Tag: tea

Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Tea Quotes

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“As far as her mom was concerned, tea fixed everything. Have a cold? Have some tea. Broken bones? There’s a tea for that too. Somewhere in her mother’s pantry, Laurel suspected, was a box of tea that said ‘in case of Armageddon, step 3 to 5 minutes.’“ -Aprilynne Pike, Illusions

“One sip of this will be the dripping spirits in delight, beyond the bliss of dreams.”- John Milton, Comus

“Arthur blinked at the screens and felt he was missing something important. Suddenly he realized what it was. ‘Is there any tea on the spaceship?’ He asked.”- Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide

“ Honestly, if you’re given the choice between Armageddon or tea, you don’t say “What kind of tea?’”- Neil Gaiman

A Boozy Bridgerton Tea
Party Posts

A Boozy Bridgerton Tea

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Why hello! Are you ready for tea? Perhaps with a spot of something stronger? Or maybe some genteel gossip? Then do come in! No boys allowed though! This was ladies’ only. We kicked the Husband out to K2’s house, where he had a perfectly manly time blowing things up in video games.

One of my favorite historical romance series, the Bridgerton Family, by Julia Quinn was made into a Netflix show and I was super excited by it. I did like the first season better and did not enjoy the second season as much, although I think I understand why they changed the story so much from the book. The costumes are gorgeous and I really enjoy the modern music played by string quartets. It’s a nice mix of fantast and more modern sensibilities without losing the core elements of romance. However, you didn’t read this post for my thoughts on the series, you want to see the boozy tea! Say no more! on to the pictures!

Here you can see grandma’s singing teapot, which charmed everyone! My friend K3 made soda bread from a family recipe and it was lovely. Another friend brought fancy chocolates. Those are strawberry marshmallows in the fancy bowl, which was my grandma in law’s. In the very corner of the picture, you can just see our pickles for the evening! The last time I went to the plant store, I found a pickle plant! It’s a type of trailing succulent and it has little bristles like cucs do before they turn into pickles! Also, look Mom! One of the spider plant babies I stole at Christmas!

My friend K3 made cucumber sandwiches as well and they were lovely! I have a cucumber in my fridge that I really need to use probably pretty quickly and I think I might make myself a tea lunch with it soon. K2 made egg salad and we had a couple of kinds of crackers for it. Also, a better view of the pickle plant and a spider plant I didn’t steal from my mother.

K3 also made cherry orange biscuits at my house for the party, K2 brought the macaroons and made the Cosmo cupcakes! My friend L made the brownies. We had strawberries and cream as well, and gluten free scones.

These are store bought eclairs. I have no desire to make them, as they are fiddly. These are the perfect size for my tray too. Which I bought day of the party because I had to get supplies and Aldi has the weirdest selection of non-grocery items ever. Had I gotten myself a cart, I probably would have also bought the mini buffet server for parties.

We also had these amazingly delicious Italian almond cookies- I think they were amaretti cookies. I’m going to have to get some more from the store or learn to make them. My friend C who brought the chocolates, also brought a delicious gluten free strawberry cake, but I didn’t get a few things in a picture, unfortunately.

Now, you absolutely cannot have a Regency era tea party without lemonade, but since this was a boozy night, we spiked it. Naughty of us, I know, but it was delicious! K2 brought homemade strawberry simple syrup and I had a really smooth gin that my younger brother brought as payment for a sewing job. So we had spiked strawberry lemonade, as well as regular spiked lemonade- in the corner of the picture. The strawberry version is below.

It was hard to pick a favorite! I also made two tea based cocktails, served in a teacup of course! To simplify recipes, we just used two and both used gin. There was a spiked lemonade in the book made with strawberry green tea, but I just added gin and simple syrup to the regular lemonade. The tea based cocktails were both Mar-Tea-nis. We had a hibiscus roobios one and an Earl Grey one. I made both the teas ahead and chilled them. My kitchen counter looked like a mad scientist’s workshop for a while with all sorts of teas steeping. K2 had Red Berries Iced Tea which I happily drank the rest of all weekend.

I made the drinks light and followed the recipe from my Tea Cocktails book (Tea Cocktails: Unique and Delicious Tea- Infused Cocktails by Abigail Gehring.)

The picture below is the hibiscus roobios mar-tea-ni. This felt a little bland for me. I think I needed more simple syrup in it, but didn’t want to cover the taste of the tea. I don’t know if I would make it again.

