. Don't try to rush them - - the slower they cook, the better they will be.

The end result should look like this. Put as many as you'd like on top of your pizza. I guarantee you, you've never tasted anything like this. They are soooo good. I just put whatever is left over in a Tupperware in the fridge and use them the following week. Some of my favorite combos using caramelized onion are pesto/fresh mozzarella/sausage/caramelized onion, and artichoke heart/black olive/caramelized onion. Just mix them with your favorite topping and give it a try!

Something to Try

Do you have an over-abundance of these little medicine-dispensing cups in your house? I actually just got done tossing about ten of them, when I was cleaning out my cupboards. They seem to multiply in the dark in there. I did save a couple though, because they make great maple-syrup-pourers for my little guys.

For some reason, pancakes just taste better when you get to pour your own syrup.

Something to Try: Aebleskiver!

Have you ever seen a pan quite like this one? It is an aebleskiver pan, and I had been coveting one in the King Arthur Flour catalogue for months, but then was lucky enough to be given one for my birthday this year (thanks, Kevin and Rachel!). I finally got around to trying it over the weekend, and one use was all I needed, to declare that that aebleskiver will become a regular in our house. I also received this book along with my pan, so I settled on the "quick aebleskiver" recipe and got to work. The only ingredients were Bisquick, milk, and eggs, so it was as simple as could be. After the batter was prepared, I heated the pan, and then added some cooking oil to each well. When that was good and hot, I added a couple of tablespoons of batter to each well.

Once they had been cooking for about 3 minutes, I carefully turned each aebleskiver over, using two bamboo skewers, and they looked like this:

As it turns out, I'd turned them a little too early because they weren't as brown as I had wanted. No problem, I just flipped them again. The end result?

Little morsels of deliciousness that the boys (big and little) went crazy for. We gave them a generous sprinkle of confectioner's sugar and they were good to go. I did try a batch just using cooking spray to coat the pan, and I can tell you that they weren't nearly as good as the ones that were cooked in oil (go figure!). I can't wait to try some of the other recipes in the book. Camden wants to put some chocolate chips in the centers of the next batch, which sounds like a mighty fine idea to me.