Hi, foodies in the Hive!

I hope you had a good weekend 😁 Mine is not over, as my Sunday is like my Saturday, and Monday is my real Sunday. I work on Saturdays, so I try to keep my schedule free on Mondays. This way I can maintain an acceptable and even healthy level of stress, as I need some pressure to be able to accomplish everything I have to do.

Since I work so much, beside housework, I need the due rest. I work about 50 hours a week, standing or sitting for too long, not good for circulation and joints. One of my jobs is as a teacher, and every semester I have to update my syllabuses and class plans; I change the readings and evaluations so I never get bored, but this also implies that I have to dedicate a lot of time to reading and rereading and on the computer typing and typing; this week, after 15 days of intense study and reading, I'm ready to share with you the relaxing and energizing drink that accompanies me during my hard working days: my homemade version of plant based masala chai, which, as you can see, has orange peel. I do this just for flavor until I get cardamom again.

At first I was a little shy with spices, so the result was quite mild and milky.

It took me only one try to discover that I like my masala chai well loaded, so now I add more spices and grind them well with a pestle before infusing.

I add some feline purr and my morning is made.

Ah, the ginger in it

I'm relieved to know that there are a number of serious clinical studies that now support the popular wisdom behind ginger as an anti-inflammatory. So it's not just about alternative medicine anymore. If you're interested in the subject but had not read anything about it yet, you can start here (number 7).

I'd have wished to inherit a summer home on a secluded, exotic island; instead, I inherited osteoarthritis 😒 About twenty years ago, I noticed the first signs, such as pain in my fingers and toes, as well as other symptoms.

After COVID-19, pain appeared in my knees and lower back. It was not severe, so I ignored it, but it increased month after month until it started to make worry seriously. That's when I knew I had to do something, something more than visiting a traumatologist--which I must do again at some point--. I had to change the way I was eating and start choosing foods that would help reduce inflammation. In this sense, I found a formidable ally in spices, especially ginger and turmeric.

I've incorporated masala chai into my daily morning routine and almost daily, I drink a cold infusion of turmeric and ginger in the early afternoon. It's been less than a month since I've been doing this and today the pain in my joints is almost completely gone; I only experience some discomfort just getting up in the morning, but it all goes away after a few minutes, a few steps really, which is quite normal as far as I've seen.

INGREDIENTS

As it seems most logical, there is no fixed recipe for preparing masala chai. Below I show you the recipe I chose for myself, after doing some research on the tastes of people much more knowledgeable than me on this subject.

For 2 cups (300 ml approx)

3-4 flowers of star anise
peel of half a small orange
1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
2 tablespoons sliced ginger (unpeeled)
half a cinnamon stick
7 cloves
2 teaspoons black tea (I use loose leaves)
2 cups of water
1/2 cups coconut milk (I use homemade, like here)

THE PROCESS

This process can be divided into 3 easy steps:

1- crush the spices
2- add water and let infuse x 15 minutes
3- add black tea and milk and let infuse x 5 minutes

💞 Let's start with cinnamon and orange peel

Sometimes the most popular measurements are the most inaccurate; this is a problem for the neophytes. That's why I'm showing you what half a cinnamon stick is to me and also what a small orange is.

For me, this is a cinnamon stick 👇

And this, half a cinnamon stick 👇 I add half a cinnamon stick to make masala chai for my husband and I.

This is what I call a small orange 👇 I scrape half of its peel to make masala chai for two. When I have cardamom, I add half a teaspoon.

I avoid scraping the white part (the pith); I eat it raw, along with the orange,everyday in fact, but I don't like its bitter flavor in my drinks.

I must add the black pepper, the same I use for cooking (though I have added Jamaican pepper sometime), cloves, and star anise.

Now that I have all the spices, it's time to crush/grind them.

For this, I use the pestle I keep for mojitos, not the same I use for garlic. This has a rather flat end which makes grinding easier.

I crush all the spices directly in a small stainless steel saucepan.

Then I add the water and let it simmer x 15 minutes over low fire.

When the 15 minutes are done, I add the black tea, let simmer for a minute and add the coconut milk. This is when I must remove the pot from the fire and let the tea infuse for about 5 minutes.

Adding milk is up to you, as well as it is the kind of milk you want to add. In my case, I often use homemade vegetable milks, and for this tea, I think coconut milk is just great, for it feels lighter and so refreshing.