$$ Frugal Friday $$ Iced Coffees

Posted by on Friday, September 9th, 2011

Iced Coffee

This post is for all of my frugal minded cooking friends who like coffee treats and are tired of spending big bucks for a Venti concoction. In my opinion Starbucks should be called Fivebucks because that’s about what is will cost for a Venti sized drink. If you feel that 5 bucks is too many bucks to shell out for a drink, especially on a regular basis, make your own java and give iced coffee a try.

These iced coffees are incredible and can be made with left over coffee! That’s right, before throwing out any coffee which was not consumed, grab a glass jar or other storage container and save that coffee by placing it in the fridge. By making your own iced coffee once a week, you can save yourself over $250 a year.

Since our firstborn roasts and grinds raw coffee beans for us, we get an extra special treat. I’ve yet to have coffee that tastes better than his does. I like to make a whole 12 cup pot of coffee, let the coffee cool, then refrigerate it. I use one heaping tablespoon of fresh roasted, fresh ground coffee per cup and fill the coffee pot with the correlating amount of water.

Sometimes I like to add some ground cinnamon to the coffee grounds for a “pumpkin spice” flavor. Sometimes I add a couple of tablespoons of cocoa for that delightful “mocha” taste. And real vanilla extract added to the fresh grounds creates a soothing taste. Once the coffee brews and is chilled, you only need to add ice, condensed milk as sweetener, and a little heavy cream to suit your taste buds. Hershey’s syrup makes a nice mocha iced coffee, and a drop of peppermint oil with the Hershey’s syrup creates a peppermint mocha flavor that is incredible. There’s no scientific recipe here. Just add enough condensed milk to suit your own tastebuds. For a 1 quart jar of coffee I like to add 2-3 Tablespoons of condensed milk.

Ingredients

Finally, I like to serve iced coffee in these cute Ball wide mouth jars in quart size for that “Venti” portion, or pint size for a smaller treat. I save old canning lids for such purposes as this and use a screwdriver to poke a hole in the center. This way TO GO portions of your favorite iced coffee can be made ahead of time and stored in fridge. Next morning you can just grab and go and there’s no paper or styrofoam container needed which would later end up in the land fill.

Filed in Beverages,Frugal Friday | 4 responses so far

4 Responses to “$$ Frugal Friday $$ Iced Coffees”

  1. Renee Villanion 09 Sep 2011 at 5:01 am 1

    I love the canning lid idea! For an 8 C. pot, I always put 1 T cinnamon (a natural for reducing sugar in bloodstream) in the bottom of the unbleached filter and next,a t. of vanilla extract, and then the ground coffee…
    I use the So Delicious Coconut Milk Creamers… YUMMMY
    http://www.turtlemountain.com/products/product.php?p=so_delicious_creamer_hazelnut

  2. Lisa Thomason 09 Sep 2011 at 7:36 pm 2

    This sounds great, I can’t wait to try it !!!!

  3. Carolina HeartStringson 10 Sep 2011 at 4:11 am 3

    HECK yes! Sharing this on facebook. Mmmmm…..

  4. Carolinaheartstringson 10 Sep 2011 at 6:23 pm 4

    I love Starbucks….. But not spending that money every morning…so I make my own everyday too. Love your post. Thanks for sharing.