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Saturday, January 18, 2020

Masala Chai Recipe

My thanks to  Sonoma Syrup  for sponsoring this post. I only work with brands that I personally believe in and use.  Hot, creamy, spiced, black tea is called masala chai in India. In Hindi chai means tea and masala means a mixture of ground spices. But in the US we often refer to masala chai as chai tea or chai tea latte. During Winter I crave masala chai. I first tried it in an Indian restaurant. It was rich with milk and very, very sweet, then in college, I discovered the pleasure of making it myself. I got the recipe long before the internet, from someone I met at a party. Calling it a recipe might be a stretch, it’s more like general guidelines. Funny that tea is not even mentioned in the recipe! But that ancient scrap of paper is the basis for my recipe, which is a combination of strong black tea and milk, flavored with cardamom, black pepper, cloves, cinnamon, and fresh ginger. I’ve tried many commercial versions of chai, but they often use flavorings or ground spices ...
Thursday, January 16, 2020

Half The Sugar All The Love Cookbook Review

Sugar has been in the news lately and it hasn't been sweet. While it isn’t a surprise to learn that too much sugar is bad for your health, it is a bit surprising to learn just how addictive and pervasive sugar is. In Make 2020 The Year of Less Sugar , a story that ran in the New York Times just a few weeks ago I learned that sugar lurks in 70% of packaged food, the many health risks associated with too much sugar as well as the “addictive nature of the fructose in processed foods and beverages.”  The article recommends taking a 7-day break from added sugar, and then adding it back in but carefully. The New York Times also published a “ 7 Day Sugar Challenge " but  if you’re really serious about cutting the sugar, check out Half The Sugar All The Love , a new cookbook by Jennifer Tyler Lee, a healthy food advocate and Anisha Patel, an MD and Stanford professor who researches children’s health. The book definitely slants toward families, but even a household without kids l...