A Tale of Two Teas

Recently I bought two herbal teas, one at Target because it was on sale and sounded interesting, the other at Trader Joe's because well, I love pretty much everything Trader Joe's sells. Here is a review of both teas.

Good Earth Sweet & Spicy Tea

Good Earth Sweet & Spicy tea. 
I've got to be more patient when I
take photos so they're not blurry!

The first tea I bought is Good Earth Sweet & Spicy tea, it was on sale for $2.51 at my local Target.  It was a brand I hadn't seen offered there before.  I figured it wasn't much of a gamble to spring a couple bucks for this tea.  The "sweet and spicy" description won me over.

This tea is definitely sweet, but without any sugar at all and no artificial sweeteners either.  According to the Good Earth website, the ingredients are rooibos, chicory root, natural flavor, rosehip, cinnamon, lemongrass, peppermint, chamomile, ginger root, anise seed, orange oil, orange peel.  I guess the sweetness comes from the orange oil and orange peel, or maybe it's the mysterious "natural flavor".  There must be a lot of cinnamon in it because it's also incredibly spicy. 

And this tea is super strong!  You don't want to let it steep for more than the minimum time of 3 minutes.  This is one tea where you can definitely use the tea bag at least two times without suffering through a disappointing mug of weak dishwater tea.  Yes, I'm a tightwad who uses a tea bag more than once, but usually only when it's a good strong tea. 

If you want this same tea, definitely pay attention to the packaging, there's a version with a black tea base that has caffeine.  As far as I can tell, almost all of this company's other tea blends all have actual tea, so they all have caffeine.  The only other one that is caffeine-free is the Citrus Kiss with a base of decaffeinated green tea.  Disappointing that they don't have more caffeine-free teas though because I really like the sound of their Cocoa Tango, it has black tea with cocoa and spicy chile peppers. 

I also saw this tea offered at my local grocery store, it was not on sale and the regular price was something like $4-5.  Although this tea is definitely that good and would be worth that price, don't pay that much if you can get it for almost half the price at Target.  

Trader Joe's Well Rested Tea

Trader Joe's Well Rested tea

I bought the second tea when I had the day off and was leisurely shopping my way through Trader Joe's, picking up all sorts of things even though our cupboards were already way too full.  Since I had already drank most of my way through the sweet & spicy tea, I was open to picking up a new interesting tea. This Trader Joe's Well Rested herbal tea cost $1.99.  The nighttime tea description sounded nice since that means there's no caffeine.  I also thought the blend of mild chamomile plus spearmint and peppermint would taste good.

Even though I don't like artificial mint found in most candies and gum, I like mint tea a lot.  I guess this must be mostly chamomile because this tea barely has any flavor, not really much mint in there at all.  It's quite mild and pretty boring.  I get  that it's meant for bedtime, but I expected it to at least have some interesting flavor even if it wasn't too perky.

I haven't had it at bedtime to know if it's good for getting you to sleep easier, but I know chamomile is meant to do that.  I should try a mug before bed some night to give it a shot.  

Verdict

I highly recommend the Good Earth Sweet & Spicy tea for a very exciting tea to give your day some sparkle and interest without caffeine.  I'm already getting down to the last few tea bags and need to buy more. I love it! 

The Trader Joe's tea is ok, but I don't think I would recommend it.  It's not terrible, but to me it doesn't have many redeeming qualities. It's not so bad that I won't drink the rest, but it's not going to the be the first tea I reach for and I certainly won't buy more unless it's really helpful for encouraging sleep.

Question

Do you have a caffeine-free tea you would recommend? I want something interesting! Let me hear it!  

Sneaky Chef: Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

I purposely bought zucchini because I wanted to make muffins. Actually, I really wanted to make muffins AND mock-apple pie using zucchini, but I totally chickened out and only made the muffins. And I was too busy to make them right away while the zucchini was fresh, so I ended up shredding and freezing the zucchini so I could use it later.  Frozen zucchini is really watery, but I love having it around to unobtrusively throw into dishes.   

