Tea

I like the way the month of June thinks. Petunias, walks in the park, yards filled with birds, lots of baseball, grilling… Now, she’s gone and topped herself. June has declared herself to be National Tea Month. Are you kidding me? I’m SO there!

You name the tea and I love it dearly. Black tea, white tea, green tea (!!!), red tea (although it actually took longer for me to get used to than green tea), Chai tea - my mouth’s watering just thinking about all of that goodness.

Being from the south, I naturally prefer my tea sweetened. I’ve always sweetened my iced tea with white sugar and my hot tea with honey. Hot tea and honey were just meant to go together. Like a good marriage, they bring out the best in one another. Recently, though, I’ve been sweetening my iced tea with honey as well. I love the special little zing and swagger that it gives the tea - especially green tea. You just try it without honey… you’ll be sorry, it isn’t for the faint of heart.

Below are three AMAZING recipes for Iced tea using my new sweetheart, honey. They are courtesy of the National Honey Board and I thank them very much - for the recipes, of course, but even more so for honey. Sweet stuff. Mmmm… I just thought of something else that I love honey on: Peanut butter, toast, and bananas. I toast the bread, usually wheat, spread on the peanut butter, add a sliced banana, then (this is where it gets sticky) drizzle my honey on top of the bananas. I top it off with the other slice of toast, sit down and enjoy life.

Try it sometime, you’ll be impressed. Also, give these recipes a try. You’ll make them over and over and over again.

Honey Mint Iced Tea
-Makes 4 servings-

Ingredients:
4 cups boiling water
1/2 cup fresh mint leaves
2 tea bags, green or black
1/4 cup honey*

*Suggested pairing: Wildflower honey. Wildflower honey is amber to dark amber in
color with mild floral overtones. Extremely versatile, it is delicious in fruit
and vegetable salad dressings, excellent in baked goods and makes a delicious
table honey. Clover honey may also be substituted for wildflower.

Directions:
In large heat-proof pitcher, pour boiling water over mint and tea bags. Whisk in
honey. Let steep 5 minutes. Remove tea bags; cool. Refrigerate until ready to
serve. To serve, pour over ice.

Icy Fruit Tea
- Makes 6 servings -

Ingredients:
4 tea bags
1 cup boiling water
1/2 honey*
1/4 cup crushed, packed fresh mint leaves
1 cup orange juice
3/4 cup pineapple juice
1/4 fresh lime juice
Ice cubes
1 1/2 quarts carbonated water

*Suggested pairing: Orange blossom honey. Orange blossom honey is a white to
extra light amber honey with a pronounced aroma of orange blossoms. It has a
sweet, fruity taste and is a great table honey. Orange blossom honey also excels
in fruit and vegetable salad dressings, and in marinades for fish and poultry.

Directions:
For concentrate, place tea bags in medium bowl. Add boiling water and steep 10
minutes. Remove tea bags. Add honey and mint; mix well. Mix fruit juices in
1-quart container. Add tea mixture and refrigerate until ready to use. For tea,
fill 12-ounce glass with ice cubes. Add 1/2 cup each concentrate and fill glass
with carbonated water.

Serving Suggestions:
Garnish with a pineapple spear and mint sprig.

Honey Raspberry Iced Tea
- Makes 4 Servings -

Ingredients:
2 cups freshly brewed tea
2 cups cranberry-raspberry juice
1/4 cup honey*

*Suggested pairing: Raspberry honey. Raspberry honey is light amber in color
with a mellow, smooth flavor and unique raspberry finish. This sweet honey pairs
well with vanilla flavors, champagne, chocolate and with fresh fruit, such as
pears and peaches. If raspberry honey is unavailable, clover honey may also be
used.

Directions:
In a large, heat-proof pitcher, whisk together all ingredients until thoroughly
combined and honey dissolves. Chill until ready to serve. Pour over ice to
serve.

