I Heart... Honest Tea

I am a big tea drinker. Someday I will post an photo of my cabinet which entirely filled with tea. So needless to say, I'm a bit of a tea snob as well. Not as bad as some, but it means I don't touch Nestea or Lipton bottled tea with a ten-foot pole. Okay, maybe with a ten-foot pole, but only to knock it off the shelf and push it behind something where no one will find it and make the mistake of drinking it. The fact that it claims to be tea is... well, blasphemy. Most bottled "iced teas" are just not up to par.

However, Honest Tea is amazing. I love it for several reasons:

1) The company was founded and is located in my hometown. If I still lived there I would run to their offices and beg for a job just so I could get free cases of the stuff. And because I love them.

2) The name. Even though it took me 5 years longer than it should have for me to realize that Honest Tea = Honesty. Oh, you genius.

3) Totally organic, all natural ingredients, and very very little sweetener (in the form of cane sugar). And they are big into community, the environment, and fair business/trade practices.

The one thing that saddens me is that they no longer make my favorite flavor, Decaf Ceylon. However, I am now in love with their Sublime Mate (more puns! Sublimate? Sub-lime Mate? Oh Honest Tea...) and their Pomegranate Red Tea. Mmm. Not all of their flavors are my favorite, but they still rock my world.

They also now have Honest Ade and I seem to recall seeing something about them having loose leaf tea as well.

(The only comparable bottled tea is Harney & Sons new bottled iced tea and fruit beverages. They're a little sweeter than I would like and contain... *shudder*... citric acid. However, they'll work in a fix.)

Strawberry Banana Smoothie

No excuses, that's my motto.

Mr. Heart has perfected the art of my favorite smoothie! When we first began the smoothie escapades, with no knowledge as to the art of smoothie preparation, we started with just frozen berries. This came out far too chunky and jammed our blender something awful. Obviously, we were missing the critical liquid component. Orange juice was tried, but for me at least, it over powered the other flavors. Then we tried strawberry yogurt, which was on the right path, and then finally, vanilla yogurt. A splash of apple juice to up the liquid content and voila!

This general formula can be used for other flavors too! We've also experimented with peach/blueberry and blueberry/cinnamon!

Strawberry Banana Smoothie
Serves 2

1 banana, broken into chunks
1 cup of frozen strawberries
2/3 cup of vanilla yogurt (one single serving container does the trick)
2/3 cup apple juice or cider

1) Combine all ingredients in blender. Pulse until smooth and thick!

Strawberry Milkshakes

Basic Strawberry Milkshake

4 - 6 large strawberries
Breyers French Vanilla Ice cream
1/2 cup milk
1 - 2 tsp sugar

1) Slice the strawberries and place in a bowl. Sprinkle with sugar and cover. Refridgerate for at least 15 minutes (the longer you let them sit, the more strawberry juice you get!)
2) Using your NEW FOOD PROCESSOR a/o WAND MIXER, purée the strawberries.
3) Add 3 large scoops of ice cream and milk to processor. Pulse until creamy! (if it keeps getting stuck, add more milk)
4) Drink up!