This morning, while perusing Facebook for interesting conversations, I stumbled upon Ree Drummond’s (The Pioneer Woman) post featuring “Perfect Iced Coffee.”

I’ve thought about making iced coffee before and even found a copycat Starbucks Frappuccino recipe on-line once which I saved and promptly forgot about.

So, I decided to try my hand at it today with this really simple, really yummy, perfect for hot summer weather recipe.

Her instructions indicated to add two quarts of cold water to a pound of strong coffee and let it cold steep for eight hours or overnight, no brewing necessary. I pulled a package of coffee out of the freezer (yep, that’s where I keep it for long term storage) and began looking for a suitable container.

Here, dear readers, is where I tell my story in “real” time (in case you are wondering why the verb tense change).

As I open my vacuum sealed bag of Folgers, I see that it’s not a full pound. (Oh, yeah, we used to be able to buy one pound bags of coffee, but now the portions are noticeably smaller, all done quietly behind our backs like we wouldn’t notice! What a rip! But, that’s a different story for me to rant about another day.)

So let’s see, this package is a whopping 10 and ¾ ounces. Ok, so now I have to do some math to get my proportions right. Let’s see, first, let me round my figure down to an even 10 ounces, which is easier to calculate. So, I’ve got 10 ounces rather than 16. Ok, so 10 goes into 16 once. Er, wait, I mean 16 divided by 10 is, is, is, what?  Grrrrr, this is getting way too hard for my math challenged brain to wrap around. Oh, wait. Let’s see…

One pound of coffee is 16 ounces and two quarts of water is eight cups, which is, 16 times 8, which is 10 times 8, which is 80 and 6 times 8, which is 48, which is 128 ounces, which divided by the 16 ounces of coffee is 8! Which means what? Two ounces per cup? How did I come up with that? Sheesh!

Somehow, I think this calculation is right and I can’t make myself start over, so my 10 ounce bag will make 5 cups of future iced coffee. Right?

What? WOW! If this package of coffee will brew 90 cups of coffee (it says so on the front of the package) and I’m using the whole bag to make 5 cups of iced coffee, this stuff is going to be super strong and super expensive or I’m doing it way way wrong!

Let me go back and look at her recipe again. OMG! Pioneer Woman’s recipe does not say eight CUPS. It says eight QUARTS!

Now, I have to recalculate and my brain is already fried! Hell’s Bells, this is a nightmare! I DON’T EVEN HAVE A CONTAINER THAT WILL HOLD EIGHT QUARTS! Which is, let’s see, 16 ounces in a cup, 2 cups in a pint, 4 cups in a quart, 4 quarts in a gallon,  OMG, I need a 2 gallon container! Er, wait, not a 2 gallon container since I only have 10 ounces of coffee. Um, so, I need a 5 quart container! Right?

Yes, I know what you are thinking, but I can’t make less as I already poured the whole bag of coffee into 5 cups of water and it’s been steeping for a couple of hours already!

I can’t find a large enough suitable container, so, I will have to use my sangria urn. It holds one gallon and maybe a few more cups if I fill it to brimming. My best guess is that it is about two cups short on the required water, but it will have to do.

Transfer of the original five cups of gloppy, soppy coffee grounds to the urn was a tad problematic with some splashing and staining my favorite pink shirt and spilling onto the counter and floor.

(This is my shirt, probably permanently stained. I tried to take a picture of it while still wearing it, but that didn’t work out.)

I’m not sure how long I should wait. Since my recipe is strong on coffee and short on water, maybe I should strain it at the minimum eight hours. And, too, I don’t know if I should count the time from when I first started it at 8 a.m. or after I corrected it at 10 a.m.

Tick tock. Tick tock.

Voila! At 4 p.m., I strained the coffee, washed the sangria urn and poured the clean coffee back into it for serving and storage.

I stuffed a glass with ice, filled it a little more than half full of coffee, added a teaspoon of sugar and a splash of cream. OMG! This is good!

It is now 4:30 p.m. and I am drinking my second glass. I’m feeling a bit wired already and I’m sure will not be sleeping tonight!

The recipe is as follows:

1 pound coffee mixed with 8 quarts cold water (OR, 8 ounces coffee and 4 quarts water, OR 4 ounces coffee and 2 quarts water – see how good I am at math?)

Steep for 8 hours or overnight. Strain. Keep chilled in the refrigerator.

Fill a glass with ice, add coffee, sugar, cream – whatever floats your boat!