Spiced Chai Latte Concentrate - No processed Sugar

Ok - this is my first time posting recipes, so we'll see how this goes. As of yet, I haven't figured out how to insert a 'print' button directly through the blog, but I will provide the link to the Google doc I created for the 1 page recipe.

Whirrring it up in my Sunbeam Milk Frother.

I originally found this recipe through pinterest. I have made it multiple times, but it called for brown sugar. I've been trying to find the right balance of honey as a replacement for the brown sugar to reduce the amount of processed materials used.

Today I made my best batch ever, and then later realised that I forgot to add the ginger! However, I really enjoyed this the best, so I'm posting the recipe minus the ginger, but did add a note to add the ginger if you like it a little spicier.

I did NOT use raw honey for this last batch, but a straight replacement in raw honey will work just the same, with the same taste results.

My full frothy cup with chai concentrate bottle and the milk I used.

I absolutely LOVE a good chai latte ever since it was {reluctantly} introduced to me by a friend in Melbourne. I found out that my first chai latte was made using a powdered pre-mix by Arkadia . Nothing wrong with them, except for the high process needed to make them powdered. Not my cup of tea. Long story short, I made adaptations to this recipe from tastykitchen.com, and I think the results are absolutely fantastic! {I had 3 cups in 1 hour after making this batch.}  The recommendation for storage was 2 weeks in the fridge, but I was able to keep mine in the bottle shown here (red glass water bottle from Ikea) for a month or 2. Just keep an eye on it and give it a smell for mold before using it, if storing it for longer than 2 months.

Get a printable version by clicking on the title of the recipe, below.


Spiced Chai Latte Concentrate
Adapted from tastykitchen.com (Amazing Spiced Chai Concentrate)


Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time:  15-20 minutes
Servings:  8

Ingredients
4-1/2 cups Water
1 stick Cinnamon
7 whole Cardamom Pods
2 whole Star Anise Pods
10 whole Cloves
1/4 tsp ground Nutmeg
1 tsp Orange or Lemon zest
10 tsp green or black tea or 10 tea bags
2/3 cup Honey
1 Tbsp Vanilla

Method
Boil the water and place in bowl or pitcher. Add spices and tea and let steep for 15-20 minutes, depending on strength (to taste).
Strain and add the honey and vanilla.
Stir to combine.
Mix 1 part concentrate with 1 part milk, heat and enjoy or pour over ice.
This concentrate can be kept in the fridge for around 2 weeks.

Notes

• Freeze it in an ice cube tray and add to smoothies.
• The original recipe called for 1 piece of ginger, if you wish to use, add it with the spices for the steeping.
• The original recipe also called for brown sugar instead of the honey. I have found that replacing the brown sugar made no difference to the taste.

Montage Pop-up Shop

I will make this a short post, because I don't have much to say, as of yet. But I'm excited for this non-the-less.

What is the Montage Pop-up Shop? Its Local. Its handmade. Its temporary. Its exciting! Well to this shopper anyway.

I am a new to the handmade Indy Biz world, but my friend Katie Zanich of Leo and Spargo (like the FB page to get updates on their goings on) seems like an old 'hat' by now. She has been part of the Perth Up-markets for a little while now. I haven't been able to make an appearance to the quarterly held markets (the next one being the Wedding special market on August 25th, and the regular up-market on September 23rd).

Local made. Who cares? I do! I'm a firm believer in supporting local business, which is why I like to shop in markets where the produce is either local WA or wider Australia. While I don't boycott products or produce from overseas, I tend to steer away from them if I can, and buy local. Support those around you. Isn't that the way things use to be? Isn't that why local farmer's markets are making their comeback?!

This girl {two thumbs pointed towards chest} will be making the rounds to Montage this week, and I shall report my findings! But for now, I shall leave you with information for the event :)  See the flyer I've inserted into this post.

Truffle Festival Adventures!

Such a beautiful late morning in the Perth 'burbs to be heading down to Mundaring for the Mundaring Truffle Festival.

This has been in the works, since I had first heard of the festival a few months ago. We ordered our tickets online (which ended up being a nice short queue when we got to the entry gate), and made our way down. It was about a 40 minute drive into some beautiful countryside. Mundaring is one of my favourite places close to Perth, I just love the rolling hills and greenery (trees - I LOVE trees!).

My favourite butcher (The Naked Butcher) is also in Mundaring, so we thought we'd head in there first, stock up for the next month on organic beef and grass fed pork (as well as some nitrate free bacon). I think we ended up spending more than we had intended, but yum....I don't know if I can use a better word to describe the meat there, except for - yum. That about sums it up. We selected out meat, and walked about half a kilometre down the road to the Truffle Festival.

{If you have not had truffle before, yes, you are missing out (unless of course you aren't a very 'fun-guy' - haha....sigh). I had my first taste of truffle in a risotto whilst I was suffering from a major toothache. We had gone out to eat with family, and I could only eat soft foods, for fear of pain. I ordered this gem: 'Portobello mushroon & porcini risotto, garden peas, truffled masarpone' at The Boulevard Hotel.  Wow! You could really taste the truffle in the marscapone - it was very delicate and earthy.}

Back to the festival. 

