It's officially Chai season!  Hooray! 

I recently found a recipe for homemade Chai Masala and of course had to *chai* it.  I'm sorry.  Terrible pun.  Worth it.

I found all of the whole spices in bulk at Vitamin Cottage Natural Grocers and also the spice jars that I used.  I'm going to go on a mini-rant here and confess that Vitamin Cottage is one of my happy places.  Does that make me even more of a hippy?  Whatever.  They have such great foods there. :)

We got a coffee/spice grinder as a wedding gift and I was stoked to use it to grind fresh coffee and be all gourmet but kind of forgot that its usefulness went beyond my barista purposes.  I stumbled across this recipe and was excited when I remembered that my coffee grinder was sitting in a cupboard waiting for me to make chai.

This was such a fun recipe to make and John and I will be reaping the benefits of it all winter long – so like until May.  Then iced chai.  Win!  The only struggle I had while making this was the smell.  All of these spices are very potent and I had to take breaks to breathe.  I couldn't smell normally for the rest of the day.  But on a less dramatic note, it was a nice air freshener! :)

* A couple of alterations I made/observations: I used ground nutmeg because I wasn't quite sure how to grate whole nutmegs with a cheese grater... Also they were pretty expensive.  Also, this recipe made me about 2 and a half spice jars (from Vitamin Cottage) which I was not prepared for.  I had to go back and buy more.  But the excess would make exceptional gifts.  If you get Masala Chai for Christmas from me, pretend to be surprised. *

So here is the recipe.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! Happy fall!

Sorry I haven't written in awhile, as you can see, some BIG changes took place since then.  

I figured that since I have a new name and a new role, I'd spruce up my blog a little and change the direction a little bit.  I started this blog as a photography blog and I would love to continue that aspect, but I also realized that I like writing (not essays, mind you, just my thoughts).  So the plan is to accompany my pictures with more than just a witty caption (I know, you're going to miss those...).  

I'll also try to make it more of a regular thing so you can be up-to-date on all of the excitement and sparkle of my life (also, I'm realizing that it's hard to portray sarcasm in this format so bear with me).

But in all seriousness, I'd love to just write down some of my thoughts on anything from a recipe I tried, to an adventure I had with my new (insanely handsome) husband, to a devotional thought and anything in between.  Hopefully you enjoy reading about some of the developments in my life as a newlywed!