A Plethora of Peppers Oven Frittata

Say: "Can you cook a peck of peppers" three times fast?

Well a recent over abundance of bell peppers (red, yellow, orange and purple) had me feeling all twisted up. I used some in my Fajita Soup, but I still had a lot left over. What to do? Why, make an oven frittata and "clean out" the fridge of not just the peppers but some other vegetable odds and ends.

I made mine in a 9" x13" pan to serve at room temperature as an appetizer at a friend's birthday party. This is all completely adaptable, so feel free to experiment at will. (Warning if you do use purple bell peppers, taste them first, they can be a bit bitter -- I added a pinch of sugar to my egg mixture to compensate for it.)

This is a dish I turn to all the time when I need to entertain or I am looking for an easy supper dish. I can't remember the first time I made it, but I know it was on the menu at my younger son's bris (a Jewish ceremony celebrating the birth of a son). If I could make this with a toddler, a new baby and no help in the home a week after giving birth, anyone can make it after a busy day.

I can't find my recipe notes, so I'll just give the general outline for the dish and update the post later when and if the notes turn up.

The Incredibly Versatile Egg Oven Frittata -- Plethora of Peppers Version

Serves 6-8 for a meal, about double that as appetizers

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Saute 1/2 medium onion, chopped, and 2-3 cloves of chopped garlic in 2 tbsp. olive or vegetable oil until softened and slightly caramelized. Add in chopped peppers ( used about 3-4 small peppers, cored and seeded), saute until almost soft. Add in chopped chard, kale, spinach or other greens. (I used about half a bunch of Swiss chard, chopping up the hard red stems and adding them with the peppers.) Saute until cooked through. Taste. Season with salt and pepper to taste. (If using bitter greens or purple peppers, add a pinch of sugar.) Saute a minute and set aside and let cool a bit.

In a large bowl, beat 10 eggs, add salt, pepper and other seasoning. (I used about 1 tsp ground French Provencal herbs and a 1/4 tsp of red pepper flakes, feel free to adapt to your taste or use fresh herbs if you have.) Mix in grated cheese (I used a combination of sharp white cheddar and Parmesan -- maybe a cup -- but amount is up to you --use none or as much as two cups) and stir well.

Start by stirring a tablespoon of the vegetable mixture into the eggs and add more slowly being careful to stir well between each addition and to not scramble the eggs. Pour the egg-vegetable mixture into a greased 9"x 13" pan. Sprinkle top with paprika. (Try the Spanish smoked kind for an extra taste kick.) Bake for about 20 minutes or until eggs are just cooked through. (Notes: I like glass for eggs because it is easier to see when they have set. Using more eggs or a larger pan will change the thickness and means you will need to adjust the cooking time.) Remove from oven, garnish with chopped parsley and/or basil if desired. Cut into squares (small for appetizers or larger for brunch, lunch or dinner portions). Serve warm, room temperature or cold.

Foiled Again Again: Vacation Condo Steamed Fish

I was away this weekend and made a variant on the Vietnamese Steamed Fish baked in foil packets for my girlfriends. This is such an easy, low-calorie, low-fat and tasty technique and is so adaptable. (Plus it is easy to clean up and leaves no fish-cooking smell in the kitchen.) As with my Vacation Condo Soup , techniques and ingredients were driven by purchasing the minimal amount I could in the market and maximizing the limited kitchen resources available to me. (Please read the soup post to learn more tips for vacation condo cooking.) We did have to buy the foil (the smallest, $1.78 package, had just more than enough for us). The only seasonings at the condo were salt and pepper, so we tried to pack the flavor in with the vegetables and aromatics rather than buying expensive sauces or spices. We had the fish with bread, salad and microwaved butternut squash with watermelon for dessert. Our total cost for a fresh fish dinner for five was about $35, not bad considering how much it would have cost to go to a restaurant plus we got to be as rowdy and silly as we wanted to.