Okay, so Paula’s Home Cooking is a Can’t Miss everyday - I know, I know. But today, it’s especially so. The recipes she’ll be making are “Country Food Side Dishes” and the lineup sounds way beyond delicious. One of the things she’ll make is a sweetening syrup she uses for Iced Tea. If you aren’t from the South, you may not be that familiar with sweet tea. Being a Kentuckian, I was never familiar with any other. When I got married, my husband was in the Air Force, so we moved around quite a bit. We lived in the beautiful city of Wichita, Kansas for a while and I was convinced they made the worst tea on earth until I realized they just didn’t sweeten it.

My response, of course, was “Why on earth not?!?!” (They also didn’t fry green tomatoes, make red eye gravy, or have a clear understanding of okra. But I loved them anyway.)

Here’s Paula Deen’s Recipe for Simple Syrup for Sweetening Tea:

1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup water

Heat the sugar and water in a small saucepan, bringing to a boil. When the sugar is completely dissolved, remove the pan from the heat and cool to room temperature. Add to your pitcher of tea and soon you’ll be wondering “Why on earth..” everyone doesn’t drink sweet tea too.

Here are the other recipes Paula Deen will be cooking up today:

Corn Casserole

Turnip Mashed Potatoes

Indian Succotash

Hoppin’ John

If you’re a big fan of casseroles, don’t miss Emeril tonight. The show’s centered around casseroles and they sound amazing. Afterwards, we’ll be ready for dessert and those of us who are Alton Brown fanatics will be in Food Network Heaven, there’ll be back to back Good Eats. The first one focuses on cakes and the second one will “top things off” with icings. (Sorry. Couldn’t resist.)

For the recipes that will be featured on Emeril, Alton, and the rest of the shows on today’s Food Network, see the scrolling lineup to the left. I like what’s up Giada’s Italian sleeves today, too.

I recently began using artifical sweetener in place of real sugar in my coffee and tea. I’ve even experimented with it in my baking a little - I’m all for cutting as many calories out of my daily lineup as humanly possible! I recently tried what can only be described as the “Cadillac of the Zero Calorie Sweeteners.” It’s Sweet Simplicity and there’s just no going back to the other stuff now!

As you know, to say that I’m “into” tea and coffee would be a gross understatement - it’d be like saying Rita Hayworth was “attractive.” I have a wall cupboard full of different flavors and styles of teas, and have been taking Sweet Simplicity for a test drive through each - one at a time. The ingredients in Sweet Simplicity are all natural. In fact, the main sweetening ingredient is a sugar alcohol called Erythritol. While the taste is the most important thing for me, I love the fact that it keeps things simple. I want for a product’s ingredients to make sense to me, after all.

You have to check out Sweet Simplicity’s beautiful web site, where you’ll find more information and (of course) a place to order your own sweetness. Also on the web site is a Recipes Section which I’ve bookmarked and will keep returning to until I’ve tried each and every recipe. The Citrus Green Tea is not only Heavenly (I mean absolutley Heavenly!), it’s also extremely good for you. When you eat or drink something that’s this good for you, your body rewards you with a deep down, healthy feeling that causes you to glow from the inside out.

That’s not just a good thing, that’s a darned good thing!

The journal Circulations serves up another great reason to drink tea. Research shows that drinking tea may reduce the risk of death following a heart attack.

The research shows that people who drank two or more cups a day had a 44 percent lower death rate following their heart attacks than did non-tea drinkers.

Another big plus in tea’s column comes courtesy of a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Their study discovered that tea drinkers have stronger bones than non-tea drinkers. People who drank tea regularly for at least 6 years had greater bone mineral density than those who didn’t. Those who drank tea for more than 10 years had the highest bone density.

Guess that means it’s always a good time for Tea Time!

These fall into the “Oh, man! You’ve gotta try these!” Category:

First of all, if you’ve never tried the Ferrero Rocher candies, go to the top of your To Do list and write Buy Ferrero Rocher Candy at the very, very top and write Find a quiet place to eat them just below it. They’re elegantly delicious - see, they’re so good, I had to come up with a phrase just for them. Rerrero Rocher is my daughter Emily’s favorite cand, hands down and mouth open. With every gift we ever give her, we tie a three pack of Rerrero Rocher on the bag or box. Once I gave her a really hot purse and filled it with Ferrero Rocher candies. I also like to surprise her every now and then by having a few sitting on the desk in her room when she gets home from school or work.

