Fresh Garden Mint Iced Tea

It's August and that means most gardens are overflowing with fruits, vegetables, and herbs. After having spent months tending to our plants, our gardens are finally producing a wonderful bounty. Now what to do with all the excess. What started out as one small mint plant by August can turn into an entire bed being run over by this aggressive weed/herb. One can only make so many jars of jelly (I will be posting a few recipes for mint jellies in the coming weeks), so what else can be done with huge amounts of mint. Ice tea of course!

So this year I planted one small mint plant that my mother in law bought at the Charleston Farmer's Market. Well, this one little plant went a little crazy with the fish fertilizer that I fed it (tip: use fish fertilizer, it's awesome and one of the best gardening tips my mother ever gave me growing up) and has had to be moved to larger pots twice this summer. I have made jellies, cakes, muffins, all using mint and I still have a huge, huge plant. So about a month back I decided I would add mint to iced tea for my kids. That one pitcher has turned into hundreds, they love it. The following is the recipe I use for Fresh Garden Mint Iced Tea.

Fresh Garden Mint Iced Tea

by Ann Jones August-12-2015

This is a great way to use garden mint, especially since mint grows so well and you end up with a ton!

Ingredients

• 12 Tea Bags
• 8 cups Water
• 1/2-1 cup Sugar/Sugar Substitute
• 5-10 Sprigs Garden Mint

Instructions

1. Cut 5-10 sprigs fresh garden mint 2. Place 12 tea bags in a heat proof bowl 3. Wash mint and place in bowl with tea bags4. Add 8 cups boiling water to the bowl 5. Let steep 20 minutes 6. Place strainer over heat proof pitcher and strain tea into pitcher 7. Add sweetener of your choice and stir 8. Let tea chill in refrigerator until cold

Prep time: 30 mins Total time: 1 hour 30 mins Yield: 8 cups 

• I have made this recipe with a variety of different teas. The best is a watermelon lime tea my husband bought me. It makes great iced tea! Regardless is works with pretty much any type of green or black tea
• How much sugar/sweetener is really a personal choice. If you like McDonald's sweet tea add a whole cup. If you like to sweeten at the glass, don't add any
• I use stevia for my drinks. It's my sweetener of choice, I limit the amount of granulated sugar we consume since my oldest has ADHD and sugar makes him bounce off the walls. However, this recipe would work with sugar, splenda, you name it. I haven't tried it with honey so I can't speak for how much to add (I would love to hear if you experiment and find out though!)
• This makes strong tea. My family likes their iced tea to taste like tea, not water. If you like your tea weaker, reduce the amount of tea bags to 8-9
• A sprig of mint is 6-8 leaves, so 10 sprigs would be about 60-80 leaves. You can use one really long sprig of you want. It doesn't have to be 10 small sprigs. 

Homemade Iced Sweet Mint Tea

I have a horrible time making female friends. As far back as I can remember I have had one very close female friend and than a small group of female acquaintances. At parties in college I was more likely to be talking about political theory or science than where I got my nails done (for the record I have never actually been in a nail salon, shocking I know). To this day I have a hard time discussing 'typical' female topics. I fully admit a large part of it is my fault. I grew up with male cousins that were obsessed with professional wrestling and computers. To make matters worse I was an only child and I loved spending time with my dad, we went to sporting events, on hikes, and watched movies. Now I live in a house full of men. Most conversations in my house involve video games or bodily functions, not necessarily in that order. As I've gotten older I've realized I need to be better and more patient with forging female friendships. I have a horrible habit of getting mad at close female friends and then cutting off contact, or just losing contact through my total lack of being great about remembering to make phone calls. We all have things we can work on and one of mine is definitely being better about getting along with other women. I'm a work in progress.

Our weather has been hot and very humid. Our humidity was 83 percent today and it was 93 degrees. It was horrible. Due to the lovely summer weather I have been making lots of cold drinks. Iced Tea is a family favorite and Mint Iced Tea is a great way to use garden mint. The recipe is as follows.

