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My husband, Will, and I planted our first vegetable garden at the tail end of spring. We were so excited to harvest a variety of tomatoes, pumpkin, okra, squash, cucumber and a plethora of greens and herbs by the beginning of fall. After carefully planting each and every seed, hand watering daily, and taking morning garden tours and connecting with their progress, much to our dismay, a pesky little rabbit or squirrel took it upon themselves to feast at our expense.
What they don’t find appealing to their palate are the more potent herbs, such as the mint and tarragon and spicy greens. For some reason they have also left behind the delicate thyme too. Lucky me!
This recipe made me rethink salads. Growing up when I tried to help my mom out in the kitchen, she would always put me in charge of the veggie chopping for salads. I barely learned the secrets of cooking the main entrees, but I got really good at nailing the salads.
It is truly such a fulfilling pleasure to pluck fresh herbs from your garden and include it in your meal. I picked some thyme, sage and tarragon, which I couldn’t believe I found a recipe that called for three untouched ingredients from my garden! I soaked, washed and chopped them and took a little over a tablespoon of the mixture and tossed it with the salad. The combination of the baby greens I used along with the potent herbs was fantastic! Not too overbearing from the defined sage and tarragon leaves.
Brewing the Darjeeling with rice vinegar was innovative. Darjeeling has a naturally flowery aroma that complemented the herbs and greens and fit into this salad in its own defined piece of the puzzle.
Will, who is a clinical salad dodger, devoured it. Perfectly light and airy, it went well with the main course of whole, roasted chicken.
A while back I embarked on a journey to try every recipe printed in the fabulous book, Culinary Tea by Cynthia Gold and Lise Stern. My journey was interrupted by a gift from God…I became pregnant with my first child. As I could not reap the fruits of my labor, i.e., as I was now prohibited from consuming caffeine, I decided it was best to wait until now.
With my son sound asleep right next to me this 3rd month of his birth, I have shaken the dust off of my copy of Culinary Tea and am ready to dive back into trying all recipes.
 What I have discovered is that a copy of the book in its entirety can be found in Google Books. So rather than typing in all of the recipes into my own blog, you can follow along as I post the link to each recipe I try. This way, you can be sure to get them verbatim and I can be free from any blame for a typo of something like 2 tablespoons of sugar vs. 12 tablespoons of sugar. Not that that has happened so far…but anything is possible.
Yea! I get to cook with tea again! Is it strange that I like being a housewife? And a mother? How old fashioned can I get really? I’m 33 years old, grew up in the states, have a graduate degree, worked full time in a high profile profession, run an online business and I still believe that wives should cater to their husbands.
We have friends where their wives don’t know where to find the measuring cups in their own kitchen. These same friends come to potluck dinners with the husbands making the food. I must really be old fashioned because this notion always bothers me. Either way, I believe being a great cook is part of being a strong, well-rounded woman, and I'm excited to share ideas and recipes when I come across a good one.
Back to the amazing tea recipes. I recently cooked up a batch of Smoky Tea-Spiced Almonds, a variation from Smoky Tea-Spiced Pecans because I didn't have pecans and I was determined to do a recipe soon and not be held back any longer.
Not having a tea spice grinder, because I haven’t heard of one until today, I used my hubby’s coffee grinder instead. Yes he does drink coffee. Que lastima! I wonder if he will notice the hints of smoky Lapsang Souchong in his morning cup tomorrow, hehe!
Nuts and Lapsang are like tailgating in football. They were made for each other. Smoky Tea-Spiced Almonds are an excellent, healthy snack to any sporting event. It has the smoky touch that Lapsang provides but not too overbearing, in fact, it could be a bit smokier. It also has a sweet and spicy combo from the cayenne and allspice that makes you want to pop one after another into your mouth. It makes a perfect snack for football playoffs.
Brrr! It's getting cold here in NJ, and I have been retreating to my fall favorites to keep warm: fires, blankets, mulled cider, and hot toddies! I first experienced a hot toddy as a child when I was sick with a sore throat or when I came in freezing from playing out in the snow. My mom presented me with this, at the time, extremely potent concoction that was overwhelming to sip but definitely took the cold edge off. Since then, I've actually come to enjoy this hot tea recipe in the fall and winter because it warms you from the inside out, and so I have adapted my own versions to my particular tastes.
The classic hot toddy is made with black tea (because it mixes well with lemon and honey), but green tea does too, and I think you could make it delicious however you want according to whatever teas you prefer. The possibilities are infinite, but here is a simple standard recipe:
1oz (or more if you like!) of brandy, whiskey, or rum
1 tablespoon honey (sometimes I like to use agave nectar instead)
1/4 lemon (add more if you accidently made it too strong)
Golden Monkey Paw black tea
Voila! Curl up next to a fire, keep sipping, and keep toasty.
I'm guilty of often over-estimating and over-brewing how much tea I really want to drink when I steep it in a pot. Sometimes I'll brew a whole pot and think that I will want to drink it all, only to drink a cup and not want anymore. I hate wasting things, and so I've tried to be more careful about how much I might realistically drink and what to do with left over tea.
There is, of course, always iced tea. I've noticed that the same kind of tea tastes totally different cold then hot, and doesn't always call for the same additional ingredients, if any at all. For example, I always put milk in my chai, but left over chai iced tea that I leave to sit in the fridge tastes much better naked and alone.
That's not the only thing I do with leftover liquid. Every so often I put some in my tropical plants. Not only the liquid, but also the tea leaves themselves. Plants that like acid or alkaline, such as azaleas, hydrangeas, dogwood, raspberries, blueberries, and most tropical plants, thrive when their soil is enhanced with the acid from teas, especially black teas. Acid-loving plants don't need this often, maybe a few times a year, but it can aid in the fullness of their leaves, the vibrancy of their color, and the overall strength and productivity of the plant. If you have a garden, the spring is a good time to mix tea leaves in with the soil, or you can add liquid tea or leaves to water and water your garden with this mixture.
Otherwise, tea leaves are always a great addition to a compost pile. This helps to aid in the breakdown of organic matter in the compost, and gives the soil nitrogen. Nothing needs to be wasted!
As dairy-free alternatives to milk become increasingly popular, more and more tea aficianados are curious about adding these products to tea.
As a lactose-free tea-lover myeslf, I took a few hours this morning to experiment with various non-dairy milks in tea.
I tried Almond Breeze unsweetened original, unsweetened vanilla, and sweetened vanilla almond milks in black tea. The unsweetened original and unsweetened vanilla almond milk did very little to cut the astringency of the tea, but the sweetened vanilla almond milk tasted almost identical to vanilla cow's milk. The texture was also very smooth and creamy.
Ah, the difficult life of a lazy morning tea-taster: someone's gotta do it!
Next up was my favorite dairy substitute: coconut milk, which has a wonderful delicate flavor by itself and many health benefits. I was secretly rooting for this contender! But, alas: I used unsweetened, unflavored coconut milk and it retained a very strong coconut flavor that did not complement the taste of the black tea.
Soy milk (I used Silk brand's sweetened vanilla) proved to be the best overall substitute. The texture and taste was very close to cow's milk and the sweetened vanilla almond milk, but I had to use much less of it (approximately half a tablespoon) for the same result.
As more and more people explore dairy-free options, I am sure that many more products will become available, but for now, soy milk and almond milk are my favorite substitutes for cow's milk in tea.
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