I have to admit, when I can get to them first, I love these candies just as much. Emily’s favorites are the original and the Ferrero Rondnoir Dark Chocolates. My favorites are the original and the Ferrero Raffaello Almond Coconut candies - are you kidding me< almond and coconut together. With one of these candies in my mouth and one in my hand, I'm in a whole other place.

I also love the showmanship of Ferrero Rocher candies! They're like the supermodels of candy - all decked out in their designer clothes. Like supermodels know there's something that separates them from other models, Ferrero Rocher knows there's something that separates them from other candies. They know it, they show it.

Work it, Ferrero Rocher!

Second of all, if you have a Panera Bread within reach - let’s say, within 399 miles of your home (that’s reasonable, right?), you have got to try their Iced Green Tea. It’s not what you’d expect - it’s absolutely heavenly and, I dare say, a little addictive. I’ve driven out of my way twice, five times, ten times, countless times for it, alone.

My taste buds first came into contact with it about a month ago (and, yes, I’m all ready up to countless - I’m just that good) when my husband came home with a little left in his cup. He said, “You have to try this…” When I asked what the green, iced liquid was - he told me it was Iced Green Tea. Basically, the only Green Tea I’m familiar with is the Green Tea Frap from Starbucks that I get, like, three times a week - with whipped cream on top and Raspberry syrup drizzled over it. Even though this green tea didn’t have the same presentation going for it, I took a drink. It was love.

A little detective work revealed that Panera Bread uses Republic of Tea. I remembered that one of our local bookstores, Books-a-Million, carries these teas in their Joe Mugs coffee shop. So, I made my way to the store, had a Coconut frap for good measure, and bought a few of the Republic of Tea Green Teas to try. My favorite was the one pictured above, Kiwi Pear. Deliciously refreshing and refreshingly delicious. If you go to the Republic of Tea’s web site (just click the link), you’ll find lots of other teas as well as the Kiwi Pear Green Tea. You should also look around the site and read about the benefits of tea - green tea as well as the new Queen of teas, White Tea.

Did you know that white tea is actually considered healthier than green tea? White tea has 10 times more antioxidants than vitamin E and 20 times more than vitamin C?

Something else I learned about white tea - when making it, the water should be just short of boiling and the tea bags should steep for only 30 to 60 seconds.

To purchase Ferrero Rocher…..
Ferrero Rocher 48 count gift box

Ferrero Raffaello Almond Coconut Treat Candy 45 count

Ferrero Raffaello 15pc. Box

Yahoo! has put together a great Top 10 Kitchen gifts list. I went through the list thusly, ‘”Need it, need it, need it, need it, I have my beloved Braun Tassimo Coffee Maker, Have something similar, I have Wolfgang Puck’s, want it, no use for it, have it.” Four needs, one want, Four have its, and one no thanks. Not bad!

Here’s the link to the list, see how you fare: Top 10 Kitchen Gifts from Yahoo! Shopping

Now for my very own Get Cooking List of Top Kitchen Gifts!

Since the room of the house I live in the most is the kitchen, I think I’m 110 percent qualified to make my own little list of Kitchen Gifts!

I’ve heard from quite a few (at least 10) of you who have bought the Braun Tassimo Coffee Maker because you read my recommendations -thanks for the vote of trust! I totally agree - it is amazing.

This beauty is available online (by clicking the link above) - or at Target or Macy’s. I honestly don’t believe they’re sold anywhere else. Other versions of the machine are, but not the one and only Tassimo.

So what makes Tassimo so special? My oldest daughter and I use our every single day. Our regular coffee maker serves us our morning cups, but when the afternoon or evening roll around, one cup is all we require. So, we turn to our Tassimo. We place our cup in the cup holder, put in the disc we’re in the mood for (whether it’s Espresso, Hazlenut, Starbucks House Blend, Chai Tea, Black Tea, Hot Chocolate, or any of the other countless coffees and teas. They’ve recently come out with an amazing line of Starbucks brand coffees - and, yes, we’re working our way through each one! They’re just like you get in a Starbucks coffeehouse.), wait a few seconds for the machine to warm up, push a button, and VOILA - a perfect cup of coffee!