Adapted from Food.com.

Iced Sweet Mint Tea

Recipe Type: Drink

Summary:

A refreshing sweet iced tea recipe using fresh mint.

Preparation Time: 0h, 5m

Cooking Time: 0h, 20m

Yield: 2 Quarts

Mint Iced Tea

Ingredients

• 12 black tea bags
• 10 mint sprigs
• 2 gallons water
• 3/4 cup sugar (or your choice of sweetener)

Cooking Directions

1. Boil the 2 gallons of water.
2. Once water has boiled add water to mint and tea bags.
3. Let steep for 20 minutes.
4. Discard tea bags and mint.
5. In a heat proof pitcher add sugar (or sweetener) and then pour iced tea over.
6. Place in fridge until cold.
7. Serve over ice and with sliced lemon if you prefer.

This tea is strong and sweet. My husband and I are both fans of strong tea, so if you like your tea weaker reduce the amount of tea bags. The same goes for the sugar. If your like your tea sweet add the amount listed, alternately you can make the tea unsweetened or reduce the amount of sugar to meet your needs. When I make this for my whole family (including my kids) I use decaf tea bags and it turns out just as good. 

Homemade Mint Iced Tea

I am a horrible food stylist. It seems to be a talent that many food bloggers have. They spend lots of time shopping for the perfect plates, utensils, and tableware in order to take gorgeous photos. I have to admit I hate shopping for photo props. While I love the second hand store, I don't like shopping for vintage tableware, or linens just to make my photos pop. Plus, with overly propped photos I never know if I am supposed to be looking at the food. I get distracted by the beautiful colors, tableware, plates etc. and more often than not the food becomes the prop instead of the focal point of the recipe that it is supposed to be representing. Honestly I am also a little bit jealous. I wish that I had the patience, time, and follow through to be able to spend hours putting together my photos. Most days I am lucky if the food gets on the plate and the photo taken. One thing I do love is angles. I spend more time finding the right angle for my photos than the worrying about the props. After preping, cooking, and plating my food I just want the angle of the photo to represent my food in the best light and hope that maybe no one will notice that I didn't spend hours finding the perfect vintage table linen for my shot.

Today's recipe is an example of my less than stellar food styling abilities. When I had time to take the photo the mint had all been used and I had no leaves left for photo props. So I am sad to admit that my mint iced tea photos have no actual mint in the picture. Oh well, without further ado here is the breakdown of the recipe I tried today from the Food Network for Mint Iced Tea.

This recipe has 6 ingredients. It takes 2 hours and 20 minutes of total time, 10 minutes of which is active, and makes 4 servings. I only made a few small changes to the original recipe. First, I doubled the recipe to use the large amount of fresh mint that has exploded in my garden the last couple of day. Second, I used half sugar and half stevia. Whenever possible I try to reduce the amount of sugar in drink recipes since my kids are hyper enough without a ton of extra sugar added to their diet.

My youngest son fell in love with this recipe. He drank half of the pitcher this afternoon and insisted on drinking it with a sliced lemon on his glass, it was pretty cute. If you aren't a huge fan of mint you can take out the mint after a couple of hours and the tea will be more lemony than mint tasting. On the flip side if you are like my family and love mint, let the mint steep in the fridge for most of the day and the tea will have a nice crisp flavor.

For the recipe go to Mint Iced Tea.

Homemade Limeade

Homemade Limeade

There is something that just screams summer about lemonade and limeade. Growing up my family had big summer picnics. My mother was the oldest of 12 so there was always tons of things to eat and drink. To this day I think of my family when I have picnic foods. During the summer I always seem to have a large amount of leftover lemons and limes. More often than not the price of a bag of limes is less than buying 3 or 4 individually. So I buy the bag and then I have 7 limes leftover after I make my recipes for the week. Too many times I have just let them go bad on the counter. Then last year I thought to myself, what a waste. So I made limeade. It was refreshing and a wonderful way to use leftover limes. Last week I tried a new recipe for Limeade from Martha Stewart.