My ingredients lineup,
that's shredded zucchini in the bag in the back left.

Inspiration

Cooking Light Kathie's zucchini muffins

I originally had a different recipe selected, but after I read several unfavorable reviews, I switched to this one, which had lots of great reviews and a lower calorie count.  

Sonny D said he wanted chocolate muffins, so I added 2/3 cup cocoa powder based on this King Arthur Flour chocolate breakfast muffins recipe.  And since I was making them into chocolate muffins, I skipped the cinnamon-sugar topping.

I think I used more zucchini than the recipe called for, I just used everything I had in the bag.  

Ingredients

makes 12 muffins

• 7.75 ounces whole-wheat flour 
• 1/2 cup sugar 
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1 1/3 cups shredded zucchini
• 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk milk 
• 2 tablespoons canola oil 
• 2 tablespoons honey 
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg

Directions

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

In a medium-size bowl mix the dry ingredients -- flour through cocoa powder.  In a large bowl mix the wet ingredients -- zucchini through the egg.  Then add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and gently stir only until just combined.  

Chocolate-y batter

Look closely for the green zucchini shreds hiding in there.

Divide the batter into a standard muffin pan and bake for 15 minutes.

beautiful chocolate muffin

Verdict 

Chocolatey goodness with surprise vegetables to nourish you. 

I ended up being the only one who ate these.  Sonny D was excited to try a muffin, but that excitement didn't last long and he didn't finish it.  Husband Jeff said there was too much cinnamon, that was all he could taste, so maybe that's what turned Sonny D off.  My cinnamon is quite strong (Penzey's Tung Hing), and I always forget that.  Maybe I should have also let the cocoa powder bloom a bit longer to hydrate and develop a more chocolatey flavor.

I was really hoping Sonny D would like these so I could kind of "trick" him into eating vegetables because he doesn't really like to eat them.  But it wasn't much of a "trick" since he helped me make these and saw me add the zucchini. He was still excited to eat the muffin, I think he doesn't connect the vegetables with the finished product.  It's the same as when we make a smoothie in the morning and he adds the spinach to the cup.  It's super green but he'll eat it. 

I took one of these to work each day for my morning snack and loved them.  I had to freeze the last few because I wasn't eating them fast enough before they would spoil. When I brought the frozen ones to work, they were perfectly defrosted in time to eat at 10 a.m. 

I liked the base recipe and would love to try it as written instead of adding cocoa.  And of course reduce the cinnamon. 

Menu Plan: Week of November 18

• Monday- I want to go exercise with Husband Jeff, there's an exercise facility at the office park where he works.  For dinner we'll have leftover Glass Nickel pizza from Sonny D's third birthday on Sunday, salad, and egg rolls.
• Tuesday - We'll still have loads of food to clear out of the fridge and freezer, so we'll have an open box of Trader Joe's roasted red pepper soup (Sonny D loves it!), leftover tots, and pan-fried or baked fish.
• Wednesday - I've got PiYo class at 6:45 (only four classes left including this one!), so we'll have a quick dinner of salads with black pepper caramel shrimp or shrimp risotto.
• Thursday - we've got a daycare event at 5:30, maybe we'll have dinner out afterwards. 
• Friday - We had our slow cooker prep day last Saturday, maybe we'll pull out one of those meals for Friday.
• Saturday - I've got core fusion exercise class in the morning but we don't have any other plans all day. There are several holiday craft fairs around town, maybe I'll go to one of those.  I was also thinking it would be great if we could go through Sonny D's toys to remove the things he doesn't play with or are too young for him. 
• Sunday - We didn't go tot the farmers' market last week because we didn't need anything, but maybe we'll go this week. We're also talking about maybe having brunch at Samba Brazilian Grill. 

Crispy Green Curry Fish

I selected this recipe partially with my son Sonny D in mind since he likes fish, but I knew as I was making it that he wouldn't eat the spicy green sauce (he's suspicious of pretty much everything green unless it's grapes or avocado) so I left one of the pieces of fish plain for him to eat and he loved it.  