The Earl Grey mar-tea-ni was much more to my taste. My brother sent me a recipe that included infusing the gin and I may still try that one, but didn’t have time before the party. I had some lemon with it and used a regular simple syrup instead of a honey simple syrup, but I think it worked either way.

I would definitely drink this again! I’m excited to try some more of the tea cocktails from the book, but need to track down some ginger tea, if I don’t already have any. Also, I may need a bigger booze cupboard shortly. Or need to make drinks with the tiny bottles of flavored vodka I have taking up space. Hmm. Maybe that will be a future party experiment and blog post.

I’ll leave you with a picture of the absolute perfect tins that I bought right before the party. Behold my cake tins! When I tell you I have a desire to replicate the cakes and store them in their tins, I’m sure you’ll understand why.

Don’t they look delicious?! Anyway, I hope your night is as sweet as this party was and if you’re into Regency era romance, definitely check out the Bridgerton books and show.

Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Tea

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“I must drink lots of tea or I cannot work. Tea unleashes the potential which slumbers in the depth of my soul.” – Leo Tolstoy

“There’s always time for tea.” – Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it as the axis on which the world revolves” – Thich Nhat Hanh

“As far as her mom was concerned, tea fixed everything. Have a cold? Have some tea. Broken bones? There’s a tea for that too. Somewhere in her mother’s pantry, Laurel suspected, was a box of tea that said, ‘In case of Armageddon, steep three to five minutes’.”-Aprilynne Pike, Illusions

“Making tea is a ritual that stops the world from falling in on you.” – Jonathan Stroud, The Creeping Shadow

Future Food- Garden Update
Gardening · Life Posts

Future Food- Garden Update

LSieh2 Comments

We have had so much rain lately that the garden is growing pretty much every time you look away from it. I also haven’t had to water it very much at all, but finally remembered to today. We are using the herbs pretty regularly. Tomorrow for our Game Night, we are using some of the basil for lemonade. 🙂

I have massive amounts of all herbs that I think I will start freezing to encourage new herb growth. I’m always a little afraid to harvest them because I might run out, which is, of course, silly. Here are the latest pictures:

The basil box. My purple basil is coming back nicely.

Parsley, rosemary, lemon myrtle, and oregano. I used the rosemary on the lamb rack this week already.

The Sages are growing well. I have plans to use a bunch of the herbs in butter for a big chicken dinner on Sunday. You can see the thyme in the picture as well. The lemon thyme has tiny purple flowers on it that are also edible.

I want to try drying the lemon myrtle, lemon thyme, and pineapple sage for tea mixes. Maybe Sunday will be an herb drying day!

The tomatoes are growing very well. I’m pretty sure one of the second batch of seeds I planted is growing, which is nice. The poor little yellow tomato plant on the end isn’t growing very well. I think the bigger plants are stealing all the nutrients. I gave it some tomato food and some crunched up egg shells. Hopefully that will help. The bigger yellow tomato is doing very well.

My beans and pepper bed is looking well. I have radishes, bok choy, rainbow chard, and carrots coming up as well. It sorely needs a weeding though, but I’m not entirely sure what is a weed and what’s not.

I saved the best news for last! (Although I’m sure I’ll get a phone call from my Dad saying otherwise.) The zucchini plant has five baby zukes on it! I couldn’t get a picture of all of them, but I’m super excited. I’m going to be harvesting these as smaller ones so that I can maybe get some more production this year. It seems to really like the pot, so I will plan on continuing to grow them this way.

I hope you enjoyed seeing our garden! I’m very excited to see that even though I kill houseplants, I can keep a garden alive at least. Maybe there’s hope for the houseplants yet! On that note, I should probably go check the one I have managed to keep alive!

Have a lovely night!

Monday Munchies
Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Monday Munchies

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Sorry for missing Simple Sunday. I had a very bad migraine and screens were making my vision double, so I couldn’t concentrate enough to pick a topic or see to find quotes. I’ll do a Wordy Wednesday post with some pictures and quotes later this week.

I was going through my food pictures though and realized that we have been having a lot of delicious meals. The featured picture is Fancy at our dinner tonight. She was very hopeful that she would get some and was very sad to only get her own dinner. We both seem to be out of our food funk, so even though meal planning has been haphazard, we have made it work.

Tonight, for example, we were supposed to eat yesterday, but the Husband had to go into work. Apparently bad things happen to electronics if the power goes out? 😉 He had to go make sure everything turned on okay. I knew there was no way I was going to make this just for me, so we had a very fancy dinner on a Monday. May I present Garlic and Rosemary Crusted Rack of Lamb?

