Cooking Simplicitea

I have so much love in my heart for this soup. It’s creamy without the cream, it’s bacony without the bacon…it’s everything bad for you without the bad for you part! It’s just darn tasty! And it freezes beautifully, which always makes me think of Steel Magnolias. “This is in the freezes beautifully section of my cookbook, and I wanted to bring something that freezes beautifully.” No pictures for this post, y’all, I always forget that part. Feel free to use whatever seasoned salt or chicken stock you have on hand, I’m just including my notes for those living on a low sodium diet. Be sure to peel the potatoes, I didn’t my first time making this, and it turned out a very unappetizing gray color.

Original recipe from here with a few changes made.

Difficulty: So very easy

Ingredients:

5 pound of potatoes, peeled and diced

4 cloves of garlic

1 tsp seasoned salt (I use the seasoned un-salt from here)

1 tsp pepper

6 c chicken stock (I make my own using the Mayo Clinic low sodium recipe found here)

2 c Lapsang Souchong Star

Directions:

It couldn’t be easier.

Add the potatoes and garlic to your crockpot.

Stir in your spices.

Add your liquids.

Cook on low for 8 hour or high for 4.

I used an immersion blender to smooth out my soup, but a regular blender would work just as well. Just be sure to open the vent hole in the lid of your blender and use a towel to prevent splattering.

There you are! A delicious, easy potato soup that really does taste like it already has bacon. I like to add a little bit of cheddar cheese, but it’s not essential to the tastiness.

Enjoy!

I know what you’re thinking. Meatloaf in a mug? Can’t be all that tasty. But wait - there’s more! It’s even microwavable! And it is, in fact, delicious, as well as quick, easy, and cheap! I can’t think of a better combination of words to describe a recipe, especially one that I’m going to start taking for lunches in a ziploc bag. The only downside? One serving never quite feels like it’s enough.

Difficulty: Incredibly easy! (So easy that I had trouble knowing what to tkae pictures of!)

Ingredients:

1 slice white bread

1 tablespoon milk

1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon brewed tea of choice, strong

1/4 lb ground beef

1 green onion, sliced (optional)

1 teaspoon tea leaves, ground

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Tear the bread up into pieces - and when I say pieces, my personal experience with this recipe tells me that I really mean itty bitty tiny crumbs, or as close to that as you can get. If I had an immersion blender, I might fool around with that to get it as torn up as possible. (I was making a double recipe in the following pictures,  if yours looks a lot smaller.)

Add the milk and the tea, and mix together until the liquids have been absorbed by the bread. Add the rest of the ingredients, and mix together well - it takes a while to properly mix together the beef with the bread, so work it with your hands until it’s mostly-uniform and looks almost like it’s just well-marbled.

Plop it in a mug, and throw it in the microwave at 70% power for 5 minutes, or until the centre is no longer pink.

Enjoy!

If you try this recipe, let us know! You can reblog us or add a picture of it to our Flickr stream for this recipe, just use the tag “csmeatealoaf”

Nutrition Facts:

Coming soon!

When the spring collection came out, we were so excited! New flavors to play with and experiment on. Two of the new teas contain coconut, and with Pi day (March 14 or 3.14) just around the corner, well…how could I not make a coconut cream pie? Or in this case, a Cocomama Lime cream pie with Fantasy Island meringue. Cocomama is a tasty black tea with a hint of coconut and lime, and Fantasy Island is…well, it’s amazing. It’s basically Buttered Rum with raspberry. It is delicious and easily one of my favorites.

This is kind of a mish-mash of several recipes: Coconut Cream Pie, Flavored Meringue, and my mother-in-law’s crust (thanks again!)

Difficulty: Intermediate to Hard

Ingredients:

Crust:

1/2 c strong, cold Cocomama Lime

1 c flour

1/2 c shortening

Filling:

2/3 c sugar

1/4 c cornstarch

1/4 t salt

2 c Cocomama Lime milk (warm the milk and steep the tea in it for a few minutes)

3 egg yolks (save the whites for the meringue)

1 c coconut (I used unsweetened fine)

2 T butter

1/2 t vanilla extract

Meringue:

1/4 c strong Fantasy Island

1/2 c sugar

3 egg whites

Directions:

Start with the pie crust, the same used in the Senchammon Rolls and the Vanilla Oolong Blueberry Pie, if you’re familiar with our blog. Preheat the oven to 425 and cut the shortening into the flour and then tablespoon by tablespoon, add the Cocomama Lime until the dough holds together. Flour a clean surface and roll it out to the size of your pie pan and then carefully move it over. Flute the edges and prick the bottom with a fork.

