Iced Coffee. A Reason To Live.

I live in Rhode Island, and here in the tiniest state in the Union, they suckle their babies on none other than iced coffee. Well, I missed out on the suckling because I was born, but not raised here, yet here I have resided for the past three years or so, and I must pat myself on the back for true Rhode Island-ness, true acclimation, because-- I've come up with a really good iced coffee recipe. The morning I inexplicably came up with this concoction, I surprised myself. It is just so good. It is surprisingly good. This iced coffee makes you instinctively close your eyes upon first taste, then open them really wide, and exclaim to yourself or someone around you something like this, WHICH IS AN ACTUAL QUOTE!- from someone who did just that:

"This is the best iced coffee I've ever had in my life."

Yes. So please, watch this tutorial, and try it at home. (I'm a big fan of the Pioneer Woman. She pioneered this awesome picture-heavy step-by-step recipe technique. I follow here in her cowgirl-boot footsteps.)



Step one. Get a mason jar. It makes the coffee a lot easier to make, and foamy, too. I didn't have any mason jars, due to the fact that I take salad dressing and ...iced coffee...to work in them, and then leave them in my car to get nasty in the sun. So, I'm just using a glass.



Ingredients needed: soy milk (I love Silk brand), instant coffee, (however in most things I am strictly store brand) and sugar. Also ice cubes, of course. On a sidenote, I was a little apprehensive to put the sugar horizontal, like pictured, lest it spill out somehow. But as you can see, the sugar, surprisingly, did not move from its place when tipped on its side. It's humid in Rhode Island! Anyway. That's just one more reason to drink iced coffee.

So, step two, and admiring nails en route: get a heaping tablespoon of sugar...





and put in in your jar or glass.



Take a tablespoon of instant coffee and add it to the glass.



Add a little soy milk



Stop to admire the sludge...



Stir it up...



Add a little more soymilk...



and stir, or screw on the jar lid and shake. If you are stirring this mixture in a glass, the next step is to wish you had gone to your car to get your jars and clean them to make this, because it's a lot easier to get so deliciously foamy when shaking, and here in this glass you have to delicately, yet in a frenzy, stir until most of the black dots of instant coffee are gone. However, with patience, it will happen. It's worth it. Those forty seconds. It is worth it.

Once that mixture has all become one add more soymilk, and ice.



Take a sip.

Pause.



Good God. That's some amazing iced coffee! UGH! It's so good. Really. Please try it.
It will add delight to your life. Or at least your summer morning.