Okay all you non-southerners or otherwise sweet tea impaired bloggy peoples, I’m going to give you my recipe for homemade Southern Sweet Tea! It’s just as good as Chick-Fil-A or Chicken Express tea if I do say so myself. And it’s easy peasy.

Amber’s Southern Sweet Tea

1. Bring 4 cups of water to a boil, pour into 1 gallon tea pitcher.
2. Add three family sized Lipton tea bags and let it steep for at least ten minutes (or thirty depending on how strong you want it. Just don’t let it cool completely.)
3. While it’s still plenty warm for the sugar to dissolve, gently squeeze excess water from the tea bags and remove.
4. Stir in 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar (you can reduce down to 1 cup if you prefer it less sweet, but why?)
5. Fill with cool water to 1 gallon line and stir.
6. Pour over ice in tall glass and serve with a straw.

And here’s a few more tea tips for you:

• If you can’t make a whole gallon for whatever reason – simply follow the same process as above until you get to step #5. Before filling with water, pour half of the tea concentrate into a cup, measuring cup, etc and store in fridge. Fill with water to the 2 qt line. When the tea is gone, your next pitcher will be ready in only minutes. Just pour the tea concentrate in, fill with water and serve.
• If you’re going to need lots of tea for a family gathering – make up the concentrate ahead of time and store it in individual increments (you can wash and reuse soda bottles for easy storage and mixing.) You’ll be able to keep the sweet tea flowing without much interruption and without using much space in your fridge, saving room for that big bowl of fruit salad or that whip cream topped chocolate pie.
• For tea on the go – It might be easier to transport bottles of concentrate, gallons of water and bags of ice. Perfect for that 4th of July picnic at the park.
• If a tea bag breaks – don’t give up on the tea! Pull out your coffee pot, place a clean filter in it, and slowly pour the tea through the filter and into the carafe. Bye bye tea grinds, hello sweet tea.

**Warning!**

You may find that your family will get used to having sweet tea around the house. Children may begin requesting sweet tea at odd times of the day. Reports have been made of husbands drinking the last of the sweet tea straight from the pitcher and placing the empty pitcher back in the fridge. Sweet tea may cause immediate euphoria, slight weight gain and intense cravings. Symptoms of withdrawal may occur when sweet tea is not administered regularly. If these or other side effects occur, the best course of treatment is usually the administration of sweet tea. Neither Lipton Tea nor Classic Housewife is responsible for any ill side affects or addictions you may experience.

Works for Me Wednesday is hosted by Kristen @ We are THAT Family. Hop on over!

I’m looking for recipe suggestions that we could make for breakfast Christmas morning – either overnight in the crockpot, or something that you prepare and keep in the fridge and then bake in the oven when you get up.

Any ideas? Lend me your tried and true recipes, please?

Whether you’re talking about the drive-thru eating on the way down to my mom’s house, or the take-out pizza we ate Saturday night.. my diet has been pretty much thrown out the window while on vacation.

And though it may not be as bad as the schnitzel smothered in cheese and tomato with a side of german potatoes (or the cherry pie and ice cream we had for dessert)… the Java CrockPot Roast probably wasn’t ideal, either. At least, not with the second helping.

BUT IT WAS GOOD.

OH, SO GOOD.

I agree with Stephanie that if I didn’t know there was coffee in there, I never would have guessed that’s what the rich flavor was from. So if you don’t like coffee, don’t let that stop you from trying it.

Now it’s not anything MY family is EVER going to eat. The kids didn’t care for the “gravy” and my husband wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole – but perhaps YOUR family would. If they will, then lucky, lucky you! This recipe was so easy and ten times as delicious as it was easy. I had to try hard not to overeat.

I said try.

I didn’t say I succeeded.

Here’s the first part of the recipe and I’ll let you click over to Stephanie’s site for the rest:

The Ingredients.

–3 lb chuck roast, trimmed of fat
–3/4 cup brewed coffee
–1 yellow onion, chopped
–1 red bell pepper, chopped
–8 oz sliced mushrooms
–1 t garlic powder, or 4-5 chopped cloves
–1/2 tsp salt
–1/4 black pepper
–1 T Worcestershire sauce
–3 T red wine vinegar
–4 oz cream cheese (to add at the end)

Click here for the directions.

Let me know if you try it, I’d like to know if you love it as much as I do. Of course, be sure and tell Stephanie first!!

Fat and Happy,

Amber

The first post I ever wrote on this blog was a recipe for homemade hot chocolate. I think it’s kind of funny now. Honestly, I had just created my blog and I just wanted to put something up on it.

On the other hand, I can reference that hot chocolate recipe easily – cuz I know exactly where it’s at. Handy, since I made our fall/winter batch of hot chocolate mix this morning.

