Iced Yum

  Okay, so I am kind of biased when it comes to "Iced Coffee"...well Coffee in general. I give all the credit to working at Caribou Coffee for 2 years in college. Being a teacher, a Kindergarten teacher more specifically, I think coffee will forever be a permanent word in my vocabulary; arguably one of my middle names even. Although, I have learned a mass amount of useful information from working with the 'Bou Crew...all of which I argue is of great value. However,  I have been weened off it over the past few years due to my move south.
    I am still completely infatuated with Caribou and think their drip coffee is a standard other coffee roasters should strive for. Talk about withdrawal when moved to SW-Iowa. Closest Caribou OR Starbucks (hiss) is a blasted 40 miles away. I have had to grow accustomed to gasp, gas station coffee...at times, and only from Kum & Go...well now Casey's because we even got rid of that. I still have mad skills when deciphering and discussing good and appropriate coffee. Living in a small town, I have come to love the 'local' shops the best...they are usually pretty legit on their coffee specialties (shout out to The Sanctuary here in town).
   This leads me to my purpose of posting, (not just to more so reveal my obsession with Coffee). I wanted to make an iced coffee/latte from home, that was low in calories and pretty comparable to that of my dear coffee shop. Granted, the following recipe is the only one I have tried, I am sure there are more delightful ones out there...as for me, I like this one and I will continue to tweak it as my taste-buds see fit.


Ingredients:

* = more or less or none

-1/4 or 1/2 cup of Vanilla soy milk
-1 1/2 cup of Coffee (place in freezer for 15min. after brewing)
-1tbsp. Vanilla
-2tsp. of Truvia sweetener *
-1tbsp. sugar free Carmel (flavoring) *
-1tbsp. unsweetened Cocoa Powder

Directions:
-blend together (add ice cubes in blending if desired)
-pour over ice
-ENJOY!

Go light on the Sugar Free to avoid Aspartame....Truvia does not have any. This is a healthy iced coffee, clearly not zero calories....but less than even the iced lattes at Caribou. BOOM.