Vacation Condo Steamed Fish
Serves 5

Spinach
2 pounds of fresh red snapper
salt and pepper
1 medium chopped leek, white and light green part only
2 cloves of garlic, finally minced
peel from 1/2 of a lemon either grated or finely minced
1 small red or yellow pepper, seeded and cored, chopped into 1/4 cubes
1/4 cup fennel bulb, chopped into 1/4 cubes
6 plum tomatoes, each tomato chopped into about 12-pieces each
1 tbsp of fresh fennel greens (fronds), minced
2 tbsp fresh Italian (flat leaf) parsley, minced.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. (Please see the foiled again post for specific directions on how to make foil packets and cooking instructions.) In the center of a double thickness of foil, place a small handful of spinach leaves down and then place fish on top, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Scatter one fifth of leek, garlic and lemon peel on top of fish. Then scatter red pepper, fennel and tomato. Sprinkle a fifth of minced fresh fennel greens and parsley. Add a bit more salt and pepper if desired. Fold packet to seal in juices. Repeat with remaining ingredients. Bake in oven for 1bout 15 minutes or until fish is cooked through.

Notes: My filets were very long and on the thin side. I cut each in half and laid them side by side on the foil. If you are serving another vegetable dish or lots of sides, this could serve six, in that case cut the filets accordingly and make up six foil packets. You might want to increase the total amount of each a bit before dividing intos sixths
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It was amusing to me that the last time (see the Vietnamese Steamed Fish link above) I made fish this way I had a whole pantry of seasoning and sauces to choose from, but this time I was so limited. This is one versatile technique.

About the photo: It's from my first download from my new Panasonic Lumix TZ3. It's the view from our villa at Seascape Resorts in Aptos, CA.

Foiled Again: Vietnamese Steamed Fish

What inspired this dish? I’m not exactly sure. I had bought the fish to make a recipe for my son who decided not to eat at home that night, so I had it in the house. I had lots of odds and ends of vegetables and I have a pantry stocked with all sorts of ethnic ingredients so I can cook pretty much any style of cuisine on a whim. All day at work I started to build this recipe in my mind. I started with wanting to steam the fish in the packet, which is one of my favorite ways to cook fresh fish since you get clean, bright flavors and not much clean up, and with not having to go to the store for anything. Then I started playing with flavor profiles and imagining the contents of my fridge and pantry. The result was:

Vietnamese Steamed Fish over Rice Noodles
Serves 4

¼ cup soy sauce
2 tbsp plus 1 tsp Vietnamese or Thai Fish Sauce (see notes below)
¼ cup vegetable oil (I used grape seed)
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced and then cut into thin strips plus 1 clove minced
4 leaves Swiss or other chard without hard stems, torn into large shreds
1.5 pounds of fresh white fish filets without skin, portioned into 4 pieces (I used mahi-mahi, about ¾ of an inch thick)
½ medium-sized leek, white part only, cut into 1” long very fine strips
2 tsp finely minced ginger
About 1” long piece of fresh lemongrass, outer hard layer discarded, minced, OR 1 tsp of finely grated lemon peel, yellow part only
4 tbsp grated or shredded peeled white turnip or daikon radish
4 tbsp grated or shredded carrots
4 tbsp grated or shredded green papaya (optional, see notes)
Small red bell pepper, cored and seeded and cut into 1” long shreds
Salt and pepper
About 8 ounces of rice stick noodles, about ¼” wide, OR fettuccine noodles

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Put soy sauce in a measuring cup, add 2 tbsp of fish sauce. Add water to make ½ cup. Add in oil and 3 cloves of sliced garlic. Stir well and set aside.

Take 8 long strips of aluminum foil. Double up. In the middle of each double strip, place a fourth of the torn chard leaves. Place a fish filet on top of that. Scatter one fourth each of the leek, ginger, lemongrass and minced garlic on each piece. Scatter one fourth of the turnip, carrot, green papaya (if using) and red bell pepper on top. Stir the soy sauce mixture. Sprinkle each vegetable-topped filet with 1 tsp of the soy sauce mixture and ¼ tsp of fish sauce. Scatter a bit of salt (careful the soy and fish sauces are salty, too) and grind a bit of fresh black pepper on top and seal each packet so cooking juices can’t escape (see notes). Place the four foil packets on a baking tray and put in the oven. Bake for about 20 minutes (see notes) or until fish is cooked.

While the fish is cooking, prepare the noodles according to package instructions. Drain. Stir the soy sauce mixture. Toss the noodles with just enough of the soy mixture to lightly coat (you might have dressing left over, use any leftover as a stir fry sauce for vegetables.)

Place noodles on plate, open foil packet and slide fish and vegetables on top of noodles and pour any cooking juices over fish and noodles.

Notes:

Here are some tips on making foil packets. You could also use parchment paper for the steaming packets.

