Mint tea

Come winter, you'll hear me wax poetic about hot drinks to warm you to the bones when it's freezing outside.  But right now, I'm all about the summer drinks to refresh you when the sun's beating down.

We were at the farmers' market (Union Square, of course) last weekend and there was a stand (the name of which I can never remember) that had iced mint tea.  Two big coolers full of tea and two small chests with ice.  You can get a small 6 oz cup for $1.00 or a 12 oz cup for $1.50.  Bug begged me to get a cup and, after talking to the purveyor, I learned that the tea had a scant amount of caffeine; other than that, it was sweetened with local farmers' market maple syrup.  Bug and I both had a glass (Adam hates mint so he passed) and it was incredible.  You know when you just drink that perfect drink on a hot day and you just sigh and say, "Ahhhhhh!" when you drink it?  Well, that was this drink.

Naturally, I immediately realized that I could easily make this on my own.  So I bought myself a bunch of mint and went home to give it a go.  I separated the mint into these long tea bags I have:

But I think you could probably put the mint right in the water and then strain it out.  As the water was about to boil, I took it off the stove and let it steep on the countertop for about 10 minutes.  I took out the bags, squeezing the water out of them before tossing them, and then stirred in maple syrup.  Of course I tasted it, tasted it, tasted it to make sure I was adding the right amount of syrup.  Once I got it to the right amount of sweetness, I added it to a pitcher:

And I sipped all week long.  Absolutely wonderful.

Today we went back to the market and bought another cup of their iced tea.  Bug noticed a card with the ingredients: mint, maple syrup, sugar, lemon juice, lime juice.  We didn't add sugar, lemon, or lime to our tea; Bug told me that she didn't think we needed the sugar since it was sweetened with the syrup.  We did agree, though, that lemon and lime juice would be awesome additions.  So we'll try that next.  And that, in a nutshell, is why I love cooking and creating in the kitchen.  Last weeks' tea was great.  But let's add lemon and lime juice to see what will happen.  Maybe it'll be even better.  Maybe it won't.  It's always interesting and always fresh because even I don't know what will come out of my kitchen sometimes.

Eat, drink, and refresh.

Life would be sweeter with a sweet tooth

You know, I’m not a baker. I’ve always argued that it’s because I don’t care for the precision baking requires – I’ve never liked math, and baking seems to require too much of it for my tastes. So there’s that. But the other thing is that I just don’t have much of a sweet tooth – give me crunchy or salty or cheesy any day over dessert. If I’m going to have dessert at all, I’ll go for a scoop of sorbet. And the rare time I order something sweet and rich, I either share it or I’m perfectly happy eating only three bites.

So, all that said, I still love looking at baking cookbooks and dogearing the desserts in all my cookbooks. And that goes for blogs lately, as well. Becks and Posh made some lovely, delicate “Jasmine Dragon Pearl Tea Cookies” that look divine. This is a dessert I can get on board with: crisp, light, subtle, only moderately sweet. I’m sooo tempted to make them. But can I use some other tea? I’ve got English Breakfast, San Francisco Spice (lots of cinnamon and cloves – it has a surprising amount of heat), some sort of peach tea, and lots of vanilla tea. As it is, Becks and Posh say that the original recipe calls for Earl Grey but they went with the Jasmine Dragon Pearl that they had on hand. Which really makes this the ideal baking recipe for someone like me: clearly, I can add any kind of tea I have on hand and see what happens. You can add something richer for winter, and I think my peach tea would be wonderful in the spring. Perhaps even lemon tea with some lemon zest too? So I’m adding this recipe to my already burgeoning list of dessert recipes I have squirreled away. And let’s hope I actually give this one a go. Thanks to Becks and Posh for the photo, recipe, and post.

Likewise, Cream Puffs in Venice is having a whole month of chocolate-themed posts so there’s just endless amounts of mouth-watering and eye candy on display over there. I will readily admit, though, that I’ll most likely never make this recipe – I would never make chocolate for myself when I get the most pleasure out of a small square of Dagoba Organic (have you not tried Dagoba? Shame on you. Do so the first chance you get - or go to the link and buy some online). Siiiiiigh. Nevertheless, I still love looking at beautiful pictures of chocolate desserts so feast your eyes on this:

The recipe is from Maxine Clark's Chocolate: Deliciously Indulgent Recipes for Lovers. Thanks to Cream Puffs in Venice. Like I said, it ain't my bag but I'm guessing some of you are just swooning in front of your computer screens right now.

I've got more tidbits to share, but the husband is golfing in NC right now so it's just the kiddo and me all weekend (who declared about the chocolate mousse picture: "Wow! Let's make that!"). Which means she's challenging me to a game of Uno as I type this. Gotta go show her who's the champion.