I’ve been under the weather—literally—lately. With the advent of this early spring comes changing weather fronts moving rapidly across my state as the spring rains come and go with the barometric pressure rising and falling on an almost daily basis, especially at night. For whatever reason, that means my chronic illness flares and my pain level rises to the point I cannot sleep well. In addition, spring brings seasonal allergies that exacerbate my asthma. In short, I’m a mess.
I finally caved and called the Doctor to ask for a renewal of the one-step up from my regular pain medication that I take when things get bad but getting back to my baseline isn’t coming as easily as it usually does. I waited too long to cry uncle… Hence very little writing is getting done.
So I decided I would make a very short post about the pick-me-up beverage I “invented” yesterday which was inspired by some Chai Masala (Indian Spiced Tea) I had last week. I added some Chinese Five Spices mix made by Tone to some strong iced coffee, sweetened it with half a teaspoon of Stevia, and poured in some 2% milk. Holy Cow! That was some seriously good stuff! Even better than the Chai Masala. I had another glass today and it made my tongue smile and improved my mood considerably.
Try it! I think you’ll like it! And it’s lowfat!
Barbara Gavin-Lewellyn
I’m not familiar with either the tea or the coffee flavors you’ve described but the iced coffee in the photo looks scrumptious!
The coffee is just the French roasted 8 O’Clock brand. Any Chinese Five Spice mix would do. Let’s see if I can remember the five spices. Fennel, star anise, cinnamon, cloves and Szechwan pepper.
Here’s a recipe for Chai Masala
http://www.food.com/recipe/easy-chai-masala-448067
They sell something similar at Starbucks called a Chai Latte I think and we can get instant Chai Masala mixes or even premixed in a box at Whole Foods although it’s so strong we had to add more milk to make it palatable for our westernized taste buds.