The timing of cooking the fish depends on the thickness of your filets. My ¾” filets took about 20 minutes. Adjust according to the thickness of your fish and be prepared to open one of the packets to check on the fish at some point. The fish will continue cooking in the foil packages until unwrapped, so if you are making them in advance of serving or holding them awhile before serving, slightly undercook the fish.

I had a leftover fish packet over noodles and greens drizzled with a few drops of the leftover soy mixture as a salad the next day for lunch. It was good, too.

I opted for the garlic and ginger taste to dominate. You could certainly add some spice to the dish by adding a ¼ tsp or so of Asian hot chili paste to the soy sauce mixture.

Fish sauce is widely available in some supermarkets, on line and in Asian grocers. Here is some background on it.

A green papaya is NOT an unripe regular papaya. It is available in Asian markets. My local Vietnamese market even carries it pre-shredded.

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On a personal note, so far this week I've made this dish, lamb tandori with vegetable korma (Indian) and Korean bbq beef ribs and stirfry broccoli (made with the leftover soy dressing from the fish recipe) -- see where a well-stocked pantry can take you!

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I made a similar but simpler variation of this here.

This post is part of Sweetnick's weekly ARF roundup. I can't believe it is the 96th such roundup she's hosted. Here's the link.

Trader Joe's Fajita Soup

I hadn’t planned to make tonight’s soup a tribute to Oakland getting two new Trader Joe’s markets but it ended up that way.

Originally I planned a soup to use up a plethora of peppers I had in the fridge but it kind of morphed after my inaugural trip to one of the new TJ’s. The Future Pastry Chef loved this soup so I’ll revise it in the near future without the TJ ingredients so it can be made without any special trips to the store.

Some notes: I used frozen roasted corn kernels ( a freezer favorite of mine, try it in this smoky corn soup, too), you could sub regular frozen corn and/or add a can of drained, rinsed beans. (I would have used both the roasted corn and the beans except that the FPC is not a big fan of bean soups.) If you can’t get the chicken in pollo asado marinade, use any grilled chicken and add more seasoning to the soup when you add the chicken stock, such as a few dashes of hot sauce and a dash each of cumin and oregano. You can use regular plain yogurt or sour cream to replace the TJ Greek yogurt.

Trader Joe's Fajita Soup
Serves 4-6

2 tbs grape seed or other vegetable oil
½ medium onion, sliced into thin slivers about 1 and 1/2 inches long
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 medium carrots, sliced into rounds
2 medium red and/or yellow bell peppers, cored and seeded and sliced into thin strips about 1 and ½ inches long
1-29 ounce can peeled Italian plum tomatoes with juices
1 quart of chicken stock
1 ½ cups of Trader Joe’s frozen roasted corn kernels
1-15 oz. can of black or pinto beans, drained and rinsed (optional)
1 to 1 ½ pounds of Trader Joe’s boneless and skinless chicken breasts in asado marinade (labeled Pollo Asado), grilled, cooled and then hand shredded into large chunks or strips
Salt and Pepper
Toppings: Trader Joe’s Non-Fat Greek Yogurt, avocado slices, chopped cilantro, chopped green onion, salsa

Tortilla chips and/or tortillas

Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onions and sauté until softened, add garlic and sauté until just beginning to color. Add carrots and let cook a bit, stirring frequently. Add pepper strips and sauté until beginning to soften. Add tomatoes and juices, breaking tomatoes into large chunks with a cooking spoon. Add corn and beans (if using) and chicken stock, stir well. Cover and let cook until the soup comes to a simmer, then add in chicken. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cover and simmer until vegetables are cooked through and the chicken is thoroughly heated. Taste and correct seasonings. This recipe is on the mild side, you might want to spice it up with some hot sauce to taste as well. Ladle into bowls and serve with choice of toppings and accompaniments. If using the chips, try putting some on the bottom of the bowl and ladling the soup over them.

I still had a plentiful number of peppers I needed to use up, so click here to see what I did with them.

Pumpkin Tricks and Treats for the Cook

It's not quite as bad as Thanksgiving, when a turkey has to get a presidential pardon to protect him or her from the dinner table, but it does seem to be a trend of cooks preparing pumpkin (or other winter squash) for starter, main course and/or dessert at Halloween.

Blog Appetit yields it's love of orange winter squash to no one and I have very happily served pumpkin dishes for dinner at Halloween since I graduated college and from a hot plate to a real stove.

Here is a kind of pumpkin boot camp, complete with recipes to help you prepare for your Halloween feast.

