Easy Iced Coffee

Is anyone else HOT?  Holy cow.  We've been having 105 to 107-degree days here in Tucson -- WITH humidity!!  Now the rainstorm we had the other night was lovely - really, it was, I'm not being sarcastic - it topped off our 107-degree day well, cooling things off to a balmy 90-degrees or so.  I might be off a few degrees (but then, what else is new?  ha ha ha ha....)

So for my fellow coffee-loving friends, I want to share this amazing iced coffee "recipe" that my more amazing hubby came up with a few years ago.  It has saved us BEAUCOUP de dollars at McD's, Starbuck's, Dunkin' Donuts...wherever you can buy iced coffee through a drive-thru.  (Whoops, did I just tell on myself?  I mean, where you can buy iced coffee.  Period.)

Because when you LOVE and REQUIRE coffee while living in Arizona in the summertime, the regular ol' hot coffee is just...well...too hot.  To be very eloquent.

Okay, so what you need is:

• Instant coffee (Nescafe is the BEST)
• Your sugar/sweetner of choice (if any)
• Your flavored creamer of choice (if any)
• Ice (crushed is best)
• Milk
• Tiny bit of warm water

1.  Get a large glass.  You'll need room for the ice and milk.

2.  Put a little bit of warm water in it -- maybe a quarter cup or less?  We never measure.  You don't have to use warm water, but it helps to dissolve the instant coffee and sugar (if you use it).

3.  Spoon in your instant coffee.  A heaping teaspoon is usually good -- depends on how strong you like it.

4.  Add sugar/sweetner, if desired.

5.  Stir to dissolve the coffee and sugar.

6.  Add splash of flavored cream, if desired.  Or if you have any flavoring syrup around...or nothing here at all, if you are like my husband and don't want flavor.

7.  Stir it all up.

8.  Add ice...crushed is more fun, but any will work...but the ice is NECESSARY.  Fill it up to the top, or nearly there.

9.  Fill the rest with milk.

10.  Stir carefully, so you don't slosh the yumminess all over the counter.

11.  Enjoy. 

This turned out a bit light...so I dissolved more instant coffee in warm water and stirred it in to darken it up (later, after I took the photo) -- it's fun to be able to fix it up.

12.  Try to hide it from the kiddos.  Because they'll see it and somehow know it must be yummy, and they'll want some.  And unless you chose decaf coffee, you don't want them into your treat.  Or maybe you just don't want to share.  And that wouldn't set a good example, now would it?  (Um, am I telling on myself again?)

So...you're welcome.  Well, you can thank Bryan for coming up with this.  He is master at figuring out concoctions in the kitchen.  It must be an engineer-thing.  Also, an I-think-my-wife-is-going-through-McD's-drive-thru-every-day-and-I-need-to-put-a-stop-to-it thing.  :) 

If you like your coffee black -- then check out The Pioneer Women's recipe for Perfect Iced Coffee.  I think with her way of making it, you could leave it black.  My dear friend Noelle passed this on to me.  If I can ever have the supplies that PW has, and the huge amount of kitchen space, I'd love to do what she does for iced coffee.  Until then, I will be quite content and satisfied with my instant coffee rendition.