My Two Boys at Ritter Park Rose Garden Huntington, WV

This recipe has 3 ingredients. It takes 10 minutes of total time, all of which is active and makes 6 servings. I only made a few changes to the original recipe. I used a juicer for the limes, my hands aren't that strong. For the sweetener I used sugar. I found that only using 1/2 cup of sugar wasn't as sweet as I would prefer so I added 1/4 cup more. The recipe would also work very well with honey.

Steps Up To Ritter Park Rose Garden Huntington, WV

I am a big fan of limeade. This recipe had a nice tart and sweet combination. I was a big fan of this recipe, my kids liked it, but they preferred the homemade lemonade that I made the day before. If you like your limeade sweet, I would suggest adding more sugar. If you like it more on the tart side than I would follow the recipe as written.

For the recipe go to Homemade Limeade.

Homemade Limeade

Recipe Type: Drinks

Summary:

A 3 ingredient recipe for limeade. A great way to use leftover limes.

Preparation Time: 0h, 10m

Total Time: 0h, 10m

Yield: 6 Servings

Homemade Lemonade

Homemade Lemonade

I'm back from my blogging vacation! It was nice having time to spend with my kids and I feel relaxed and ready to get back to cooking and sharing my recipe results. School starts for my oldest on Thursday. Today was spend looking for a new backpack. My oldest was at my in-laws house so I was left shopping for clothes and school supplies with my smart phone, texting pictures to my son to make sure everything was okay. Luckily I am super aware of what both of my kids like and my oldest was very excited with everything I chose. I love when my kids actually think that I did something great. My youngest is very jealous that my oldest is starting school so he ended up with new shirts and a toy. I'm hoping that on Thursday he doesn't have a complete meltdown when the bus pulls away without him. He will be more than ready next year when he is able to get on the bus with his older brother for his first day of school. Since this was a laid back weekend I used up a lot of items that I had leftover in my fridge and pantry. Yesterday I tried a new recipe for Homemade Lemonade from the Food Network.

Huntington, WV from across the Ohio River

This recipe has 6 ingredients. It takes 10 minutes of total time, all of which is active and makes 6 to 8 servings. Honestly this recipe is so straight forward that I didn't make many changes. The main deviation I made from the original recipe was to cook the sugar and water on the stove until the sugar fully dissolved. Then I added the syrup to the pitcher and added the remaining ingredients. After the lemonade was done I allowed it to cool in the fridge for 4 hours. I served the lemonade over ice with lemon slices.

Frank Gatski Memorial Bridge

My two kids were big fans of this lemonade. It came out pretty sweet. If you aren't a fan of very sweet lemonade you can cut down the amount of sugar. If the lemonade is too tart or strong for your taste you can add additional cold water. This is definitely a recipe I would make again and it literally costs cents to make.

The second picture is of Huntington, WV from across the Ohio River in Chesapeake. The third picture is of the Frank Gatski Memorial Bridge.

For the recipe go to Homemade Lemonade.

Homemade Lemonade

Recipe Type: Drink

Summary:

A simple 6 ingredient recipe for Homemade Lemonade. A great way to use old lemons.

Preparation Time: 0h, 10m

Total Time: 0h, 10m

Yield: 6 to 8 servings

Melting in the Summer Heat? Try Lemon Balm Iced Tea

Lemon Balm Iced Tea

It has been raining for what seems like months. When it's not raining the temperature has been in the 90's and humid. I think we have had enough rain for the entire year just since May. While this would normally be a minor annoyance, my plants are really less than happy. I found mushrooms growing in my basil pot and the lower leaves are turning yellow. There has just been way too much rain, even with great drainage etc they just aren't happy right now. Since the rain is wrecking havoc on my potted plants I have been making an attempt to use as many of my herbs as I can while they are still doing decent. This week I came up with a new recipe for Lemon Balm Iced Tea.

