Starbucks Copy Cat Chai Tea Concentrate

My boyfriend loves Starbucks chai tea and buys the Tazo chai tea concentrate. Well, that stuff is expensive. Not as expensive as buying one at Starbucks, but expensive none the less. Sometimes I can get the concentrate on sale at Target for 2 for $6.00, but that's about the best deal out there that I've seen. I've tried other brands and he doesn't like them. They were too spicy, too sweet, not spicy enough, too weak or just off. I finally found Tazo Chai Tea DECAF. I had no idea that decaf would be so hard to find. Once I found it I was on a quest to find the perfect sweetness and strength.

I tried at least three different versions before getting it to where he liked it. It's definitely cheaper than buying the concentrate. You're paying a lot for water when you buy it that way. Now that it's getting warmer, he won't drink it as much, but now I'm prepared for this Autumn.

Starbucks Copy Cat Chai Tea Concentrate

Yield: 2 cups, or 4 cups chai tea mixed with milk
Prep Time: 2 minutes, plus steeping 
Cook Time: 3 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients
3 Tazo Chai Tea Bags
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons honey
2 cups water

Directions
Boil three tea bags in two cups of water on the stove or in the microwave for two minutes. Let steep for 10 minutes until dark brown. Add two teaspoons of honey and two teaspoons of sugar and stir until dissolved. To make a Chai Tea Latte, add 1/2 cup milk and 1/2 cup concentrate and heat until desired temperature. Or chill and serve over ice.

Enjoy!

Grilled Chicken Avocado Sammie

This is one of my favorite sanwiches. Chewy bread with a quick homemade sundried tomato pesto and fresh avocado really make this sandwich mouth watering. Add some mozzarella cheese and it's a little piece of heaven in your mouth.

I say grilled, but really it's more like pan fried chicken. It's too cold for me to grill, but this weekend it's supposed to finally warm up. I'm ready for spring. Better yet, give me low 80's with low humidity. If you can, grill the chicken. It makes it that much better.

I think the messier the sandwich the better it is. It always seems that way anyhow. On a napkin scale, I think it was a solid three. The ripe avocado has a tendency to slip out just as you are taking a bite. Of course you could always use a softer bread, but I really like the chewiness of this bread. A ciabatta would work really well.

I sliced the chicken thin or you can pound it out if you need to get rid of some aggression. Sprinkle with oregano, onion powder, garlic powder, rosemary, sage, salt and pepper. Cook on medium high heat until golden brown.

The pesto can't get much easier. Blend the sun-dried tomatoes with a few fresh basil leaves until pulverized in a blender, food chopper or bullet. I use my bullet almost every day. I love it for pestos, smoothies, grinding spices and even egg shells for the garden.

What I did:

Grill the chicken with the following spices:
Oregano
Onion Powder
Rosemary
Sage
Garlic Powder
Salt and Pepper

Blend about 5-6 oil packed sun-dried tomatoes with about three to four large fresh basil leaves until pulverized in a blender. (This is enough for one to two sandwiches depending on how thick you spread it on the bread.)

Spread the pesto on the bread, then the mozzarella (use the fresh if you can..it's so much better), chicken and about a half of an avocado.

Enjoy!

5 Minute Pizza Sauce

This is the easiest, tastiest pizza sauce you can make in under five minutes. Not to mention cheaper than that stuff in a jar. And, you know what is in it. A plus for me, since I mostly try to avoid processed food when at all possible. I try to buy organic when I can, aka when the budget allows. 

This is generally my go to pizza sauce when I haven't made my oven-dried tomato pizza sauce. I'll try to post that one soon. That's also easy to make, but takes about 2 hours to bake. If you have fresh basil, you can add a few leaves to the sauce or tear the leaves and put them on top of the cheese. Don't you love the smell of fresh basil? 

Easy Pizza Sauce

makes enough for two 12" pizzas

1 cup fire roasted tomatoes

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon dried oregano

pinch of garlic

Using a blender, on high, blend until well combined. About a minute. 

Enjoy!

Cheap Bath Toy Storage

The bath toy storage bags seemed to get slimy pretty fast and at $14.99, I wasn't about to buy another one any time soon. even if it were really cute. So I bought a lingerie bag for $1.49, cut two holes in it and hung it on the shower caddy. I guess you could hang it up with suction cups if you don't have a shower caddy.

A Quick Way to Fix a Cake

From disaster to success.

My sister was make a star cake and had a bit of a problem as you can see. So how were we going to fix it? Easy. We still had some cake that we had used to cut the star out of, so we mixed that with some icing - cake pop style - and molded it around the star points. Voila! Fixed.