Southern Essentials

I can still remember when I was in college my roommate came back to our dorm so excited about a recent purchase she had made. You can imagine my surprise when it turned out to be an ice tea maker. People...you do not need to go out and waste your hard earned money on such a contraption. Literally you might as well go flush $20.00 down the toilet. Sweet tea is something that is in my frig about 90% of the time and I have never in my life made it with an ice tea maker. Tea is full of antioxidants and can help to fight free radicals in the body. It gets a bad rap because the trend in the south is to make it sickeningly sweet. As you will see in my recipe I don't follow that trend!

Sweet Tea

Ingredients
1. 3 family sized tea bags - I always buy Lipton Tea Naturally Decaffeinated Family Size Tea Bags
2. sugar (1/2 cup)
3. water

Directions
1. In a medium sized saucepan fill halfway full with water. Put teabags in and bring to a boil.
2. Once the water is boiling, immediately turn the heat down to a simmer. Let simmer for about 10 minutes.
3. Take a 1 gallon pitcher and pour 1/2 cup of sugar into it.
4. Pour the hot tea into the pitcher and use a wooden spoon to stir the tea with the sugar until the sugar dissolves.
5. Run water to the top of the pitcher. Stir a few times to incorporate the tea with the water.

That's all there is to it! To jazz it up a little, I like to make a gallon of unsweetened tea and mix half a glass of tea with half a glass of lemonade to make an Arnold Palmer.