• How to choose, prep and cook pumpkin. Plus recipes for a pumpkin turkey chili and low-fat pumpkin tartlets. Also hints for ways to use up left over pumpkin. The tartlets can be made as custards for even fewer calories, or plop the filling into a regular pie crust for a full-size, low-fat, high-taste pumpkin pie.


• Winter Vegetable Saute for over pasta, potatoes, polenta , etc.


• This recipe for Butternut Squash Soup would work well with a cooking pumpkin (such as sugar baby). The post comes with a bonus since it was based on leftovers, you get the recipe for squash and braised greens as well as the soup.

Here's some tips for cooking with pumpkin:

• Don't choose a big field or jack-o-lantern pumpkin for cooking, the flesh is too watery. See the post on the first link above for what to buy and how to choose.

• If I am starting with cooked pumpkin, I prefer to bake my pumpkin and then scoop the flesh away from the peel. It concentrates the squash's flavor and makes peeling it a much easier job.


• If you need or chose to use canned pumpkin puree, start with the kind that is NOT labled pumpkin pie filling. That type is already spiced to the manufacturer's taste not yours.


• Be careful whacking into any hard winter squash with a sharp object. Make sure the squash is stablized on your cutting board (slice a bit from the bottom or side if need to be to help it stay in place) and make sure you are focused and your cutting board is placed on a solid enough surface. I use my heaviest Chinese cleaver, but a strong, full-size chef's knife would work well. Focus on where you want to cleave the squash, take a few practice swings, raise your arm up high, check your fingers and children are safe and then, bam! If the knife doesn't go all the way through, don't worry. With the knife still "engaged" in the body of the squash, whack the knife and pumpkin down on the cutting board a time or two and the vegetable should split cleanly in half. More prep info is in that first link.

I have an idea for mac and cheese with winter squash, but I don't have the kinks worked out yet. I'll post after I test it. (Update 9.30.12 - it took awhile but here it is!)
Please add your own pumpkin tips, tricks, treats and links in the comments below.

Smoke and Mirrors in San Diego

The haze, as one would expect, hangs over San Diego from the fires. The weather,the wind, and the air are all gradually improving and soon the news story will move on. My family and friends here are fine, some evacuated, others just inconvenienced, but life is going on. The newspaper is filled with the local horrors and miracles which I can not ignore, having had the experience of the 1991 Oakland wildfire.

I logged in to write about a few meals I've had here while visiting my in-laws. But that seems frivolous with the loss of life, livelihood and property that I know is all around although not at all visible in the areas I've been in.

The plane down was only two-thirds full, a rarity. The freeway seems almost empty. The atmosphere seems subdued down here. The restaurant I had planned to write about that we went to in the Hillcrest neighborhood was only half full last night and although it was still early (only 9 p.m.) the Halloween revels that were just down the block seemed quiet and uncrowded. Maybe it revved up later. Maybe after the horrors of the last week, people didn't find skeleton masks and devils that frightening or a fantasy world that appealing. Maybe they've had enough with face masks, what with having to use them to cover their noses and mouths from the smoke and pollution from the fires. Also, it could have just been way too early for revelers. I don't know. I do know that ever since the 1991 fire (we were evacuated but okay, our best friends lost their house), I don't take having a home for granted and I am always aware of what would need to be taken or left behind in an emergency.

Please donate to the American Red Cross for all they do to help the victims of natural disasters here and abroad.

Spice of Life -- Berkeley CA

I love neighborhood and city festivals, but to be truthful many are starting to seem interchangeable. The Cherry Festival could be the Zucchini Festival except for the color scheme and the graphics. The same food vendors, often selling reheated or fried food, the same craft imports for sale, the same insurance, bank, wireless, real estate and roofing company giveaways and come ons. I miss a sense of place.

That's why when I hit a festival that has a there there, I am a sucker for it. No midways with games offering prizes of doubtful quality blow-up guitars or overstuffed bears for me. I take a chance on the ethnic and local food booths. The higher the quality and the more localized the food choices, the happier I am.

One of the best local festivals for this is the annual Berkeley, CA., Spice of Life Festival based on Shattuck Street, literally right in the heart of the famed "Gourmet Ghetto." I wasn't so much taking notes or taking note as I was just going from sizzle (barbecued oysters) to sizzle (grilled chicken sates and teriyakis ranging from the organic to the gigantic) and munching on every good thing that came my way from El Salvadorean pupusas to potato spinach knishes. From Italian peppers to burritos to corned beef sandwiches this festival had it all, even a mini-organic farmer's market.

