It has been a snowy, cold week here in DC and my boys have been spending a lot of time outside playing in the snow. Well, actually my older son has been and my younger son thinks he wants to be outside and then just stands there screaming because he’s cold and got snow in his gloves. Fun. Anyway, one of the best things about going out to play in the snow is coming back inside for a nice hot drink. The first few times we came back in we had some yummy hot chocolate from the mix I made over the holidays but by Wednesday we were ready for a change.
I’m a big fan of chai tea (I recently learned “chai” is the Hindi word for tea so calling it chai tea is really like calling it tea tea) from a coffee shop but I’m not really a fan of the prepackaged stuff you can buy at the grocery store, so I’ve been wanting to find an easy homemade recipe for some time. This one from Saveur is so easy and so delicious. Goodbye hot chocolate and hello chai.
Spiced Tea aka Masala Chai (slightly adapted from Saveur)
Ingredients
1/2 c evaporated milk (I used fat-free and it still tasted creamy and delicious)
5 tsp sugar
6 black tea bags
5 pods cardamom, crushed (I used about 1.5 tbsp whole cardamon seeds because it’s what I had on hand)
Directions
Bring milk, sugar, tea, cardamom and 4 cups of water to a boil in a 2-qt saucepan. Remove from heat and let steep for 5 minutes. Strain and serve hot.
A Feteful Life 
This sounds so so good. Do you think coconut milk could be the right consistency to substitute for the evaporated milk? I really want to make it but alas, we’re dairy free.
Per kidswithfoodallergies.org… “Another alternative for evaporated milk is to substitute coconut milk 1:1 in the recipe. This will impart a coconut flavor to the recipe, so it works in some recipes but not all”, so I think it should work. I think the coconut flavor will work great with the other flavors in the drink. Let me know if it works out and I can make a note of it in the recipe. Thanks!