As we entered, we spotted a coffee stand, the future mother-in-law was in need of a coffee fix, so we headed there first. As Adam and I were standing away, we just looked around and were looking at our map, trying to suss out the toilet situation via the cute little map we were provided. 

Apparently I completely missed an Australian celebrity sighting! Adam's mum was trying to do the ol' eye movement, head shake in some direction that we were meant to be looking, but we were fairly clueless as to her meaning. When she had acquired her coffee she came over and told us, out of the corner of her mouth, 'don't look right now, but right behind me, is Neil Perry.' 'Who is Neil Perry?!' - you ask. Yes...so did I. I recognised the name as possible famous chef, the name totally rang a bell, but I would have never recognised him to look at him (sorry!). If you don't know who he is, he is the founder of the Rockpool Bar & Grill restaurants, first started in Sydney, then opening up in Melbourne (2006) and later Perth (2011). I have yet to eat there, but I've heard incredible things and walked past the Melbourne restaurant quite a few times. (I had no idea there was a location in Perth!) I'm not sure if he was scheduled for anything else, but he was doing book signings at the book stall we were standing in front of a short time after our sighting.

After our cool headed - oh yeah cool a celebrity chef - moment. We headed up to the T junction in the road. There was a fantastically dressed character directing festival goers to directions of their fancy.  

*Fair Warning:  All pictures are of fairly poor quality from my iphone, as I don't carry a 'normal' camera with me, and I'm not very good at staging the best photos!* Some of them were taken from a distance, as the one on the right and then carefully edited - hence the slight blurriness.

As we made our way through the T junction in search of toilets - of course I was busting after a longish drive with water at hand - ehm, I digress - there was a lovely group of musicians playing, what I can only describe as a sort of chamber type music. To me, it just really set the tone for the atmosphere we were about to experience (not the toilets mind you). 

While waiting for each other to finish business in the CLEAN porta-loos, I had a look around, as I spotted dogs. LOVE ME dogs! There was a demonstration and explanation happening just behind us of truffle sniffing dogs. And here I thought that the job was only to be done by pigs! The first part of the presentation was shown a young 4 month old pup, still in training. The second half showed a lovely yellow lab, middle aged. The woman asked for volunteers (children volunteered) and one was given a truffle to hide in her hand and the dog's task was, of course, to sniff out the truffle. Good boy! The second time around, in a different child's hand, he didn't do as well, but he did sniff out, where truffles had been previously, in the grassy-dirt areas in front of the children (not shown in the pictures). 


I suppose I should mention, the festival is from 10am to 4pm. We entered at around 11am, lots of people, but not over crowded. I'm not good with crowds. Not a fear of them, I just can't see anything or move around as easily when there are tons and tons of people around. I'd find it a waste of time, if I have to shovel a path to something I want to see or do. Just my thing - it's why I hate Christmas shopping on the weekends around Christmas time, it's just insane!!! But by the time we left, the crowd had picked up and the stalls were getting to be so surrounded with people, it was hard to see what the sellers were offering. We left at around 1.30pm, were able to see everything, sample some food, see some stalls and purchase some wares and had lunch as well.


We thought we should hit up some lunch before the freshly cooked food area was just too crowded to bother. Instead of picking one place and eating from there, we picked bits and pieces and shared around. 


First stop was Creative Catering. The enticing mini-offerings were too much to resist. As this is a truffle festival, many of the food stalls offered something with a taste of truffle. Creative Catering offered a mushroom with truffle flavour pie. It was this lovely filo type pastry with a mushrooms inside. YUUUUUuuuuUUuuMMy!!! We ended up going in for 2nds later, because these were so amazing. 


I also bought a half of a woodfire pizza (margehrita) to share, and we ended up with a waygu beef burger with truffle flavour and mushrooms on top with a lovely, lovely bread/bun thingy (very technical, I know). I believe the place the burgers came from was Mondo's ...something or other. This might be the place, but I can't be sure!

All in all it was well worth the drive down. Nice scenic drive to the lovely Perth hills region (I can just smell the fresh air now!!!), and fantastic gourmet food stalls and local sources for the Real Food movement.

P.S. I think I found my new source for raw honey. Beez Neez offer some fantastic honey. I asked the stall attendants if they sold raw honey - their response was that it was all raw honey. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that they use as little processing as possible. I also asked them what Creamed Honey was, as I always see it, but assumed it was just more processing. Well, it is more processing in a sense, but they just aerate the honey to make it light and fluffy (taste test confirms that it's out of this world delicious). Unlike the raw honey I found at the Fremantle markets, where I could only find that they sell it JUST at the markets - this company has a few retailers who sell their product. Most seem to be south of the river, but you can buy in bulk containers, which might be my choice on my next trip to my favourite butcher in Mundaring (4-6 weeks between visits would be reasonable we think, considering our longish drive down).