This time, I decided to increase the ingredients by half in order to use the entire box of Nestle quick and make a larger batch. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you view it) I overlooked the fact that I only had enough powdered milk for one batch and no more! Since I added that last, I was already committed with my 1 1/2 sized batch. With no other options, I added the one box of powdered milk and mixed it up anyway.

It couldn’t hurt, right?

Um, NO!!

This recipe is smoother and more chocolatey and… YUM!

Mix up your own. Try it. Savor it.

HOT CHOCOLATE MIX

1 large container Nestle Quick (21.8 oz.)

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 1/2 cups non-dairy creamer

1 box (1lb., 9oz.) instant, non-fat milk

Stir all the dry ingredients together and store in an airtight container. Add the mix to your hot water to taste, approximately 1/3 cup of mix to 1 cup of hot water.

You can also use sugar-free milk chocolate mix, or fat free creamer or make any other adjustments for preference.

Last week, the kids and I made some impromptu, homemade soft pretzels – and they were wonderfully delicious!

See:

This is just a chronicling of our first attempt to make soft pretzels – which was a complete success, by the way! The complete recipe and instructions can be found here, at Mommy of Four.

Also, we experimented with a small group of them, adding sugar and cinnamon. The effect was similar to cinnamon rolls or cinnamon toast but in pretzel form.

The rest we ate with parmesan cheese. The kids loved them. The next morning we had leftover pretzels with our breakfast, warmed in the toaster, split open and spread with butter or cream cheese. YUM!

Here’s a few tips from our experience:

1. It took a few tries to get the hang of rolling them out thin and long enough.
2. I learned that it was actually harder to roll them out thin enough if there was too much flour on the table, they slipped instead of rolling.
3. We gave the 2yo one ball of dough to roll, squash and re-roll. So we actually made 23 instead of 24. But the ONE kept him from messing with the other 23!
4. During the “bathing” process, I used two plates. One to transfer the wet pretzels to the table, one to transfer new pretzels to the bath. I could reload the dry plate while the previous batch simmered and pick it up after dropping off the wet pretzels. It kept things flowing smoothly.
5. My pretzels didn’t actually need to bake as long as the recipe indicated. The first 8 almost burned! After that, I set the timer for 8 minutes and checked them every minute or two.

Edited to add: I wasn’t sure which flour to use so I used half bread flour and half all purpose flour, I also some wheat gluten.

Wanna learn more about making pretzels? Let Alton Brown show you how. (Of course, he doesn’t use a bread machine, but he’ll teach you why the baking soda bath is important.)

• Part 1
• Part 2

Have fun making your own homemade pretzels!

I really didn’t intend to write a diet-related Works for Me Wednesday post. Honest. My life does not revolve around my new healthy diet. Really!

But when we made these granola bars Sunday afternoon and they were sooo easy and sooo yummy (so yummy that I since cut the recipe in half so that I couldn’t eat the whole pan in one sitting!) and they were ready to eat in about 15 minutes start-to-finish…

And when we made them again last night and I actually calculated the calorie count verses that of a snickers bar (because these granola bars are just as satisfying as a candy bar, I think) and the numbers totally blew me away…

Well.. you do the math.

So here it is. These granola bars are what is working to help satisfy my sweet tooth while I’m changing my diet and exercise for a healthier lifestyle. I adapted this recipe from THIS recipe on allrecipes.com.

Low-Cal Chocolate Chip Granola Bars

• 1 1/4 cups crispy rice cereal
• 1 cup old fashioned oatmeal
• 1 serving chocolate chips (look on the back of the bag, mine read 30 pieces for 70 calories)
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 1/4 crunchy peanut butter
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• greased 8X8 or 9X9 glass dish.

1. In a mixing bowl, mix the oats, rice cereal, and chocolate chips until evenly distributed.
2. In a microwaveable dish, heat the corn syrup and brown sugar (about a minute or two) until melted and mix together well. Stir in the vanilla and peanut butter. This will also serve to cool the mixture enough before you add it to the cereal.
3. With a spatula or spoon, scoop the mixture into the cereal and fold in until everything is coated evenly.
4. With the spatula or the back of the spoon, press the granola mixture into the greased pan until packed firmly. How well you pack it in determines how well the granola bar holds together later.
5. Let the pan sit about ten minutes until cooled and then cut into 8 pieces.

When cut into 8 pieces, your granola bar will be a reasonable and satisfying size – larger than most granola bars on the market. With the crunch and the chocolate it will also be as satisfying as most candy bars. However, this granola bar only packs a punch of 164 calories.

Oh, and those candy bars?

Regular Snickers = 273 calories

King Size Snickers = 541 calories

Milky Way = 260 calories

Nestle Crunch Bar = 230 calories

Again, do the math, right? So if you’ve got a chocolate craving skip the Snickers (though I do love me some Snickers!) and whip up a pan of these instead. Just, uh… don’t eat the whole pan in one sitting. It kinda defeats the purpose. Oh, and don’t make a pan everyday, either, cuz, well, that kinda defeats the purpose, too, right?

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