5 Easy Iced Latte Recipes

Experimenting with iced latte flavors has been a really fun way to spend these hot summer months! How do you like your iced lattes?

In this video I show you how to make:

1. Foamy Iced Latte (0:18)

2. Honey-Rose Iced Latte (2:30) 

3. Iced Chai Latte (3:53) 

4. Strawberry Iced Latte (5:38) 

5. Iced Matcha Latte (8:07)

A Calm Morning (Silent) Vlog

Now is a great time to reflect on how your digital habits have changed since quarantine. Personally, I've developed this new habit of looking at my phone first thing in the morning and it just... never feels good. So, I'm trying to create space in the mornings to be mindful, quiet, and peaceful.

Life Updates & Tea Cookies

How to Make a Mirror Glazed Cake

Click here to watch on youtube!

Grapefruit Champagne

Last week, at my graduation dinner, I had a margarita. No surprises there, I love margaritas. But this menu was the first menu that actually had the... um... nutritional information about their drinks.

I was horrified. It had about as many calories as my meal, and a crapton more sugar and sodium than I thought. (I'm talking 80% of your daily recommended intake.)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to eating junk food, but I figure my body can only process so much junk, and I'd rather save its capacity to do that for a big bag of salt and vinegar chips.

So, I'm going to learn how to make craft cocktails. According to Robert Sharp (aka The Barman), "the process of making craft cocktails is a lot like that of the artisan food movement, focusing on flavor, high quality ingredients and taking your time in order to do those ingredients justice."

Sounds good to me.

I found this recipe for grapefruit champagne by Lauryn Evarts, and made a few changes. Lauryn adds vodka to her recipe and doesn't include any sparkling water, but I wanted something that tasted like a refreshing citrus soda with just a little kick. Here's what I did:

• Squeeze 1 grapefruit, 1/2 lemon, 1/2 lime. Mix.

• Add 1/2 cup grapefruit Perrier

• Top it off with champagne

Simple, clean ingredients and no added sugar! Star-shaped ice-cubes optional but highly recommended :)

Carrot Cake Squares

Today, I made some carrot cake squares and infused them with cream cheese frosting.

I'm usually not a huge fan of carrot cake because the cake itself is usually really dry and the cake-to-frosting ratio is hit or miss. I feel like carrot cake relies on the frosting to be good, but you always have to topple the piece over on its side and plan your bites so they're not too sweet and not too dry...

Anyone else? Just me?

I thought that if I baked the cream cheese right in with the cake, it'll moisten it up a bit without me needing to add extra oil or butter, and give it a light frosting-y flavor that's balanced throughout.

Happy to report that it did!

(those little white chunks are bits of sweetened cream cheese)

Wanna make some? 

Here's what you'll need:

For the cake:

1. 1 cup finely shredded carrots
2. 1 cup sugar
3. ½ cup unsweetened applesauce
4. 2 eggs
5. 1 tsp vanilla
6. 1 tsp baking soda
7. 1 tsp ground cinnamon
8. ½ tsp salt
9. 1¼ cup flour

For the frosting:

1. 4 ounces cream cheese
2. ¼ cup sugar
3. ½ tsp vanilla
4. 3 tbsp flour
5. 1 egg

Here's what you'll do:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. I used a 9x13 inch pan.
• Mix together the carrots, sugar, applesauce, eggs, and vanilla. 
• Add baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and flour into the carrot mixture and mix well. Spread the batter into your baking pan.
• For the frosting, mix cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, flour, and the egg. Pour it over the top of your cake batter, and use a knife or spatula to "marble" it (swirl it around.)
• Bake for 20-30 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

I wonder how these will taste with some cardamom added to it... or ginger? If you try any variants, let me know!

The Best m&m Cookies

I found this chocolate-chip cookie recipe on Lauren Conrad's website, and really wanted to try it out! I love cookies. I love chocolate-chip/sea-salt as a combo. It sounded perfect. 