Cover in aluminum foil and weigh down with pie weights or dried beans or rice.

Bake for 8 minutes, carefully remove the foil, and then bake for another 4-5 until golden brown.

Yay pie crust! Now for the filling. Turn the oven down to 350. In a pot, mix together your sugar, cornstarch and salt, making sure it’s mixed evenly so the cornstarch doesn’t clump up. Stir in the milk until it’s all smooth and then cook over medium-high heat until it thickens. When stirring, be sure to scrape the bottom. It thickened quickly for us, one minute I was stirring away

and the next second it was thick like condensed milk. When this happens, reduce the heat but keep stirring and cooking for another two minutes.

Remove from heat. To keep the eggs from curdling as soon as you add them to the mix, add a bit of the hot milk mixture to the egg yolks and mix well to bring them up to temperature before adding them to the pot.

Return to the heat and bring the mix to a gentle boil, stirring constantly. You don’t have to go overboard, but you want to just keep things moving. Once it is boiling, reduce the heat and keep stirring for another two minutes.

Remove from the heat and stir in the coconut, butter, and vanilla, stirring until the butter has melted.

Pour the filling into the crust and get ready for the difficult part: meringue.

Okay, so it’s not that difficult to do meringue, you just need to follow the directions closely.

Begin with the egg whites at room temperature, using an electric mixer (or a whisk, but your arm will thank you for the electric mixer), beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Slowly add a 1/4 c of sugar while still beating the eggs until they form medium peaks.

In a small pan on the stove, bring the 1/4 c of Fantasy Island to a boil before adding the other 1/4 c of sugar. Stir and boil until it dissolves and becomes thick.

Here comes the hard part. Slowly (and I do mean slowly) add the Fantasy Island mix to the egg whites. I actually had to do this part twice, the first time I added it too quickly and the whites fell apart. The second time, I added a few drops of the mix to the whites, worked it in, and then added a few more drops. It took more time, but in the end the egg whites looked gorgeous. Beat until they form stiff peaks.

Carefully put the meringue on top of the filling, smoothing it out and making sure it goes all the way to the crust, sealing it all together with the filling in the middle.

If you have coconut leftover, sprinkle some on top. Bake for 12-15 minutes until the meringue is golden brown and delicious. Let it cool on a cookie rack for an hour and then let it sit in the fridge for at least three.

Enjoy!

If you try this recipe, let us know! You can reblog us or add a picture of it to our Flickr stream for this recipe, just use the tag “cscocomamafantasypie”

Nutrition Facts:

Servings: 8

Per serving:

Calories: 458 (yikes!)

Carbohydrates: 46 g

Fat: 25 g

Fiber: 3 g

Sodium: 131 mg

Cholesterol: 82 mg

I love Scott Pilgrim. The movie, the books, everything. To the point I’ve considered buying certain game systems if only to play Scott Pilgrim games! Anyway, when I was re-reading Volume 2 (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World), I knew I had to make the vegan shepherds pie and tea it up! It turned out so tasty, it’s one of the few things I will eat as leftovers! I used Marsala, which is smoky with a bit of a cinnamon kick at the end, and it just amped up this dish so much. Warning, my version is decidedly not vegan.

The original recipe can be found in Scott Pilgrim vs the World (a transcript and scans of the pages can be found here), but I kinda wandered away from the recipe a LOT. Consider Scott Pilgrim the jumping-off point.

Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:

1 c strong Marsala

4 potatoes

2 medium carrots

1 stick celery with leaves

2 cloves garlic (I used garlic powder because I was out of fresh garlic)

1 onion

1 c corn

1 c Milk

1/2 lb ground beef

3 T flour (I used cornstarch, but I really should have used flour)

4 t Butter

1 T of the finest olive oil

Directions:

First, find yourself a big bad butch to do all of the chopping for you. Just a friend will work too. Invite them over for dinner, then meet them at the door with knives and cutting boards.

