Cast Your Old Tea Bags Aside and Solar Infuse Olive Oil With Your New Loose Leaf Tea...

It's no secret, I love me some tea. Not that dust and catnip that comes in bags, but fresh and robust loose leaf tea.  Tea isn't just for sipping when you have a cold, you can do all sorts of things with it. As I was putting together a friends tea themed Holiday present, I came up with the idea to delve into the world of cooking with tea. Numerous devilish and delicious deserts call for green tea in their mascarpone or mallow.  In reality, I don't bake. Never have, never will. In fact,  I am diabolically opposed to a recipe telling me in absolute terms what I can and cannot do. I don't play that. So, I have decided to solar infuse olive oil with a few different types of tea for marinades and sauteing savory dinner entrees. 

   

Below there are three kinds of tea. 

The left is a lapsang suchong, or Pine Smoked black. It is a BOLD black tea with a smoky infusion. My friend calls it camp fire tea. 

The middle is a white Earl Grey. White tea is a light tea from the newest tea leaves. It is highest in antioxidants and it is crisp with a sharp bite. This white tea has a bergamot citrus essence as is traditional for Earl Grey teas.

The right tea is a lychee fruit essence black tea. Tea producers will infuse a tea with a flavor, like bergamot, during the drying or fermentation process of the leaves. Lychee is a strong citrus like fruit that will pair well with salmon or other types of fish. 

           DIRECTIONS

1. Gather the ingredients: 

A glass bottle with stopper. 

Mid-grade Olive Oil. 

Good organic loose leaf tea.

Later you will need a fine strainer.

2. Wash and dry glass bottle. Fill two inches from mouth with Olive Oil. BTW, I will never use the terms EVOO. Neither should you. 

3. Fill with approximately two tablespoons of the tea leaves. Use your judgement when utilizing smaller or larger containers. Note:container should be clear for solar infusion.

4. Cork container and place in moderate sunlight for a week and a half. Oil may become cloudy, don't worry, oil with preserve anything and cloudiness doesn't effect the flavor. 

5. Strain the oil with a fine strainer and return to container. 

Above is the Lapsang Suchong Oil

White Earl Grey Oil Above

My first inclination is to use the oil in a marinade for fish and tofu. When my oil is fully infused I will get in the kitchen and post a recipe that worked. In the meantime, I suggest googling some tea recipes to see what you can with your leftover tea. You can make a hell of an alcoholic punch!. Put your tea bags down, loose leaf is where it's at.  

Make Your Mark...On a Plant Pot...

          One summer I went to Sweden on an extended trip. It was an unforgettable adventure featuring abundances of weird sausage plates, 30$ dollar kamikaze shots, bizarre Scandinavian night clubs, and a Nas concert in a huge open park just hours before my flight back.

   Back home, in a less exciting Portland, I had a glorious kitchen full of tomatoes, peppers, and herbs graciously about to bear the fruit of my high hopes. Starting tomatoes and peppers from seed in Maine indoors is no easy task. They habitually become too leggy and mine had fought a bitter battle for limited window space & sunlight but they had prevailed.

       While In Sweden I had trusted my apartment, mail, AND my precious plants to a friend who was sick of staying at her parents house before she moved cross country.  After several calls back home to my makeshift "house sitter" went unreturned I feared the worst...and I was right.  The sweltering heat of a closed up third floor apartment had stolen my cherry tomatoes and my green thumb for that summer...to be a bit dramatic. 

     In a forced and sheepish attempt to apologize for the agricultural mishap, my scatterbrained, plant killer friend procured some new greenery in an ugly pot. Uggghhh. Not one to throw things away, no matter how ugly something might be, I kept it. But today I decided to give the pot and some others a makeover. And yes, we are still friends.

      The Offending Plant Pot

       Of course it won't be an ordinary craft paint and polka dot plant pot spruce up. I am going to use the chalkboard paint I purchased to make chalkboard pots. This way I can remind myself of re-potting dates, type of plant, and origin of possession. Oh, and maybe I will write a reminder for Leon to be more careful when vacuuming and just plain walking near the plants. My Terra Cotta graveyard needs no more additions. 

 So here's the basic directions because it's a basic project. Get to it, Summer is peeking round' that corner, promise. 

                      

•  Spray your clean, dry plant pot with chalkboard spray. Decorate as you see fit.  You will need heavy coats as the porous terra cotta is thirsty.   

             It was good idea to give the ugly duckling pot a paint job hoping to turn it into a swan, however, it didn't work. I underestimated my loathing for the color combination of black and red. So, in the end it's still ugly, but at least I tried. Here is the repeat offender...

• The whole endeavor wasn't a complete bust. See for yourself, I might not believe me if I were you after the last pot re-decorating disaster. 
  

             

Read These Books...For Real...

"The Secret Life Of Plants" 

by Christopher Bird and Peter Tompkins

This book is a 1978 non-fiction about the crazy experiments on plants and their "personalities". It is also the name of a damn good Stevie Wonder album. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/the_secret_life_of_plants

"Paris Underground" (2005) By Caroline Archer and Alexandre Parre'

 

A crazy dope non-fiction pictorial book about the history of the art ridden tunnel complex under Paris. It interests the history buffs and the street art crowd. 

                        

            

"The Organic Suburbanite: An Environmentally Friendly Way To Live The American Dream"

By Warren Schultz...The way we live our lives and run our home are heavily influenced by the American Dream and its ideals. This book brings it all into perspective to give us some tips to alleviate the tread on the earth.

An excellent non-fiction novel that I picked up in an old resale book shop..."Waiting by Ha Jin"

It's a simple tale of a Chinese military officer caught between two worlds (and obviously two chicks) during  the beginning of the Socialist Government in China. 