I made a few alterations to her recipe (besides subbing in m&ms for chocolate chips because it's easter) which you can see below:

Here's What You'll Need:

• 2¼ cup flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp of sea salt
• 2 tsp ground coffee
• sprinkle of cardamom
• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter
• 1¼ cup packed dark brown sugar
• ¼ cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg and 1 egg yolk
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup m&ms (or chocolate chips)

Here's What You'll Do:

1. Whisk dry ingredients together in a medium sized bowl.
2. Melt butter over medium heat. Transfer the butter to a bowl and set aside to cool for a few minutes.
3. Beat the butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. 
4. Beat in the egg, yolk, and vanilla until combined. 
5. Add the dry ingredients slowly and beat on low-speed just until combined. Stir in the m&ms.
6. Chill the dough for 1 hour.
7. Bake at 350 degrees, for 7 to 10 minutes.

3-Ingredient Vegan Sorbet (for breakfast, obviously)

This one's super simple, guys. And it takes all of 30 seconds to prepare, 20 of which are you getting things out of the freezer and putting them back.

• a handful of frozen strawberries
• a handful of frozen cherries
• coconut milk (I use this one from Trader Joes)

Blend blend blend, and enjoy!

2-Minute Peppermint Mocha

When I was in high school, I spent many weekend mornings pretending to be a chef on the Food Network. I never actually cooked anything cool ("and now I'm just going to sprinkle some of this cereal into my bowl of cold milk") which is probably why I still don't know how to cook a proper meal. Honestly, for someone who's spent as much time watching the Food Network as I have, it's pretty ridiculous that I can only cook four things.

This morning, instead of walking to a cafe to get my peppermint mocha fix, I decided to make my own. Not from scratch, obviously, but in a high-school Grishma's semi-homemade cooking way. 

Three ingredients. Two minutes.

I heated up a mug of 2% milk for 1:30 in my microwave, and mixed in 2 tablespoons of Trader Joe's Peppermint Hot Chocolate and 1 tablespoon of instant coffee.

This particular hot chocolate mix is really creamy and has just the right amount of minty goodness. I like my drinks really potent, so if you want something a bit lighter, I'd recommend mixing in 1 tsp of coffee instead.

Happy sipping!

Review: Starbucks Via Peppermint Mocha Latte

Every year, I patiently wait for pumpkin spice season to pass and peppermint season to arrive. I'm not even a regular at Starbucks (#ForeverDutchMafia) but their peppermint mochas are one of my favorite drinks of all time.

This year, I got the Starbucks' peppermint mocha packets so that I could have them more often.

It was a terrible decision.

This drink has a chalky aftertaste that wouldn't go away even after I added more sugar and coffee. See that little part that says made with natural dairy? That means you don't add your own milk. It means powdered milk. I thought at first that the aftertaste must be from the powdered milk, but I've had Cantata's instant coffee before, and it doesn't have the gross aftertaste Starbucks' latte does.

The individual packets are pretty big:

But so, so gross. I couldn't even finish a cup.

Winter Drink: Apple Cider Tea

I wanted to make a wintery drink for a Thanksgiving breakfast, and I also wanted it to be non-alcoholic because, well, it's breakfast. Spiced rum at 9am is still a little trashy, even if you drink it out of a Santa mug. Want a non-alcoholic alternative to spiced rum? 

I found a recipe for apple tea from Serious Eats but I'm not a huge fan of black tea, so I made some alterations to balance out the flavor. (I don't know of any good substitutes to black tea, do you?)

Ingredients

• 1 sweet cinnamon spice tea bag (or any variety of herbal, holiday spiced tea)
• 2 irish breakfast tea bags (or any variety of strong black tea)
• 2 three-inch cinnamon sticks
• 1 25.4 ounce bottle sparkling apple cider
• 1 ounce fresh juice from about 2 lemons
• Garnish: additional cinnamon sticks

Preparation

Place tea bags and cinnamon sticks in a large mug of boiling water (about 2 cups, or 16 oz.) Let steep for at least 10 and up to 20 minutes. Remove tea bags and cinnamon sticks and chill in the refrigerator overnight.