The Braun Tassimo Coffee Maker would be perfect….make that, beyond perfect….for:

1. A college student. A Tassimo and accompanying discs would make you public hero #1 every day of the year for years to come. How cool’s that?!

2. Someone who lives alone. They can have a fresh cup of coffee anytime they want it.

3. Anyone who loves to have the newest, coolest things in their kithchen.

4. Busy individuals who come and go all day long. Sometimes they aren’t home long enough to drink an entire pot, but one cup would be just the thing to see them through the next leg of their journey.

5. An office. Coffee in a pot gets kind of…oh…I dunno…gross when it just sits there. But a Tassimo would give a perfectly brewed, fresh cup each and every time.

6. YOU!!!

More about the Tassimo Discs:
(from Macy’s.com)

So many beverages, so little time. Check out the ingenious T-Disc, designed to work exclusively with the Braun Tassimo machine, which provides you with all your favorite beverages with the same amount of work for all: next to none. Each T-Disc contains a precisely measured amount of coffee, tea, chocolate or concentrated milk, tightly sealed to protect the flavors inside. When you insert the T-Disc, the machine automatically calculates the amount of water needed, brewing time, and temperature to prepare the perfect beverage. Your beverage pours directly from T-DISC into your cup, so you can prepare different drinks, one after the other.

The hot chocolate discs make a heavenly cup of hot chocolate. Few things in the world pull me away from coffee or Chai tea lattes, but hot chocolate is one of them. Speaking of Chai Tea Lattes, there are discs for Chai Tea as well as discs of “Latte Milk Creamer.” When you brew the Chai Tea into your cup, then brew a disc of Latte Milk Creamer onto it —–Heaven in a cup! If you love Chai Tea Lattes, you’ll be over the proverbial moon at the prospect of being able to make one anytime you want it. No more running out to a coffeehouse at all times of the night.

There are also Cappuccino Foaming Milk discs that will turn any cup of coffee into a mind-blowing latte.

Okay, that was #1 on my list of Kitchen Gifts. The next post will be #2…and so on. I’ll post #2 in a little bit - right now I happen to be starving to death, so it’s time for a little nourishment. I’ve also talked myself into a Chai Tea Latte - so I’m going to run with the idea.

Have you seen the Globo Teapot yet? Well, before this post had you seen it?!

Is it a cool looking teapot or what? Drinking tea will never be boring again because, frankly, this isn’t your grandmother’s teapot….it isn’t even your mother’s teapot.

From the website:
Add a bit of cool style to your daily tea routine. Recipient of the prestigious IF design award, the Globo Teapot is surely a teapot for the new millennium. Yet it is very simple. To infuse tea, the pot is stood on its handle, with infuser fully immersed in water. Once complete, a simple tilt onto its front leg will lift the infuser out of the water. Allowing you to enjoy a great cup of tea without attending to spent leaves. These are now safely out of the way. And may be dealt with when it is more convenient. Now that is progress.

Take a closer look at the Globo Teapot, you just may fall head over leaves in love.

In the last post, Dr. Jonny Bowden talked us down off of our Diet Soda ledge. We humans can be so ridiculous, can’t we? I’m really just speaking for me, of course, but I get frustrated by the fact that I can KNOW full-well what’s good for me vs. what’s bad for me - then will go merrily off in the “bad” direction.

Diet soda is one of those areas. The drinks I enjoy the most (and do so frequently!) are coffee, tea, and Diet Dr. Pepper. ALL the experts extole the wonders of tea - red, black, green, and white, they are precious to our plight. They also tell us time and time again that diet sodas…ALL sodas…are bad news for us. Yet, here I go…marching off to my nearest Kroger for a bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper as soon as mine’s halfway gone.

A while back I started cutting back on Diet Dr. Pepper - right around the time I fell so in love with tea. I honestly think that I’m so totally and completely smitten with tea right now that I can quit the DDP all together. Maybe. Okay, I know I can’t - but I can cut waaaaay back. Maybe even one a week.