AND FINALLY...My Number One Recommendation for EVERYONE...

"The Wu Manual"   by the RZA

I bought this book for an old boyfriend at his request and I would soon find myself being read bedtime stories from this ultra handy manual. It includes everything from how to wear your pants,to explaining Wu Tang lyrics, all according to the RZA...PRICELESS! I bought it at the same time as I bought the "Organic Suburbanite"...quite the Juxtaposition...read it...don't judge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/the_wu_manual

Enjoy-Kate

Drink Wine So You Can Make your own Cork Board...

                    One rainy Maine Fall, a few years ago, a good friend and I made drinking wine our number one seasonal job. We rationalized the consumption saying that we would make our own cork boards with the plethora of corks we would have on hand. 

       Every purchase was a carefully scouted decision based on the unique qualities of the cork, if the wine was bad, we just drank that one at the end of the night. We calculated the number of corks needed and realized that even we could not drink that many bottles. Hell, if we did, we would forget to ever make the cork boards.

         So our cork board dreams waned and over the years my cork collection increased slightly while my time for projects decreased dramatically. The other night I concocted this small test project as I was awake at four a.m. It was super easy and relatively inexpensive, plus each cork tells a story unlike the ones you can buy. 

       My former wine guzzling partner is coming to visit next weekend and I think I will give this to her as a keepsake to remember that fall and all that wine. 

Here is the list of supplies you will need. Shop your LOCAL art supply when you can!!

1. Corks (about 10-15 for the size shown)

2. A cheap or antique picture frame with glass removed and backing still in

3. Slate finish-quick drying-chalk board paint (one pictured worked great)

4. Craft contact adhesive in tube, clear. " "

5. Acrylic craft paint if you wish to paint your frame

6. SUPER sharp x-acto knife

7. Thick rubbery cutting mat. This really helps control the corks for cutting with that sharp X-acto knife

8. A "Gessoed Art Board" made by Speed Ball found near the flat canvas'. Buy one the same size as the backing of your picture frame. If you can't find one the same size,  you can easily cut it to size with a small hand saw (The Board is the Mona Lisa label below)

9. Fun permanent adhesive stickers- I found mine in the dreaded Scrapbooking aisle.

DIRECTIONS

1. Spray the art board with a light coat fully covering surface with chalk board spray

Paint your frame if you wish to do so at this time as well

2. While you wait for first coat to dry, half the corks lengthwise carefully... I almost lost an index 

on this step. 

3. Coat chalkboard again and let dry one hour.

4. When dry, place chalkboard surface in frame and secure backing.

5. Chose your layout of the assorted corks. You may have to cut some of the end ones to fit, just make sure you stagger this so it doesn't look too engineered.

6. Glue in place the corks, starting with the bottom and working up. On the top row only put adhesive on bottom two thirds of the cork so the glue will not show.

7. Once all corks are secure, place your sticker and let dry. 

I plan on writing on the chalkboard portion some good wines for my friend to try

Grow This Tree...

Ceramic bird courtesy Kara Kowalczyk. Broken Pot courtesy of Leon.

       One summer night my fiance offered to cook dinner and I knew that it would include meat, red meat. It was Carne' Esada, so while it included a flat ironed spiced rubbed meat,the meal also had an avocado to pit and chop up.

      Over the eight years I was a nanny I was constantly reassuring the youngest child that you could grow your own tree from the pit inside the green guacamole' maker. After many failed attempts, I began to secretly doubt this. I had dismissed it as an agricultural urban myth. 

          However, my reluctant optimism got the best of me and we tried to sprout the seed from our Spanish feast. Maybe it was the magic window in his cavernous third floor West End Apartment,  or maybe I  had gotten pretty good at sprouting things, seeing as I became pregnant with our daughter the same week. 

           Who knows, but you can't leave it up to chance so here's some tips if you have always been curious... I assure you, this is no myth.

 

• Dry the Pit in the sun for a few hours
  
• Stick three toothpicks a half inch in the pit at the half way point of pit (lengthwise)
  
• Place the wide round portion in a cup of clean water-make sure it is submerged up to half way mark
• Place in sun and keep water level constant. Do not pour out, just refresh
• In about four to six weeks it will sprout roots and leaves
• Three weeks after pit sprouts green leaves from top, snip them off and wait three more weeks
• It's time to pot the plant- put it half way submerged in soil in a lofty sized pot with leaves open and free from soil.
• Water fairly often, keep soil moist not muddy. It also helps to mist plant. Moderate sunlight. If leaves turn light or yellow it means too much H20.
• Keep in sun-bring outside in summer-bring inside in winter if temps are below 45 degrees
• Prune your plant, I didn't keep up with this but I'm sure it helps grow a sturdier base plant
• Your tree will begin to bear avocados in a bout two years. Pollination is tough, so it helps to have multiple  plants close in proximity.

                       About half of all trees cultivated will bear fruit. So it's kind of a gamble but either way, if you win- you come up with green. 

Welcome To The Simple Circus

Life is a Circus, and I love it. Here you will find random things, thoughts, recipes, and projects of mine. I live in a great city and have amazing friends. Good food, exceptional wine, and crafty crafts are a way of life, my way of life.

I'm no Oprah, but I too have a changing collection

 of things I enjoy immensely.

Currently...

 

 Cheap Spanish espresso coffee in a tin 

  French Toile fabric and it's numerous applications

                                      

        Our lady of Guadalupe Candles

                   

   Vintage clothing tags 

                                 

         Matchboxes. Matches are a dying breed

     

Growing my own avocado tree in a third floor walk-up