Wednesday, July 7, 2010

1+1 = mmmmmm

I love to use canning jars for single-serving-take-along ice teas. We're in Florida, ya'll, our lives center around good cold Sweet Tea. I've wanted to expand this so the kids could have some too but I've struggled making lemonade. No idea why, just couldn't get the water-lemon-sugar ratios right. Yesterday, a fellow blogger posted a lemonade recipe. Boy, is it good!


For the tea simply place one tea bag in each pint size jar and add boiling water leaving a little headroom for adding flavoring or sweetener. Steep for 10-15 minutes. Seal with a well fitting lid and refrigerate. Hubby likes his unsweet and I like mine sweet so I just make them all unsweet and add sugar to mine when I have one. It's easier than trying to figure out whos is whos.

Now, here's where life gets a little more interesting. I made Shaken Lemonade Iced Tea. Ohhhh. Now that I have a good solid lemonade recipe making my favorite after-coffee drink from you-know-where is easy. And a lot cheaper than the 3+ dollar drink.

Crystal's Shaken Lemonade Iced Tea

Make one jar of tea but reserve one additional empty jar. Make up the lemonade while it steeps. Pour half the tea into the empty jar and fill both jars the rest of the way with lemonade. It's THAT easy!

You can modify the ratios (I like that word today) to more tea or more lemonade per jar to taste.

Using jars makes it easy to grab some hydration to take out to the garden and the lids keep the bugs and dirt out too!

I scored some canning jar drinking cups at the local thrift store.


I got this whole lot for $1.82! So, if you don't have jars at the ready, before you go looking to buy new, see what you can find! Deals like this make the tea even sweeter.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ok, you have the best ideas! My kids would love this. They like any drink in it's individual container and I like that these are glass and not plastic. Soooo cool! Thanks for the tip, Cathy

Jessica said...

Yes! I make my iced tea this way too. This works really well with your favorite kind of tea- put sugar in the bottom of the glass, fill with water and a tea bag and set out in the sun. By the end of the day, you've got a cup of perfectly steeped tea. Take the tea bag out, pop it into the fridge, and you've got single servings of iced tea!