Rosemary from the garden, olive oil, and garlic made up the crust. I completely forgot salt and pepper and neither of us noticed. Here is the recipe I used. https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/garlic-crusted-roast-rack-lamb

It was very good. Sometimes I don’t enjoy lamb, but this one was much milder than normal and tasted more of herbs than the gamey taste it can get. I think I cooked it just to done, not overly done too, so that was good. We had cheddar biscuits from the Red Lobster mix and I had asparagus as well. I also tried mango sprinkled with Pico De Fruita from Penzey’s.

It’s a spicy seasoning for fresh juicy fruits like mango and peaches. It has a surprising bite, but did give another layer of flavor. I might try this in a fruit salad with mangos and strawberries and see how it is. I think it would be good on grilled pineapple too, which I do plan on making this summer.

Side note, how is it suddenly summer? I still haven’t managed to completely switch my heavier clothes out of my drawers and have realized how many tank tops I need, but don’t have! Luckily, I have a couple of patterns to try, but that’s another story. Back to food!

We have grilled again this last week, on the one day it didn’t rain! Now that I’m home earlier on Monday and Tuesday, dinner can be a little more fun. We had grilled steak kebabs!

I would say I followed a recipe, but my parents told me never to lie. 😉 I did use the cook time in a Food Network magazine, but used our own ingredients and spices. They were seasoned with Sandwich Sprinkle from Penzey’s, which I have used on approximately 10 things, none of which are sandwiches… It’s basically Italian Seasoning, garlic, salt and pepper, if you wanted to try to recreate it. My kebabs were the ones with tomatoes and peppers. The Husband had manly kebabs- no veggies allowed, just meat and starch. They were delicious! We will definitely be making them again. Kebab all the things!

We have had a couple of fancier breakfasts too, not just dinners! I made the sour cream muffins from a couple of weeks ago with blueberries instead of chocolate chips.

They were good, but I think I liked the chocolate chip ones better. The Husband tried the blueberry ones and did like them. He’s not a huge breakfast eater.

I made these egg cups this morning in an effort to eat more protein to ward off migraines. Newsflash, it didn’t work, but they were a good breakfast. They would be a good lunch too.

They are filled with chicken breakfast sausage, red peppers, green onions, mushrooms, and fresh parsley, oregano, and basil. I forgot to add cheese and any spices, including salt and pepper. My brain was having fits this morning. They’re still pretty tasty though. The Husband will hopefully help me eat them. I had them with cinnamon toast, but had eaten in stages this morning, so no pictures.

We had a few standbys: Shells and Cheese with veggies and chicken sausage, Creamy Shrimp Pasta, and Instant Pot Korean Beef.

The Husband had the Korean beef sauce on country style pork ribs in the crockpot, but they messed with his stomach, so I don’t think he ate them all. Too fatty, I think. We haven’t had them in forever, since it seemed like too much for him to eat on his own. He said they tasted good though, just regretted it in the morning.

We did enjoy lettuce wraps too and I had the leftover meat on a salad the next day, which was pretty delicious.

We discovered that the Husband likes Boston lettuce better that romaine, so we might switch to that. Chef’s salad is more appealing in the summer sometimes.

Another really fun new thing I tried was Pineapple Sage Lemonade!

My pineapple sage is growing like crazy and I know you can make it into tea, but the hot tea wasn’t sounding appealing in 80 degree weather, so I made lemonade instead. I looked at a recipe, which I cannot find, but in the end, just made something up. I didn’t think to grab fresh lemons at the store, so I mixed about an 1/8 th cup of lemonade concentrate with water and then added sugar to taste. I bruised and ripped up five or six pineapple sage leaves and threw them in and let it sit for a while. It turned out to be very good! There was a subtle taste of the pineapple sage and it went really well with the lemons. I am planning on trying some cocktails too. Here’s some websites if you’re interested!

https://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/pineapple-sage-tea-hot-or-iced-386388

https://punchdrink.com/recipes/pineapple-and-sage-martini/

https://www.fakefoodfree.com/pineapple-sage-bourbon-lemonade/

And some food recipes too!

http://theessentialherbal.blogspot.com/2009/05/pining-for-pineapple-sage-recipes.html

I have used the lemon thyme in my water too, which gives it a lovely flavor. I’m excited to investigate other ways to use the herbs this year, since they are all growing so well!

Fancy is being super weird about the windows. We think there’s a small animal out there taunting her, but we haven’t smelled skunk yet. I’d better go distract her before she attempts to exit the house through the window. Have a lovely (non-smelly) night!