• 2 cups lemon balm leaves
• 4 black tea bags
• 1 sliced lemon

Wash and hand crush the lemon balm leaves. Add the lemon balm to 8 cups of water. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 5 minutes. Take off of heat, add the tea bags and sliced lemon. Place a lid on the pot and let sit for 10 minutes. Strain the tea and add to a gallon pitcher. Add cold water to fill and let sit in the fridge until cool. Serve over ice.

That's it, a very easy recipe that is refreshing on a hot summer day. My two boys really loved the lemon flavor of this tea and drank the majority of the pitcher. It really is a great way to use lemon balm!

Peanut Butter Cup Protein Smoothie

My oldest has been back in school for two weeks and my family has been doing great with changing our breakfast habits. I have been the one the most in need of reform and I am glad to say that I have completely changed my bad habits. No longer do I reach for the cookies and sweets in the morning, but instead consistently eat protein and fruit. This has been a major change for me and I feel a lot better. I have also changed by kids diets pretty dramatically. We have always eaten well and I started cooking from scratch years ago. However, I have always baked a little too much and can be hit or miss with using whole grains instead of white flour. In the last couple of months I have changed these habits and my family has discovered that they love quinoa, whole wheat couscous and brown rice flour. My two boys have also been much calmer and stopped all the snacking they used to do all day without eating meals. One breakfast food that I have found that my whole family loves is smoothies. They are quick and easy and can be full of protein. Last week I tried a new recipe for Peanut Butter Cup Protein Smoothies from the July issue of Family Circle magazine.

This recipe has 6 ingredients. It takes 15 minutes to prep and makes 4 servings. I'm not really sure why the recipe states that it takes 15 minutes to prep. I was able to put together this smoothie in literally a couple of minutes. I chose to leave out the salt. I tasted the smoothie before adding the salt and I liked it the way it was. I try to avoid unnecessary sodium, so I chose to leave the salt out completely. I actually used vanilla flavored almond milk instead of soy milk. My family prefers almond milk and the remaining soy milk left in the carton wouldn't be consumed and therefore it would be wasteful. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

Everyone in my house thought that this smoothie tasted like something from a juice bar. It is absolutely delicious and I love that it has 15 grams of protein. It does have 14 grams of fat, but since it's mostly from peanut butter which is a good fat I think that it is perfectly acceptable. Plus I don't believe in eliminating all fats from your diet, especially since my family is very physically active. One of the best parts about this smoothie is that it keeps you very full. I wasn't hungry until well after lunch so it was a great way to control my mid-morning sugar cravings. I have already made this smoothie two more times and it is sure to stay in my breakfast repertoire.

For the recipe go to Peanut Butter Cup Protein Smoothie.

Diet Pepsi + Mother's Day Delights, Coming to You This Weekend

I have a confession. I love finding free samples and coupons. Growing up my mom was the queen of finding great things at the second hand store (including a vintage Dior coat for 10 dollars that I love to this day!). I have followed this tradition and I am one of those crazy people that will get up in the morning after Thanksgiving to battle the other millions people for savings. So with that in mind here is a freebie for those of you in the following cities: New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Buffalo, San Francisco, Miami, Washington D.C., Kansas City, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Milwaukee, Cleveland. I wish I still lived in Seattle to take advantage of this! So here's what's happening:

"This Mother’s Day weekend, Diet Pepsi will be surprising and refreshing their biggest fans – moms! While you’re out and about, make sure mom has a Diet Pepsi in hand because this Mother’s Day weekend, street teams will be stationed in 15 cities nationwide, scouting out moms and rewarding them with refreshing treats – like spafinder.com gift cards and custom totes filled with goodies, coupons – and of course some Diet Pepsi!   Keep an eye on the Diet Pepsi Facebook and Twitter pages throughout the weekend for updates and visit http://on.fb.me/IRXRBk to see if we’ll be hitting a city near you!

And for some added fun – from now through May 13, consumers that buy three 12-packs of Diet Pepsi save $3 on flowers for Mother’s Day at SuperValu stores in these 15 cities."

I hope some great moms in this cities are able to take advantage of this offer!



Disclaimer: I received no compensation for this post and as always all opinions are my own.