I must confess that I don't understand why it's called crispy fish when you end up submerging it in the sauce and cooking it for several minutes.  All of your hard work of pan-frying it earlier in the recipe seem pointless since it can't stay crispy after that long of a submersion, but it was a tasty way to make the fish.

I was a bit hesitant to pan fry the fish since it seems like so much oil and I always want to get away with cutting down/out the oil as much as possible, but for this recipe I figured I would try it out.  

Inspiration

The Wanderlust Kitchen crispy tilapia in curry sauce

I buy frozen swai filets at Target instead of tilapia because they're cheaper.  And I used green curry sauce instead of red because that's what I picked up on a recent visit to the Asian market.  But otherwise I don't know enough about curry dishes to modify them much, so this is pretty much followed to a T.  Plus it's a pretty simple set of ingredients even if the cooking method is a little more involved. 

I tasted my green curry sauce since this was my first time using it and I'm glad I did, it was really spicy!  I only used half of the amount.  From my research, apparently green curry paste is made with fresh chiles, which makes it hotter than a red curry paste made from dried chiles.  Ah.  I might need to pick up a jar of red curry as well.

 Ingredients

• 4 swai fillets
• 2/3 c. all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 Tablespoons canola oil
• 1 (14oz) can light coconut milk
• 2 Tablespoons red curry paste (1 Tablespoon green curry paste)
• 1/4 c. water
• 1 Tablespoon palm sugar (or brown sugar)
• 2 Tablespoons fish sauce (next time I would use only 1 Tablespoon since it was so salty, but that could just be my brand)
• Jasmine rice for serving

Directions

Dry your fish filets off with paper towel and cut into about thirds or quarters, depending on the size of your fish filets and how big you want your chunks.

defrosted fish and flour for dredging.

Blend the flour and black pepper in a shallow bowl (I use a pasta bowl, it's perfect for breading/dredging) and coat both sides of the fish in flour.  Set the dredged fish onto a plate. 

Husband Jeff caught my hands in action, with Sonny D wanting to help with his fork and measuring spoon.

Dredged fish on a plate, waiting to pan-fry.

Heat your oil over medium-high heat and when it's hot, add as much fish as will fit without crowding and cook for 1-2 minutes until golden brown.  You're just browning it right now, you'll finish cooking it later in the sauce.  

First side down into the oil.

Flip the fish and brown the other side for a couple minutes.  When it's done, move it to a plate and finish cooking the rest of the fish in the same manner. 

Second side down, check out that golden-brown goodness!

When all the fish is browned, remove any extra oil from the pan and add a small amount of coconut milk and the curry paste and stir well to ensure all of the paste gets dissolved.  Then add the rest of the coconut milk, water, sugar, and fish sauce.  Stir to fully blend.

Green curry sauce. 

Then add the fish filets and simmer over low heat for 10-12 minutes. 

Fish boiling away in the curry sauce.

To serve, put some rice on your plate, add a piece of fish on top, and spoon on some sauce. 

fish with curry sauce and brown rice.

I wish I had been cooking this for myself because I would have sauteed a bunch of spinach and mushrooms and added them to the sauce, but Husband Jeff is anti-mushroom.  As it was, I only had spinach, which I sauteed and put on my plate. 

check out the spinach. 

Verdict

Spicy and different than my normal curries.  

I normally make a vegetarian curry or chicken curry, so I really liked how this was different by using  fish.   I could have actually used more coconut flavor, would be nice to try to incorporate unsweetened flake coconut somehow, maybe cooked into the rice. I've tried cooking rice with coconut milk, but it doesn't really add much flavor. 

The only drawback was this was too salty, I think next time I would reduce the amount of fish sauce to be at least half or even less.

 

I loved the cooking method of dredging the fish in flour and then pan-frying it.  I'm totally going to do that again for us.  I picked up some walleye at the winter market with that in mind, I can't wait to try it!  Of course that won't end by cooking in sauce, so I'll have to look up how long to cook the fish to ensure it's done.     