Gardening Update
Canning and Preserving · Gardening · Life Posts

Gardening Update

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Hello! It’s supposed to rain here all week, so I had to hurry up and get the rest of the garden planted yesterday. The Husband pulled a bunch of dead wood out of the backyard jungle and it looks like we did nothing once again. The three yard waste bags and 3 full yard waste cans belay that notion though.

We haven’t found any other morels in the yard, but we have pretty flowers popping up.

As usual, I have no idea what they are. 😁

I do, however, know what plants I actually planted! I’ll start with the herbs.

Flat Leaf Parsley- I need to chop this back so it grows more evenly.

Garden Sage and Pineapple Sage-

The pineapple sage can be used in teas and is sweeter than the regular sage.

Greek Oregano and Lemon Balm-

Lemon balm for tea and you can make a tea with oregano too, I think. We used the oregano last night to marinate rib eyes and it was delicious.

Three kinds of basil. I just couldn’t stop myself, so we have Purple Basil, Sweet Basil, and Cinnamon Basil.

I’m excited for pesto and for caprese salad. Also, Basil Lemonade!

We also have two kinds of thyme- German Thyme and Lemon Thyme.

Lemon thyme will go in my tea mixes and the German thyme will be for cooking.

We have three containers of strawberries. The ones that I planted in a stacking container haven’t sprouted yet, so no pictures of that. The other two were ones that survived the winter and I separated.

Eventually we would like to have berry bushes in big containers near the garage, but we have a few stumps to dig out first and we’re going to put gravel down too.

The tomato plants all have trellises now out of twine, but it was starting to sprinkle after I had finished them, so imagine them all with twine.

I couldn’t find Mr. Stripey or the Indigo Rose tomatoes this year, which was a bummer. I do have a Yellow Canary Cherry tomato, a Lemon Boy hybrid, a Mountain something or other, 2 Romas, a Cherokee Purple, a Juliet grape, and a Husky Red Cherry tomato. I did buy one of the super fancy tomatoes, the San Marzano tomato plant. I seem to be missing a few, but I think I might have duplicated the cherry tomatoes too. I’m hoping the twine will help keep them in check. A couple of the plants have flowers already!

The second garden bed doesn’t look super exciting yet.

I planted bush beans in the spot with the trellis, and replanted carrots along the back. There’s also Swiss chard and bok choy along the sides. Radishes along the other edge. For peppers I have a purple bell, poblano, serrano, and jalepenos. I’m thinking of trying more pepper seeds in the ground, ut if it keeps raining, I may just have to go with this. Even though there should be a good amount of stuff geowing soon, I still feel like I could be planting more. Next year, I’m starting the seeds later so they don’t die. Also, I will be using bigger plastic pots to help keep them stable longer.

I also have a zucchini and two rhubarb plants in pots. The rhubarb hasn’t grown yet, but the zucchini looks nice and healthy.

The hydrangeas in the front have blooms. I don’t know if I’m supposed to pluck them to make them grow more leaves or not, but they seem healthy.

My flamingo flock is also coming along nicely. 😂

I bought this one at a city garage sale yesterday. It was made out of pvc pipe and affixed to a paver stone. I still haven’t named it yet, but the artist made sure to tell me that I could name it whatever I wanted. He also said that because it moves a little in the wind, it might work as a pest deterrent in the garden. I’ll try anything cor the squirrels, so it might be my backyard flamingo.

This year a bunch of the local cities are holding rummage sales in parking garages or other city areas and it’s very convenient. It’s a weird mix of vendors and items, but worked out for us yesterday. We found two Wii games, the flamingo, and I got some Lego pieces for work. There’s a couple more coming up, so we might go see what we can find. 🙂

Fancy has been excited about the warmer weather. She likes it when our windows are open and she can smell all the things happening. She’s also helpful when we are messing with sticks. This is her, after the kids across the street went back inside.

I’ve started my canning prep list and am going to try to start having at least one canning/freezer prep day every couple of weeks. The mason jars are taking over the house again. I have a few recipes that I can make whenever; Jasmine Tea jelly for my FIL for Father’s Day, pickled red onions, and pomegranate jelly. I will probably try to do some of these this Friday. I don’t think I have much else planned.

For now though, I need to start getting ready for work. Have a great day!

