This is week 3 for our Five Flu Fighting foods. Are you new to the series? Read about Pumpkins from our first week and the benefits of breakfast from last week, to get caught up and see tons of great recipes AND reasons for eating good foods during the flu season (and all year round!).
Welcome to “Five Flu-Fighting Foods”! I am teaming up with 5 other health conscious,real-ly-yummy-food (and other stuff) bloggers. We will be introducing you to five different foods that will pack you full of the necessary immune boosters so you can fight of the flu (and colds, and whatever else ails you during these upcoming months).
This journey is led by:
Mindy @ The Purposed Heart
Rachel @ Day 2 Day Joys
Leigh Ann @ Intentional by Grace
Anne @ Quick and Easy, Cheap and Healthy
Erin @ The Humbled Homemaker
And, of course, me!
This week we are departing from pumpkins and breakfast and entering into the world of….green tea!
Don’t forget there is more to come and also a link up!
Come back each Wednesday as we reveal five different foods that are purported to support your immune system in the fight against the cold and flu viruses that run rampant this time of year. What’s more, each post will be opened up to all our readers, who will be linking up their favorite recipes with these key flu-fighting ingredients, so you can get lots of ideas for creative ways to serve them to your family!
Green Tea
I am not sure what I should stress more…the benefits of Green Tea, or the benefits of Kombucha. For the sake of our “Five Flu Fighting Foods Series” I will stress the Green Tea. But let me just say this…combine the two and you have an immune boosting, probiotic, punch-the-flu-in-the-gut, awesome drink full of….well, awesomeness.
Why implement Green Tea into your daily diet? To fight the flu of course! How and why does this happen? I consulted Harvard and here is what “They” said…
“Green tea is the best food source of a group called catechins. In test tubes, catechins are more powerful than vitamins C and E in halting oxidative damage to cells and appear to have other disease-fighting properties”. Source
I am launching a series in January about Kombucha. So don’t worry if you are confused or overwhelmed. This post will really just throw you into it. If you already have a SCOBY and you already know how to make ‘booch, please try this recipe and let me know! If you don’t know how to make it and you want more info…sit tight! I will be doing a few tutorial videos with more detail.
This is an “advanced” Kombucha recipe due to the fact that it doesn’t give you step by step on how to get a SCOBY or how to handle certain situations.
Green Tea Kombucha {Recipe}
{Makes approximately 3 1/2 quarts (just shy of a gallon) of finished Kombucha}
Ingredients/Materials:
- 1 gallon sized glass jar (or clear glass container of choice that holds 4 quarts of water)
- 3 quarts of fresh filtered water
- 1 cup of organic sugar (rapadura, turbinado, sucanat, honey) – my personal fav for this recipe is turbinado
- 4 teaspoons of organic green tea (4 tea bags)
- 1 teaspoon of organic black tea (1 tea bag) – need to have at least one tea bag of black tea for best results
- mesh strainer (if using loose, bulk tea) and stainless steel funnel
- 1 cup finished kombucha from previous batch (or that came with a new scoby) (also called starter)
- SCOBY (Kombucha Mushroom, Culture, whatever you like to call it!)
- tea towel/flour sack cloth – white! Must be white!
- rubber band
- Step 1: Fill a gallon size jar 3/4 of the way full (3 quarts). Pour half of the water into a 6 quart or larger pot. The remaining should stay in the jar. Bring water to a boil. (You will be making a concentrated sweet tea and adding it to the water – this keeps the temperature at a good level and makes for a happy scoby. Trust me on this and you’ll understand later, with my kombucha series.)
- Step 2: Add sugar to water. Stir gently. Cover, keep boiling for 5 minutes (set a timer).
- Step 3: Remove pot from heat. Add tea. Steep for 10 minutes (set timer).
- Step 4: Pour tea through mesh strainer (or remove tea bags) directly into glass jar. The combination of water and sweet tea concentrate should be comfortable to touch (body temp, about 95 degrees or so). If it is warmer, let it cool a bit. If it is colder, throw it back in the pot and heat it up. It needs to be “just right”.
- Step 5: Once the temp is just right, add the Kombucha starter (finished Kombucha). Gently stir.
- Step 6: When the water stops moving, gently set the Scoby on top. If it sinks, that is ok. It will still work. You may want to gently pull it back to the top. (I made two while taking pictures for this post and one floated, the other did not. I notice when the water is too hot it doesn’t float. Either way, it will work).
- Step 7: Cover with flour sack cloth (or napkin, etc) and secure with rubber band. Put out of reach of small children, where it will remain untouched for 5-8 days.
- Step 8: At the end of the brew time, strain into glass storage containers and enjoy! (As mentioned above, this doesn’t cover how to know when it is done and how to use the scoby for the next batch. I will be teaching this in the future so hold tight!)