Besides the food, the festival offered all the gritty, quirky, political correct Berkeley attitude you could hope for. The real estate agents gave out reusable grocery bags, there were homeless just out side the festival area looking for handouts of leftover food or change, people were recruiting for volunteers and signatures to run Al Gore for president, massage therapists were doing a brisk business as were natural healers. Festival goers had a wide range of art, jewelry and other crafts to choose from. There was music, too, and cooking demonstrations. The one thing there wasn't was parking. Maybe the plan was for people to take transit, but instead the surrounding neighborhood filled up with cars. But perhaps that was okay if all those drivers circling and circling picked up a reusable grocery bag to help save the environment once they finally found a spot and walked to the fair.

Don't get me wrong, but a well-signed remote parking lot with a shuttle might have been a more realistic approach.

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About the photos. These came from the borrowed Olympus. I still don't have the ones from the Sony I also borrowed. I really like the Olympus except for its capturing anything with an intense red, it just isn't doing it for me.

Apple Cider Vinegar Chicken

Here's the recipe I mentioned in the Cooking Marathon post, which has more details on the meal. The chicken was tender, tasty and had a bit of a zing. The apple cider vinegar and the smoked flavor really complemented each other.

I think I have a photo in the borrowed camera, when I get it I'll post it.

Enjoy.

Apple Cider Vinegar Chicken
Makes a lot because I had a lot of people to feed that night!
Serves 6-8

Grape seed or other vegetable oil
3-4 strips of turkey bacon (I like Willie Bird all thigh meat)
4 pounds chicken parts (I used breasts, drumsticks and thighs), bone in, skin on
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 small (or 1 medium) leeks, white part only, chopped
¼ to ½ tsp red pepper flakes
¼ tsp lemon pepper
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
4 plum tomatoes, seeded and cut into quarters
2-3 cups of chicken stock
Dash each of dried ground rosemary, thyme, oregano, sage, mustard and mint (I use an Italian seasoning mix called Queen Victoria Giusti Aromi per Pollo by Drogheria & Alimentari http://www.drogheria.com/index.htm, which if you can find it I highly recommend – and if you can find it, let me know I’m almost out and I can’t find it anywhere. This mix of seasonings along with the lemon pepper approximates the mix.)
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar, divided
Salt
Black Pepper
2 tbsp butter
Chopped parsley

Heat a very large fry pan or dutch oven over medium high heat and add 1 tbsp of grape seed or other vegetable oil. Add turkey bacon and fry until crisp. Remove bacon strips and reserve. Working in batches if need be, brown chicken pieces. Remove and reserve. Add 1 tbsp of oil if needed and add onions, sautéing until just softened. Add leeks, red pepper flakes, ¼ tsp of black pepper and garlic, sautéing until garlic just begins to color. Toss in carrots and celery and sauté a few minutes more, then add the tomato pieces. Add chicken parts back to pan, mixing well. Add chicken stock until the chicken pieces are about ¾ of the way submerged in the liquid. Sprinkle in Italian seasoning mix. Chop the reserved bacon into ½ inch pieces and add to pan. Stir well. Add 1 tbsp of apple cider vinegar. Cover and simmer over medium heat, turning chicken pieces occasionally, until chicken is just cooked through. Remove chicken and vegetables from the pan and keep warm. Raise heat to high and keep lid off, reducing pan juices and stirring any browned bits up from the bottom, and adding additional 1 tbsp of vinegar. Cook until liquid is reduced to about half, taste. Add salt and pepper if needed. Turn heat to low and stir in butter until sauce has thickened. Remove skin from chicken pieces if desired and return chicken and vegetables to pan and mix well with sauce. Garnish with chopped parsley.

Cooking Marathon

For reasons I no longer remember after washing the sixth (or was it the seventh) sinkful of dishes, pots and pans in four days, I had arranged to have dinner guests Saturday and Sunday nights and told my husband I really felt like cooking and eating in on Friday. To top it off on Monday night I tested a recipe destined to be published in a food magazine to be named later (more on that when it happens).

Friday night was whole wheat pasta with feta cheese, garlic, red onions, kale, rapini (a green), carrots. It felt wholesome and was yummy and provided quick lunch sustenance for the cooking marathon ahead of me.

Saturday night I served cider vinegar chicken (a recipe I came up with based on the taste I had a taste for, click on the link for the recipe), mashed potatoes (made with olive oil and chicken stock), asparagus, green salad, fresh bread (which I didn't bake) and homemade pumpkin pie (which I did, even the crust).

