Ginger Tea

While in Hawaii, I went to the farmers' market there. So excellent, with all the fresh foods, fruits, and vegetables all year around! Not to mention the truly gorgeous orchids and hibiscus flowers for sale, and the largest avocado's you've ever seen. Unfortunately, a lot of the products seen there were imported and there was tons of prepared food, instead of a plethora of farmers with their produce. None the less, it was a great experience, one that I would like to enjoy again in the future.




From the market, I got probably 2 lbs. of ginger for 2$. That, I'm sure, was local. I got it onto the air plane back home (I don't know for sure if it was contraband or not), and now have some great, fresh, juicy ginger to work with. One recipe I stumbled across in my Vegetarian times for ginger tea. This is very simple, as you'll see below, but quite tasty. My suggestions, though: put the ginger in a tea-brewing ball, or strain the tea after letting it seep for a time. It will turn into a nice yellow-y color, like yellow curry. It gets incredibly strong if you simply let the ginger sit at the bottom of your cup the entire time you're drinking it. It gets pretty intense.





Ginger Tea
Recipe as found in Vegetarian Times May/June 2009 edition

Ingredients:
2 t. grated ginger
1 cup boiling water

Instructions:

To grate: peel ginger by using fingernail to peel off outer skin. Then grate with the large-hole part of the grater. If you try to use the small-holes to grate, the ginger just turns to juice in your hands. Also, if strings start to build up at the grating end, I just cut those off and include them in the grated pile.

1. Place ginger into a standard tea-cup. Fill with the 1 cup boiling water, and let steep.
2. When the flavor is to taste, remove the grated ginger by straining.

Hint: the 2 t. of grated ginger easily makes 2 cups of tea. Make sure to re-use it! Ginger is expensive in the Midwest