a bit of chai… and quite a bit of playing by ear

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Last week, in the midst of the work kaos I´m currently drowning in, I decided to play it cool and spend the whole afternoon experimenting in the kitchen. One of the best ways to release stress for me is cook exactly what I´m craving (I did say “one”).
And, as it happens quite often, relaxation equals something sweet, and something having to do with chai tea.
I fell in love with chai in my second visit to the US, at Borders to be more precise. I bought a travel coffee mug and they gave me a free drink with the purchase. I had seen frozen chai latte there before, it was summer and I was stuffed after eating at the Olive Garden (I know, I know, it´s probably not the best restaurant on earth or anything, but I was in Tulsa, so my selection wasn´t endless, and I was pretty homesick after a month there, so Italian food = home). Anyway, they didn´t have the frozen chai, but they did have chai, so I went for it. I´ve never looked back, I was hooked instantly: the perfect balance of sweet and spicy, and all the fragrances. I started drinking it like there was no tomorrow, yet there was a tomorrow, and the tomorrow was here in Argentina… which is truly great in many ways… but it was chai-less… and the mere thought of a chai-less existence was hard to bear.
Over-dramatic? That description? Come on!
But anyways, who saved me from utter chai-withdrawal was my “friend” Narda Lepes again. For some reason, she decided to do a homemade chai recipe on her show, and I was instantly hooked. Some cloves, cardamom, fresh ginger, cinammon sticks and black tea and I was good to go. Later on, I was able to get this chai here

… but the flavors aren´t as strong as that first Borders chai who first enamoured me or the homemade chai I sometimes indulge in.
But last week, I wasn´t going to settle for chai as is, no, no, I needed chai in a different package… and that package ended up being cute little muffins with a lemon glace.
I altered a simple muffin recipe so that I could end up simmering cream with all the chai spices and voilá, chai muffins.

The result was fantastic, but I don´t think it makes sense to share my somewhat complicated “recipe”, because you guys have chai syrups readily available, so you can just take a simple vainilla muffin recipe, add a bit of syrup, and you have amazing chai muffins. Those of us living at the world´s rear end have to make do without Amazon and without chai syrup… but we´ll persevere, despite this uphill struggle hahahhaa I think all this work is catching up with my brain and my sense of drama.

And a few other photos before I go to bed to get my well-deserved rest. This is another one of the “creations” that came out of my tired little brain that day.

It´s a potato-onion soup-cheese quiche I created to reinvent a French onion soup that was way too strong to eat as such:

Just what people in low-carb diets need!!!

Good night everyone

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Filed under food, savory, sweet