Mexican Beef over Polenta

This is a Weight Watchers recipe but you wouldn't know it.  It doesn't feel like a diet recipe at all.

Inspiration

Weight Watchers Mexican beef over polenta

I used one of my batches of pre-cooked frozen ground beef, added a can of black beans, added garlic, skipped the Kalamata olives, used a tube of pre-cooked polenta from Trader Joe's, added a little salsa cream cheese and chicken stock paste to flavor the polenta.

This would be dairy-free if you use a vegan cheese or leave out the cheese altogether.  And it's gluten-free.   To make it vegetarian, you could use a vegetarian crumbles, add some roasted veggies  instead of the meat, or just use beans.

Ingredients

makes 6 servings

• 1 pound(s) 93% lean ground beef 
• 1/2 onion, chopped  
• 2 cloves minced garlic 
• 1 can Mexicorn (ours was a chipotle blend)
• 14 oz canned diced tomatoes with green chiles (Rotel)
• 1Tablespoon chipotle in adobo
• 14 oz can black beans, drained  
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 tsp ground cumin   
• 1/8 tsp black pepper   
• 1 tube (18 oz) pre-cooked polenta
• 2 Tablespoons salsa cream cheese (optional, or light plain, it adds a creamy richness)
• 1/2 teaspoon chicken stock paste (optional, just a good way to flavor polenta)
• 1/2 cup water to thin out polenta
• 1/3 cup fat free salsa   (I used canned salsa casera)
• 1/3 cup shredded reduced-fat Mexican-style cheese

Directions

If you can remember to do it, defrost the frozen ground beef ahead of time.  I throw the gallon bag in the fridge the night before and it's defrosted by dinner the next day. 

If your ground beef isn't cooked, cook it until browned and add the chopped onion and cook for 5 minutes.  Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute.  Add the corn, tomatoes, black beans, and cumin.

Open the tube of polenta, put it in a medium pan and heat it over medium heat until softened. Add the cream cheese and chicken stock paste.  If you're not adding those things, add a couple tablespoons of water to thin it out enough to spread. 

When all the ingredients are warm, put the polenta mixture in the bottom of a pie plate or 8x8 pan and top with the meat mixture.  Add cheese.  You could put under the broiler for a couple minutes to melt the cheese or bake for about 5-10 minutes at 350 degrees.  Top with salsa.

Verdict

You'd call me a liar if I said this was a light recipe, but it totally is! 

This was so good!  Husband Jeff and I liked this a lot.  We both really like Mexican food.  Sonny D isn't a fan, I don't think he even tasted it.  I was so glad we had leftovers for lunches later in the week.  The recipe makes 6 servings and I was afraid they would be tiny, but they were actually really good sized and more than enough for a lunch.

I would totally make this recipe again, it was quick and easy to throw together, especially with the tube of ready-to-eat organic polenta from Trader Joe's.  I was afraid it would be a little bland since it didn't use a packet of taco seasoning, but it was great after adding a little chili powder.   

Smashed and Roasted Potatoes

I'm not really a fan of standard white potatoes (love sweet potatoes though).  Sometimes potatoes are ok, like mashed potatoes and gravy are pretty good and sometimes fast food salty-and-greasy french fries can tempt me, but otherwise potatoes don't thrill me much.  But this recipe for roasted potatoes got me interested.  I liked the concept of boiling some small potatoes, smashing 'em, and then baking 'em.  I figured let's try it, so I bought potatoes from the farmers' market and gave it a shot.

Inspiration

Shrinking Kitchen's lightened up crash potatoes
 
This is a lightened version of the Pioneer Woman's recipe for crash potatoes. The Pioneer Woman isn't known for having light recipes, so I probably would have passed this recipe by on her website.

I used smaller new potatoes while the original recipe used more of a full-size potato.  

Directions

Wash your potatoes under running water and rub them with your hands to get any dirt off.

Put the potatoes in a large pot and cover them with water and bring them to a boil.  Cook until they are tender.