Tazo teas are available in most supermarkets, but the biggest selections are in Starbucks - or on Starbucks.com. Experiment with the different flavors, you’ll be surprised at just how amazing they are. The one pictured above, Berryblossom White, is wonderful iced. It has a light, fruity taste that you can’t help but love.

The Passion Tea is also perfect iced, as is the Wild Orange. What I love to do is make a pitcher using three of the Orange and one of the Passion. Amazing!

This past summer, the Starbucks stores featured a Blueberry White tea that blue me away. I’ve been waiting for them to come out with those filterbags, but so far it’s a no go. I found one brand of Blueberry White at my grocery store but I don’t remember if it was Lipton or Celestial Seasons. I used the bags all up in two days! I’m definitely getting more - it made some amazing iced tea.

Buttermilk Press Store!

By Dr. Jonny Bowden

Many people see diet soda is an innocuous, harmless beverage that can’t possibly cause any harm to their waistline since it doesn’t have any calories. Think again.

Research published this summer in the medical journal Circulation shows that people who drink more than one soda a day — whether it’s regular or diet — have an almost 50 percent increased risk for metabolic syndrome, which doubles their risk for heart disease and diabetes.

Two years ago, a study at the University of Texas Health Science Center found that there was a 41 percent increase in the risk for being overweight for every single can of diet soda a person consumed daily.

But how can something with no calories increase the risk for obesity and heart disease?

There are several possible ways.

First, my own theory is that the sweet taste works in the brain to create a conditioned response. The body responds as it usually does to normal sugar — with insulin, the fat-storing hormone. Those circuits in the brain are pretty primitive and ancient, and they can’t immediately distinguish chemical fakery. As far as your brain is concerned, sweet means sugar. It’s entirely possible that physiologically, you would respond to aspartame in the same way as you would to table sugar. It’s only a theory, but it makes sense to me.

Second, sugar creates its own cravings. Just as a taste of rum creates an unstoppable craving in an alcoholic, it’s entirely possible that the taste of sweet, even if it’s fake, creates the same cascade of cravings in a carb addict that regular sugar does, leading to overeating and binging and all the rest of the reasons people put on weight.

Third, many people think that by drinking diet beverages they’re “saving” calories. They subconsciously allow themselves to eat more, figuring it’s not doing as much harm since they’re drinking a diet drink. The diet drink gives them subconscious “permission” to eat more.

What’s worse than making you fat, aspartame may be toxic. Aspartame is made primarily from three ingredients: aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol. Methanol, an alcohol, breaks down in the body to formaldehyde, a poison if there ever was one. Apologists for aspartame say that it doesn’t create enough formaldehyde in the body to cause any damage, but I’m not so sure. Exposing children to formaldehyde levels as low as .75 mg daily for several months has been shown to cause gradual toxicity. Plus, diet soda is frequently stored in hot warehouses, causing chemical breakdowns that went undetected in the original safety studies that looked at “ideal” conditions.

Soda is bad news, whether regular or diet. Period.

[Ed. note: Dr. Bowden is a nationally known expert on weight loss, nutrition and health. He's a board certified nutrition specialist with a Master's degree in psychology. Dr. Bowden is also a life coach, motivational speaker, former personal trainer and author of the award-winning book, Living the Low Carb Life. For more information, click here.]

“This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise’s Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com”

Buttermilk Press Store!

I’ve found a new website I’m anxious for you to see: Adagio Teas - Best Tea Online, and I’m sure you’ll love it as much as I do. Then again, I’m a tea fanatic of the highest order, so it’s right up my alley….or, put another way - it’s my cup of tea (sorry, I pretty much had to whip that one out.)

The TriniTEA Electric Tea Maker is just one of the countless lovelies Adagio Teas offers.

From the Website:
Looking to simplify preparation of loose tea? Our electric tea maker is the answer. Say goodbye to kettles, teapots and over-steeped cups. This wondrous appliance does it all - heats water, steeps leaves, and keeps tea warm so you may enjoy it all day long. Variable timer and temperature control lets you adjust the strength of an infusion, ensuring a perfect cup of tea each time. Works well with all tea varieties.

Take a really good look around Adagio Teas - Best Tea Online, it’s a gorgeous website and they definitely do what they do with style! You gotta love that.