Smoked Salt & Pepper

I love bubble tea.  I remember having my first bubble tea when I was around 10 years old.  I loved the sugary and fun drink.  I was a bit disappointed when I tried to share the drink with an American friend of mine and she wrinkled her nose up at it and said it tasted like "boogers".  Luckily, milk tea is pretty mainstream now and most major cities have at least a few tea shops.  One summer, my sister, her boyfriend, and I spent nearly every day buying bubble milk tea.  It was our summertime treat.  But it was an expensive habit for a high schooler, with each serving costing around $3 each.  So we tried making it at home. It was a disaster.  We boiled the tapioca pearls for what seemed like an eternity but they never seemed to get soft.  So we went back to purchasing the drinks.  And working summer jobs to pay off our habit. So after that one at-home disaster, I was put-off making it at home.  Until I came across...QUICK-CO...

I don't know about you, but allergy and cold and flu season has been kicking my butt. Maybe it's the lack of sleep while waking up so frequently to breastfeed the baby, the Bells Palsy, or just being post-partum, but my immune system just hasn't been working great.  So this is a great way to quickly get some vitamin C in that's easy to gulp down.   I love the taste of cardamom  and cinnamon and the turmeric adds anti-inflammatory benefits. Raw honey is supposed to help with allergies.  Flax seed adds omega 3.  I have a Blendtec blender so it's super easy to throw everything in (can be prepped night before) and blend in the morning while I'm toting the baby around in the morning.   Then it goes in my shaker cup! 2 c. Unsweetened vanilla almond milk 1 large Fuji apple 2 carrots 2 mandarin oranges 2 tbs ground flax seed 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp Indian turmeric  2 tsp ground cardamom  Directions: combine all ingredients in a blender. 

There have been over 24 days in a row where the temperature has exceeded 100*F here.  I'm like 6 months pregnant? Don't ask me questions, I'm hot and my brain doesn't work.  Anyway, one respite from the heat is soda chanh , or Vietnamese style limeade.  Because, as I was reading in Real Simple magazine whilst waiting the hour for my gestational diabetes test at the doctor's office, nothing is better on a hot day than lemonade  limeade. Soda chanh is probably the drink I'll order out at a Vietnamese restaurant unless I'm enjoying some Vietnamese coffee ( Cafe Sua Da ) or it's winter and they have fresh warm soy milk.  May need to do a post on cafe sue da  later, but since I'm preggos, and it's 105 freaking degrees outside, it's soda chanh  time, baby.  Some restaurants don't make it right.  There should be a visible layer of sugar at the bottom.  You use the spoon to mix it all up, and sip it through a straw.  Ahhhhh! Hubs has a ...