Sunday night I used recipes from The New Spanish Table Cookbook which I basically liked but had some quibbles. The Roasted Vegetable Soup was very similar in taste to the one I made from Super Natural Cooking, but was a lot more work. Because I didn't know if my guests were anchovy lovers, I skipped the anchovy paste topping for the croutons served with the soup and substituted olive tapenade, which worked well. The main course was a paella that I adapted. I am a fairly experienced paella maker and I thought the recipe had a lot of extra steps that didn't particularly add to the flavor or impact of the dish. It was fine and was enjoyed by all, even me, but I wouldn't make it again. I've used this cookbook before and have been very happy with the results, so my most recent experience with the cookbook is not typical of the results I've gotten with it. Oh, and we had pumpkin pie for desert (I made two on Saturday.)

Tonight, well, I made (censored).

What's on the menu for the rest of the week? Leftovers.

In other news, pop on over to Sugar Savvy and read my post about the most incredible rose sorbet.

Tea and Me

Several years ago the now no-longer published Veggie Life magazine asked its readers what childhood books inspired their imaginations, particularly if there was a connection to food. It seems I was the only reader that responded and they excerpted a large chunk of my letter and created some recipes to go with my remembrances.

I received pride of quasi-authorship and a few copies of the magazine. Not much, but I was out of the closet with my passion for teas.

Earlier today, I was channel surfing when I caught a bit of the 1994 movie version of A Little Princess and it reminded me of my letter to Veggie Life and I thought I would share it with you.

If you have a tea memory (or a recipe using tea or to accompany tea, please feel free to leave a comment below with the info and/or links).

Edited excerpts from my letter:

Thanks to an English cousin, I developed quite a thirst for English literature and tea, both the beverage and the meal. One birthday she gave me copies of Jane Eyre and A Little Princess. The books were different than any others I had read and the people in them different than those in my suburban experience. My fascination began with the simple, nourishing teas of Jane Eyre and the tea and suppers that appeared as if by magic in the attic of Sara, the Little Princess.

The affection for and restorative powers of tea intrigued me and as I read more of English literature and contemporary British novels, I began to be fixate on what the characters had at tea. I felt let down if it was just beans on toast, which, if you ask me, the characters wouldn’t want either, if you could ask them.

I have to admit in the beginning I didn’t quite “get” tea. One memorable teen-age attempt at sophistication ended up with me curdling my own tea after adding both lemon and cream. Unfortunately there were witnesses.

But tea soon became a way of life for me. At college in New York City I discovered “loose” teas and a world of tea flavors other than Lipton’s. With a tea ball, mug and an illegal heating coil to boil the water in my dorm room I felt quite the sophisticate and discovered the delights of Russian caravan, fine oolongs and herbal blends.

My mother and I also began a tradition of having teas wherever we traveled. With her I had some memorable “cream teas” at Harrods and other British institutions as well as throughout America. Tea became another way to bond with my mother and later my mother-in-law.

Return visitors to my house know better than to ask what kind of tea I have. They just go to the cupboard and make their own selection -- caffeinated to the right and herbal to the left.

I’ve also begun to use tea as an ingredient in other recipes. Some favorites: Moroccan Mint sorbet, herbal tea spritzers, tea “gelee” and recipes using an infusion of tea for flavoring.

I even celebrated more than one important birthday with tea at local cafes. I’ve been trying my best to interest my two sons in my passion for the beverage. The older one seems immune, but younger one has on more than one occasion asked me to buy him his own tin of a favorite tea. Now if I can only get him to read Charlotte Bronte and Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Note: To read Jane Eyre or A Little Princess on line for free from the wonderful non-profit Project Gutenberg, please click on the links.

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About the photo: At the last Fancy Food Show in San Francisco I met the owners of TeaSpot, a tea distributor and manufacturer of this nifty tea brewing cup. No bag needed, put your loose tea in the ceramic basket and brew. When the tea is ready, you can rest the basket on top of the upside down lid to prevent a dripping mess. Or use the lid to help keep the tea warm. TeaSpot gave me one on the spot and I use it all the time. The company refers to this product line as "steepware" and also offers covered mugs and teapots. I especially liked their Meditative Mind tea (white tea with rosebuds and green jasmine pearls). The company donates a percentage of its profits to various causes and buyers can select where the money is to be donated.