When the potatoes finish, drain them and heat your oven to 450 degrees.

boiled potatoes on the baking sheet.

Spray a rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray, pour out the potatoes onto the sheet and smash them.  I don't actually remember what I smashed them with, maybe a glass? A large fork?

smashed potatoes, sprayed with olive oil spray.

Spray them with a little more cooking spray (I use Trader Joe's olive oil or coconut oil) and sprinkle with herbs, spices, and salt and pepper.  I used salt and pepper, Penzey's Mural of Flavor, and seasoned salt.

Seasoned smashed potatoes, ready to go in the oven.

Bake for 20-25 minutes.

golden brown smashed potatoes.

Verdict 

Good but not great.  Could have used more of everything.  

I should have smashed them more, we liked the parts that were thinner and crispier, otherwise they were like a boring baked potato. 

They also could have used more salt and seasoning.  Maybe I should have boiled them with some herbs or garlic to infuse them?   More salt while boiling?  I'm always scared about the amount of salt I use, I tend to be really restrained because I know I like a lot more salt than some people, so I don't want to over-do it, but instead I under-do it. More salt on them once they were smashed would have been good, too.

I don't recall seeing Sonny D eat any of these, but Husband Jeff and I liked them well enough.  Definitely try to eat them all the first time around because I don't think they reheat very well.  But we didn't really try to reheat them since we ate them in the back of the car while stopped at a gas station on our way driving up to Minneapolis.  Not much tastes good in that situation. 

To make this not dairy-free, you could throw some shredded cheese on at the end and pop them back in the oven for a few more minutes.  Or make a sauce of sour cream and a packet of ranch dressing, kind of like a hot potato salad.  Yum!  Another version would be to smash them out nice and thin and treat them like nachos by adding ground beef taco meat, nacho cheese sauce, salsa, onion, pickled jalapenos, etc.  Man, kinda sad when I come up with these better ideas after the fact. 

Weekly Menu: Week of November 11

• Monday - I'm making my mom's chicken rice soup (quite similar to this recipe but with lots of black pepper) and we'll have salads and baba ghanoush with crackers.  I'm going to roast vegetables for later in the week.  I'm going to roast Brussels sprouts, carrots, beets (in a separate pan for Husband Jeff), leek, cauliflower, portabello mushrooms (in a separate pan for only me), eggplant, sweet potato, and fennel. 
• Tuesday - Husband Jeff and I are planning to go out to a movie and his parents are taking care of Sonny D.  Maybe we'll go to Qdoba for dinner after the movie!
• Wednesday - Yet a other PiYo class (only four more left after this one) and I want to try making pepperoni pizza rice (it's what you think, rice with pizza ingredients) with roasted veggies and salads.
• Thursday - We're talking about having fajitas at Nau-Ti-Gal (a waterfront restaurant, not a strip club as the name might seem to suggest).  I recently received one of their recent promotional emails and kids eat free on Thursdays and they've got a chicken or steak fajita special that night, so we figured we would try it out. 
• Friday - I'm taking the day off from work because I have time off that I need to use before the end of the year.  My mom and I are trying to come up with some plans for getting together for the day.  Husband Jeff might go out for a Dads' Night Out in the evening so I'm trying to decide what I should make for Sonny D and myself for dinner.  Right now I'm thinking about penne pasta with tuna and spicy mustard, tuna quesadillas, or pan-fried fish.  Seems obvious that Sonny D likes fish when it's part of every meal I'm listing for the day.
• Saturday - The weekends are pretty busy and typically we end up changing plans, so I'm getting to the point where I don't want to plan much.  The afternoon is my slow cooker prep day with my friends, so I'll probably be tired of making food by that point, so I'm only planning a can of soup with bagels and potato crowns (like tater tots). 
• Sunday - Today is Sonny D's third birthday and we're having family over for dinner of Hmong egg rolls (Sonny D's favorite food), pizza, and chocolate cake (his choice).  Now I've got to look up a recipe for chocolate cake.