When you're ready to serve the drink, combine the cider, tea, and lemon juice in a large pitcher!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sparkling Lavender Lemonade

Here's a light springtime drink recipe for those of you that miss the sunshine as much as I do:

What You'll Need:

• 3 large lemons
• 1 lime
• 1 liter of sparkling water
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 6 tbsp lavender syrup (or 3 oz, if you're using a shot glass to measure)

I like my lemonade on the tart side, so feel free to adjust the proportions to suit your taste! The lavender in this recipe is subtle, so you might want to add more syrup if you want a stronger lavender taste--just be sure to add sugar last, so that you can gauge how sweet the drink became from the lavender syrup.

I stored this drink in a glass bottle from IKEA and brought it to an early-Thanksgiving party. It's always nice to provide an option other than soda for those who don't drink alcohol :) 

I used a dry-erase marker to label the bottle! 

And if you happen to be in the Western Washington area around July, you can grab a bottle of syrup from a lavender farm like I did:

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Starbucks Chestnut Praline Latte Tastes Like...

I'm holding a chestnut praline latte as I type this. Well, okay, not literally. But it's within arm's reach.

Numerous friends and baristas have described this drink to me, and all of them were so vague that I honestly still have no idea what this drink tastes like.

And you're talking to a person who nodded and said "uh huh, totally" while reading about a blind person's description of lemonade as "square" because it pricked his tongue like square things pricked his hands. (The whole essay, by Annie Dillard, can be found here. I forgot how good it is... might have to do an entire post on that one.)

Anyway.

This latte, apparently, tastes like:

"Christmas morning." (what?) 

"Syrup and waffles and christmas breakfast." (...what?)

"That warm Christmas feeling." (................................what?)

I thought I'd try it, just to see what the fuss is about, and do my best to describe it.

Alright. Here goes.




















It tastes like hazelnuts. And cinnamon. And a chunk of bark off a christmas tree.

(Just kidding. It does taste like hazelnuts and cinnamon though.)

Green Ginger Tea

I like light, herbal teas best. Rose tea, spearmint tea (peppermint is too strong for my liking), white tea, I'm all for it. My friend, Erica, is very generous with her tea collection and I love love love sampling from her collection.

Today she told me about green ginger tea. Most ginger-y drinks are too strong for me, so this green ginger tea made me nervous. But ginger is just so freakin healthy... sometimes you just have to suck it up. (Or, I guess, gulp it down.)


Why should you drink this tea?

Here are the benefits of ginger tea:

• Ginger soothes the stomach and helps ease nausea
• Heated ginger is an anti-inflammatory, and green tea improves blood flow--perfect for relieving muscle soreness and cramps
• Green tea lowers cholesterol, and helps maintain heart health and stabilize blood sugar
• Theanine in green tea can lower anxiety

Plus, the ginger-y taste in this tea isn't very strong at all! Perfect.

Here are the stats for preparation:

Happy sipping!

First Draft, at Changing Hands Bookstore

Wine-sipping at art galleries is one of the biggest lies in the media. The closest I came to it was at Ten-In-One, an event at Mesa Art Center--they served wine, but you had to drink it before you went inside the gallery. Drinking wine at an art gallery is a dream I haven't yet fulfilled. 

But drinking wine at a bookstore? That's a dream I didn't even know I had. 

Book bars are becoming more popular lately--I've read that New York, San Francisco and Denver have some great ones.

First Draft is inside Changing Hands' Phoenix location, and it's the only book bar I know of in the Phoenix area. I prefer drinking cocktails over beer and wine, so I don't think I'll become a regular here (The Duce is my jam.)

But if you're looking for a place with the ambiance of a cafe and the menu of a pub, First Draft might be perfect for you.

Apple Crostata

Moist cakes? I'm your girl. Pies? Uh... fine. I'll branch out. 

Today I made a tart with a buttery, flaky crust. After typing "buttery, flaky crust-ed tart" with admittedly strange google results, I learned some vital information:

A crostata, huh? I gave Ina Garten's recipe a try (with a twice as much orange zest than the recipe calls for.) 

But I didn't want soggy crust.

Pie crust is flaky (instead of soggy) when you work with really cold materials. You'll need a food processor to mix the dough, because the heat from your hands will melt the butter if you knead it. Toss the butter in the freezer for 15 or so minutes before you use it. And make sure you use ice water.

