Not that this statement will come as a shock to my mom (or the other fifteen people who tend to read what I brain dump here) but I’m just a little weird. Yeah… really… I know, it doesn’t show, totally.
We have managed to eat our way through two half gallon jars of dill pickles and I have managed to eat MY way through a little more than a quart jar of bread and butter pickles (I love these home made… not quite as good store bought.. but not bad). WHY you may ask? I have to admit that we like pickles. We might not like them this much, but they are good. A pickle wrapped in bologna or with olive loaf… a pickle sandwich… mmmmmm
Why have I gone this route? Desperation.
I tried to find a GLASS jar to make sun tea in. I can find where I can buy an actual glass jar (you who are old enough to be of the generation where companies didn’t find it necessary to protect you from yourself remember them… they used to be the gallon jars that sometimes had a tea company’s label on it… or they were just a glass jar that you could make sun tea… ice tea… powdered drink mix and sugar… lemonade… whatever.. in). Sometimes they had a spout at the bottom that usually failed to hold in the liquid after a season. They had a lid that you could pour out of. And a handle. But they were GLASS.
I have to assume that the summer drink bottle makers have taken it upon themselves to protect me from myself. They have taken the option away from me to make my drinks of choice in glass.
I can, however, find a $7 plastic jar that is a gallon jar. Hard clear plastic that might be mistaken for glass (except it is made out of petroleum products… oh boy go the opposite of green… that’s like red on the color wheel, right?) until you touch it, pick it up, investigate it. There is a $13 lemonade jar that is cute and equally as plastic.
I know my pickle jars can break. They are glass. I really understand that if I drop it, it will shatter. Geeze. No kidding. Guess what… Pretty sure that if I drop the hard plastic ones they will probably shatter, or crack or whatever and be useless as well. They aren’t taking that out of the equation (planned obsolescence??? ).
Okay, so I can pay $7 for a jar I don’t want… or I can buy a half gallon (not as big as I actually wanted… but…) of pickles for $4, eat the pickles and have a GLASS JAR to make my sun tea in.. hmmm… AND I have figured out that I can also make half gallon at a time, when one half gallon is empty and they are working on the other half gallon I can make another… how cool is that… Or I can make one sweet tea and the other regular ice tea. Or flower tea. Or… let me count the ways. That is a dollar more than the gallon plastic jar, but it has so many other advantages (it is what I wanted, it is recycle-able… it is glass… and… we get the pickles)… The only real down side… the lid smells like pickles for a couple jars of tea.
I may have to get creative sometimes… but it is worth the creativity to get the things that make me smile. And I can make my babies (now 19 and 17) what Amandya calls Pennsylvania Tea (sun tea) that I used to sit on the back step of the house in Apollo.
*** Yes, I know… I read the Snopes article…because the water doesn’t get “hot” you have to be careful of bacteria…
The following rules have been recommended for those who brew sun tea:
Use a container that has been scrubbed in warm, soapy water. As an additional precaution, dip the container in a bleach solution made with 1-1/2 teaspoons to 1 tablespoon of bleach per gallon of water.
If the container has a spigot, clean it carefully after each use, preferably by taking it apart. If you can’t clean inside the spigot, don’t brew sun tea in that vessel — find yourself something else to use.
Do not leave tea to brew in the sunlight for more than three to four hours.<<<ajw… too strong if you do… even if it wasn’t a bad idea>>>
Do not prepare more tea than you plan to use that day.<<<this isn’t a problem in my house… ajw>>>
Refrigerate the drink as soon as it is ready and keep it refrigerated.
Discard tea if it appears thick or syrupy. Those ropy strands are bacteria.
A safer alternative to “sun tea” is “refrigerator tea.” To make it, fill a pitcher with a quart of cold water, add four to six tea bags, and refrigerate it at least six hours or overnight. Squeeze and remove the tea bags, and serve the tea over ice.
I’m careful. I’m ESPECIALLY careful since I have and autoimmune disease… another reason to use glass and just a little bleach… kind of like baby bottles you can’t buy any more… but you aren’t going to completely take away something that I carefully do just because…
A Figment Of Fitness 