Frugal Iced "Tea"

         I love iced tea, so I was pretty thrilled when I came up with this super easy, super frugal version of it.
          For my birthday, a friend gave me a container of dry tea that contained bits of different dried fruits. I started making ice tea with that. When I ran out, it occurred to me that I had a ton of dried fruit  from last year.  I had spent time harvesting free blueberries from our local blueberry farm. I also harvested apples from a local apple orchard. I dried some of both, not really sure what I would do with them.  I decided to throw in some lemon and see what would would happen.

I used my handy tea maker very similar to  this one  that my wonderful husband gave me for my birthday. It has a really cool strainer built in on the bottom. Place about 1/2 cup dried blueberries and 1 cup dried apples in the container, along with 1/2 a fresh lemon (peel removed) into the tea maker. Fill the tea maker with boiling water and let steep. After the tea has steeped, you sit the container on top of your cup and the liquid pours out from the bottom. I put my tea straight into a glass pitcher.

      I think I let the fruit steep for at least an hour (I went off to do other things and didn't time it). The longer it steeps, the stronger the flavor will be. Chill and then add a little stevia and you have a cool, fruity drink!

Tomorrow, I will show you what to do with the leftover fruit pieces, so don't throw them away!
Enjoy!