Step 1
Step 3
Step 4
Step 4
Step 6
Step 6
Step 7
There you have it! Tasty, healthy, refreshing, made-at-home Kombucha!
More Recipes!
Don’t forget to check out these other recipes that my amazing co-hosts have shared! I plan on making each and everyone of these within the next few weeks! We are going to be immune system power houses! (Knock on wood!)
Vanilla Green Tea Latte @ The Purposed Heart
Immune Boosting Green Tea @ Day 2 Day Joys
Why Green Tea is considered a Flu Fighting food @ Intentional by Grace
Green Tea Oatmeal @ Quick and Easy, Cheap and Healthy
Blueberry-Banana Green Tea Smoothie @ The Humbled Homemaker
{Green Tea} FIVE FLU-FIGHTING FOODS LINK-UP!
Each of us hosts are picking our favorites from last week….my favorite three are (in no particular order):
**Perfect Pumpkin Pancakes from Renaissance Mama – I can’t wait to try these…menu plan for next week for sure!
**Egg Roll-Up Breakfast Burrito from Laurel of Leaves. A healthy breakfast burrito? Thank you very much.
**Cranberry and Orange Compound Butter from Creative Culinary. We know I love me some butter. And cranberries. And oranges. And walnuts. And….this recipe. Big time.
I sure hope the three of you (and all the others that I wanted to include, but couldn’t) link up a green tea recipe!
Now it’s your turn! Link up your delicious green tea recipes below.
There are only two guidelines for participation:
1. Your recipe must include green tea. Any entry submitted that does not include green tea will be deleted.
2. Please link your posts back to one of the hosting blogs. This way your readers can have access to all of the other great green tea recipes as well!
Don’t forget to subscribe to my blog so you can remember to come back for the rest of the series!
Need affordable organic bulk teas to make your kombucha? I recommend (and am an affiliate for):
Growing Home, Women Living Well, Raising Homemakers, Works for Me Wednesday, Real Food Wednesday, Foodie Wednesday, What’s Cooking Wednesday, Wildcrafting Wednesday, Simple Lives Thursday, Turning The Table Thursday, Pennywise Platter, Cooking Thursday, Full Plate Thursday, Creative Juice, Things I Love Thursday, It’s a Keeper Thursday, Live Renewed, Frugal Food Thursday, Frugal Friday, Fight Back Friday, Food Trip Friday, Fresh Bites Friday, Friday Food, Living Well Blog Hop, Foodie Friday, Freaky Friday, Foodie Friday, Monday Mania, Mangia Mondays, Made By You Monday, Melt in Your Mouth Monday, Real Food 101, Mouth Watering Monday, Make-it yourself Monday
About Nikki
Yummy! I want some of your kombucha, Nikki! I guess I’ll have to try this recipe out myself.
I’ve never made it with green tea before. Can’t wait!
Just wanted to add that I don’t recommend using honey as a sweetener for kombucha. Honey is awesome because it contains natural antimicrobials and antifungals… but these may inhibit the growth of your kombucha SCOBY. I use raw sugar or turbinado. Don’t worry too much about the sugar content. The SCOBY will eat up most of the sugar and leave you with good stuff instead!
Thanks for posting! I love kombucha!
There are mixed reviews about honey. It does not inhibit my growth and Wardeh at Gnowfglins agrees. Try what works for you. If your scoby thrives stick with it! Thanks for visiting!
I was just reading today about kombucha on another blog and wondering how to make it, so I look forward to your series in January. I’m not going to lie, that SCOBY looks very intimidating to someone who is on baby step 1 of her real food journey!
Joanie, relax and take it one step at a time. It is totally a doable journey (real food that is) if you take it one step at a time and don’t let yourself get in over your head! Let me know if you have any questions! And the scoby is only intimidating for about a week. Now I own it! HA HA.
—– Reply message —–
I just wanted to say I LOVE the tag line of your blog! Keeping a godly home and somehow managing to blog about it. That’s fantastic. Found you through RFW. I’m a pastors wife, pro beach volleyball player, homeschooling mom, and now blogger. I feel like it’s a lot to juggle and like you said, I “somehow manage to blog about it”.
Thank God for his grace. @fitmomsunited
I have probably watched you play! I played competitive volleyball (indoor) all my life. Haven’t for years, but still like to follow beach vball! Thanks for stopping by…love what you do and what you stand for! Keep it up!
Glad you like it! Thanks for stopping by! Following you on twitter
Thanks for visiting! So glad you like it here…enjoy
Wow, great article, I really appreciate your thought process and having it explained properly, thank you!
Awesome blog! So happy to have stumbled upon it! Going to start following! Can’t wait to dive into it! Thanks!
I’ve always done kombucha in black tea. This batch, I did all green tea. It doesn’t seem to be growing as fast as the black. Generally, the scoby covers the top,of the container. Not this time. Any advice?
There are less tannins in green so it does take longer. It is a more mellow kombucha over all.