Wordless Wednesday- Christmas Up North (No, really Up North)
Life Posts · Wordless Wednesdays

Wordless Wednesday- Christmas Up North (No, really Up North)

LSiehLeave a comment
A tray of interesting things, including gum rocks (I don’t know the correct name) from New Zealand!
One of the Daddy Daughter tea dates!
All the red ornaments
Fancy’s party pose
I made the Scrabble ornaments for my Mom for Christmas a few years ago and she put them on this cool wreath!
Tea!
These were mostly fundraiser ornaments for the Finnish dancers from Finlandia University.
Cooking Adventures Of The Delicious Kind
Canning and Preserving · Recipe Roundup

Cooking Adventures Of The Delicious Kind

LSiehLeave a comment

We’ve started to get some snow. So much for the yard clean up, I guess. The tree pictures I posted for my picture post were all taken a week or so before the first snow. I suddenly have dog attached anytime I sit down and feel the need for three layers everywhere. Most of my sweater fabric has arrived, so I plan to do a bunch of sewing this Friday to make sure I can actually stay warm this winter. My circulation must be off, because once I get cold, my skin stays cold and I feel cold forever. This winter, space heaters down in my sewing area are a must. That or fingerless gloves and a hat. Brrr… 

Chai spiced chocolate chip muffins with Siamo Spring Tips tea from Tea Runners

In an attempt to stay warm, I have been cooking up some delicious things lately. Fancy got some sweet potato pieces dried. She gets all excited when she sees the bag in the fridge. My dad laughed when I said I made her sweet potatoes with olive oil and cinnamon, but she can’t eat the sweet potatoes raw and both of those things are good for her coat. 

Part of my fun cooking day was on Sunday. The Husband was at his play and I made green tomato mincemeat and the tiniest bit of cardamom plum jam. The jam only made two and half jars. I’m not posting more pictures of it because 1. I didn’t get finished pictures and 2. You all might want it if I post it! I’m finding it very hard to part with. 😉 

I tasted a little of the extra mincemeat and it’s interesting. Vinegary, but not too much, with delicious spices and a little sweetness. Not having had it before, I’m not sure how it’s supposed to taste. 

I used this recipe from The Spruce Eats. 

https://www.thespruceeats.com/green-tomato-mincemeat-3057088

It will be interesting to try it in tarts. It felt super weird with the combination of things that were in my cook pot. There was quite an old fashioned homesteader vibe going on too. Here’s what it looked like in the pot. All those fall spices made it smell delicious!  

Some of the pile of chopped green tomatoes! I did cut the batch in half. 

Here is what it looked like after cooking down for a bit. 

And then the deliciousness after being canned. It got so dark!  

I have made a couple of other things too. More chocolate pudding, this time with my Mom’s homemade kahlua. It was delicious.

We have had Chinese food twice this week. We found these mini wontons at Costco (hooray for sample day!). They are chicken and cilantro based and don’t have any ginger in them. The Husband doesn’t like ginger, much to my dismay. They made a delicious broth with some veggies, garlic powder, white pepper, sesame oil, and soy sauce. 

Our new bowl color- Slate. Kind of like a blueish grey.

Today we had a noodle stir fry with some ground chicken and veggies. I added hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, garlic, sweet chili sauce, soy sauce, water, and a cornstarch slurry. 

My younger brother came for dinner, which was nice. I had texted him earlier in the day to say that the original recipe I had planned wasn’t going to work, but that there would be some kind of dinner. He sent back a text saying “I’m sure whatever there is will be lovely.” Isn’t he sweet? My mother trained him well, I think. 🙂 For the record, both the boys liked the stir fry. 

I want to make Cousin Jack cookies this week, probably on Friday, because I have currants from the mincemeat. Also, pannukaku. I’m out of thimbleberry jam though (hint, hint, mom and dad). My dealer of jam hasn’t been keeping up with the demand. 

In the morning, I plan to try one of these new teas from Tea Runners. I don’t get any money from showing them off, but do have a referral code if you want to try it (disclaimer: I get money off if you use my referral code). It’s a tea club that sends four samples out each month. So far, I have loved it! It’s definitely making me drink more tea and I’m excited to try these. I was especially intrigued by the Carrot Cake Rooibos and the Nutcracker black.  

The fact that it’s run by one of my favorite actresses and her husband, Jewel Staite (Kaylee from Firefly,) makes it even cooler. 🙂 I’m a dork. I’ll admit it. 

Anyway, there is a dog suggesting strongly that I go to bed, or at least cuddle her and share my couch blanket. Since I’m freezing again, I think I’ll join her. Have a wonderful, hopefully warm, night!