Thai Iced Tea

Hey peoples. 

It is ridiculously hot today. Probably because it is currently 1pm, and I woke up about 11am.... It's still hot. I hope that yesterdays recipe was good. Because today I'm coming back with something that will be perfect to sip on today and it is just a skip over from the pond. 

Today I'm going to post up a recipe for Thai iced tea. This stuff is amazing, just as sweet and refreshing but no where near as huge of a caffeine hit. Which could be a good thing if you are worried about lying wide awake at 3am in the morning. 

The drink is similar to the Vietnamese coffee from yesterday because it is also chilled with lots of ice and sweetened with condensed milk, milk and coconut milk for extra flavour and depth. There isn't much to the recipe once again, but let's get started. 

Ingredients

100g thai tea mix (OR 4 black tea bags)

60g sugar

1 L boiling water

A LOT of ice cubes 

100ml condensed milk

100ml coconut milk

100ml evaporated milk

Method

1. Boil water in a saucepan and place in the tea and sugar. 

2. Boil for 3 minutes before letting the tea steep for 40 minutes off the heat. 

3. Strain tea into a bowl and dispose of tea leaves. 

4. Fill your serving glasses with ice

5. Mix various milks together

6. Fill glasses 3/4 up with tea

7. Fill up the rest of the glasses with the milk mixture

Serve ice cold

And there you have it, another ice cold drink to sip on in this 30 degree weather. It is supposed to only be spring, what is this? 

This drink is delectable throughout the year but hits all the right spots in summer, so go for it and make a huge batch at home and leave it chilling in the fridge to enjoy at your own discretion.

I hope that you have liked the recipe because I'll be back with more tomorrow. I can't believe it's already been 3 days :/

Vietnamese Iced Coffee

So yesterdays post was a snack. Today's post is also gonna be a snack. I think this week might end up being a blog roll of snacks from around the world.

I hope that the caramel popcorn from yesterday was a success because I'm currently snacking on some right now. I would also be sipping some of today's recipe if it wasn't for the fact that it is 10pm and I won't be able to sleep if I had some.

As you can guess from the title of this blog post, today's recipe is going to be Vietnamese Iced Coffee. Kind of like the best drink to have ever been invented if you are looking for a serious pick me up on a swealtering hot summer's day, or even just a sweltering Spring day.

In Vietnamese the drink is known as ca phe da or cafe da. It is simple and is made with finely ground Vietnamese coffee which has a distinctive earthy flavour before being mixed with condensed milk and LOTS of ice.

The coffee was introduced to Vietnam by the French during the 19th C and condensed milk was used due to the lack of fresh milk available in the country along with a dark roast of coffee. It resulted in a strong blend of coffee that was balanced by the sweet condensed milk. Anyways to the recipe:

Ingredients
2 tbs of ground Vietnamese coffee (or dark roast coffee)
2 tbs condensed milk (can adjust to own taste)
1/2 cup boiling water
A LOT of ice cubs

Method
1. Prepare the coffee in a Vietnamese coffee filter or use a coffee machine accordingly.
2. Fill your cup with ice cubes while you wait for the coffee to drip through.
3. Pour hot coffee into the cup and then top with condensed milk.
4. Add a straw and use it to stir the condensed milk through.

And there you have it, a super simple drink to make to relieve yourself from the heat of the sun any time of the year.

I hope that you have been liking the posts so far, stay tuned for more throughout the week :)

Caramel Popcorn

I'm going to be honest here, I'm terrible at keeping this whole blogging thing going, It's pretty much been at least a whole month since I've last posted a blog because I've just been too lazy. I'm not even going to say that it is because I've been bust. Every since mid-sem exams have finished I've just done nothing at home. Apart from catching up on lectures that I've missed (I've still got a long way to go).

But since it is now the mid-session break I'm going to strike another deal with you. My one week of non-stop posting. I'll do another one of those this week. Starting today and ending on Friday. So you'll have 7 new recipes to keep you entertained and cooking up a storm in the kitchen for like 1 month, maybe 6 if you do a recipe a week. There isn't going to be any particular theme this time, but who knows it might come out of nowhere.

So are we all OK with this deal? One week of posts starting today :)

So the first recipe for this week will be caramel popcorn. Sweet goodness that melts in your mouth, keeps your fingers sticky and reaching for more and more until you hit the bottom of the container. Unlike the usual caramel popcorn I'm going to put a slight twist on this one. Usually it is just sweet, but this time I'm going to give it an ultimate sweet and savory twist by using buttered popcorn instead of plain. Stay tuned for more.

Ingredients
1 pack of buttered microwave popcorn
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
6 tbs unsalted butter
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp vanilla essence

Method
1. Pop the popcorn according to instructions on the bag.
2. In a saucepan melt the butter and then add sugar, corn syrup and 2tbs of water. Turn to medium heat and whisk until the mixture is a golden colour.
3. Turn heat off and add the baking soda and vanilla, quickly mix in.
4. Quickly pour mix over popcorn, and try to mix as well as you can without breaking the popcorn, Doesn't matter if it isn't perfectly mixed yet.
5. Pour mixture onto a lined baking tray and place in an oven pre-heated to 120C.
6. After about 20 minutes the caramel should be movable so use a spatula to evenly coat the popcorn mix in caramel. You can repeat this every 10 minutes until the popcorn is evenly coated.
7. When the mix is evenly coated, take it out of the oven to cool before storing in an air-tight container or eating straight away.

And there you have it, a sweet and buttery snack that you can have a home ready for a movie night or just a yummy snack to have all the time.

NOTE: If you want to make salted caramel popcorn you can all 1 tsp of sea salt into the melted butter mix to give it a slight salty taste.

I hope that this recipe will be enough to keep you satisfied until tomorrow because there will be more delicious goodness in tomorrows recipe.

Stay tuned for tomorrow guys!!