Square Ice Cube Tray 

If you don't have a food processor, I've read that using a grater to shred the cold butter helps keep the dough's temperature down--just use a spoon to mix instead of your hands.

I doubled the amount of orange zest because it smelled really good. I wouldn't think to pair apples and oranges in a pastry, but it was so delicious.

Next time, I'm zesting the entire orange.

"Fruit Snacks"

If it's 4pm, I'm probably craving a nap, and hating myself for it.

My tiredness has been persistent for years now, and my doctor recommended I start taking a general multivitamin and a B-100 vitamin.

(B-Vitamins help increase your energy by making it easier for your body to convert food into calories. After a month of consistent use along with a multivitamin, they've also shown to reduce feelings of stress and improve one's mood.)

I want my body to function well. Ideally, I'd exercise every day and eat well-balanced meals. But it's so hard. Don't get me wrong, I'm up on my feet and moving around all day. But my body needs more energy to do everything I want. I don't want to spend all my energy working, then trying to recover energy so that I can go back to work.

But I don't like taking medicine. I'm a gotta-ride-it-out, lets-build-up-my-immune-system sickie. My worst nightmare: having a little weekly pill box filled with this and that to keep my body running properly.

If I have a vitamin deficiency, I want to see if I can get those nutrients from food before relying on supplements. But I don't really know how to feed myself. Or cook regularly.

This is usually the point when I'd start obsessively reading health blogs and cataloguing recipes and then not actually cooking anything I find.

Nope, not gonna do it.

Baby steps.

I'm all about making good choices as easy as possible. So every Sunday, I'm getting a bunch of fruit and chopping it up. I Keep it in tupperware in the fridge, so if I'm ever in the mood for a snack, I know exactly where to go (i.e. not to Taco Bell)

Sometimes I just want a half an apple. Sometimes I want three. Cutting it into bite size pieces makes eating fruit way, way easy.

Here's a little tip: To keep fruit from getting mushy as quickly, squeeze a half a lime into the tupperware before you toss it in the fridge. It'll preserve the fruit!

For now, I'm taking the vitamins every day. But hopefully I can wean myself off of vitamins and just, you know, fuel my body properly.

One step at a time.

Trader Joe's Coconut Water (aka the best one)

I'm really picky about coconut water.

I grew up in India, where street vendors machete the tops off coconuts and stick a straw in. So I know what 100% organic straight-off-the-tree coconut water tastes like.

The packaged bottles in the United States aren't... bad... (Vita Coco is the best one I'd found, definitely better than Zico or Naked!) but there's just something off about them. All of them.

Except this one:

Trader Joe's coconut water tastes like I had a hand-delivered, freshly-machete'd coconut handed to me with a little straw sticking out of it. It has more flavor than any other coconut water I've had in the US, and the consistency is a little thicker like real coconut water, too!

Yum.

Vertical Cake

I'm celebrating my fourth by shoveling as much sugar onto my plate as I can. My friend and fellow cake lover, Kendon, made a gorgeous vertical-layer cake today, and I've been nibbling on it for hours now. iambaker has a great tutorial on how to make them!

Oh, and if you've ever wondered which founding father is your soulmate, the wait is over. 

My one true colonial love is Alexander Hamilton. Dolla dolla bill y'all. Enjoy the fireworks.

From buzzfeed: The only thing better than having a stack of 10 dollar bills is having the guy who is actually on the 10. You like your men polished, professional, and effortlessly competent. Something about a dude who is much more organized than you just makes you thirsty.

Orange-Ginger Juice

I never want to juice an apple again, and I don't have to. I wanted to make orange-ginger juice, but got a little carried away. What I ended up with blew my mind: 

I'm really sensitive to the taste of ginger (most ginger-y drinks are really strong for me) so just added a pinch, and it was the perfect aftertaste. For me. Everybody else who had a sip said, word for word, "oh you can't taste the ginger at all!" 

So, you know, use your own proportions. Here are the specifics of what's in my blender:

• 2 oranges
• 15ish cherries, de-pitted
• 1/3 of a pineapple
• handful of cilantro
• pinch of ginger

Blend, strain, and you're good to go! As always, you don't need any sugar or water--the cherries are sweet enough to balance the tartness of the pineapple.