Boil up the potatoes for 15-20 minutes. Until they’re done enough that you can break them in half easily with a fork.

While those are cooking up, have your friend cut up the rest of the veggies and cook the onion with the meat.

In another pan, cook the rest of the veggies with the olive oil until they’re nice and soft before adding them to the meat.

Sprinkle in the flour and stir until everything is evenly coated before adding the milk and tea and heating everything through until it gets nice and thick.

Pour the mix into a 9x13 or a casserole dish and mash the potatoes with butter and a splash of milk. Then spread the potatoes carefully over the top of the meat mixture and cook at 350 for about 30 minutes, but keep an eye on it.

And there you have it! Super easy, super tasty.

If you try this recipe, let us know! You can reblog us or add a picture of it to our Flickr stream for this recipe, just use the tag “csscottpilgrimspreciouslittlepie”

Nutrition Facts:

Serves 8

Per serving:

Calories: 214

Carbohydrates: 27

Fat: 8

Fiber: 2

Sodium: 53

Cholesterol: 17

Oh my goodness. These scones…I made them the first time around with Earl’s Garden (which is Earl Grey with berries, my wife’s favorite) and dried blueberries and cherries as payment to my wife for letting me have yet another trip to DavidsTea. They turn out light and fluffy and while on their own they can taste a bit dry, pair them with your favorite tea or a big glass of soy milk and I promise, you’ll be in heaven. This time I paired Zing Me Tea, which is a black tea with ginger, peach, and apricot, with dried peaches…as a good Southern girl, I love me some peaches. I think these scones will always have a place of honor in our home.

Difficulty: Easy to intermediate

Ingredients:

1/2 c strong, cool Zing Me Tea (Or any tea, really. I like the fruity ones best)

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup white sugar

5 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup butter

1 egg, beaten

1/4 cup milk

1/2 c dried peaches, diced (Again, can be replaced with any dried fruit or nuts. I wouldn’t add more than a cup, though)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and lightly grease a cookie sheet.

Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Cut the butter in with two knives or a pastry cutter until the butter is the size of small peas. If you’re using a stick of butter, an easy way to do this is freeze the butter and then grate it with a cheese grater into the mix. You want your butter cold - the colder the butter, the flakier the scone. Don’t overmix.

Crack the egg into a measuring cup and beat well. Add enough milk to make 1/2 c of the mixture. Then add the 1/2 c of tea. Dice your dried fruits if needed and add them to the dry mixture.

Add this mix to the dry ingredients tablespoon by tablespoon, mixing well after each addition, until the dough is moist. I only used 1/2 c of the mixture, but to be honest, it could have used a bit more liquid.

Pull the dough out onto a floured surface, kneading it gently until it’s workable. You could roll this out with a rolling pin, but I just patted it down into a rectangle.

Cut into twelve pieces, as shown, and move onto the baking sheet.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, but keep an eye on them. Once they’re golden brown on top, they’re done.

Enjoy! I know we are….I have earned my wife’s undying love with these scones, let me tell you.

If you try this recipe, let us know! You can reblog us or add a picture of it to our Flickr stream for this recipe, just use the tag “cszingmescones”

Nutrition information:

For the record, this will vary, depending on which dried fruits you use, how much you use, and which baking products you use. For instance, we only keep salt-free butter in the house, so all of my recipes tend to be lower in sodium than those who use regular butter. But this is a good rough idea of the value of each scone.

Serves 12

Per serving:

Calories - 269

Carbohydrates - 36 g

Fat - 13 g

Fiber -2 g

Sodium - 180 mg

Cholesterol -18 mg

These tasty cinnamon rolls, made with DavidsTea’s Sencha Pear, are delicious - and ridiculously easy! And, to boot, I think the longest part of the preparation was waiting for the tea to cool. Delicious, especially with a glass of milk or tea on the side, these have definitely made their way into my dessert rotation.

Difficulty: Easy, but a little deceptively tricky. Make sure to follow the instructions closely!

Ingredients:

cold Sencha Pear, brewed strong (expect to use about 4-6 tablespoons)

1 c flour

dash salt

1/2 c shortning

butter or margarine

brown sugar

cinnamon

1 tsp Sencha Pear, ground in a mortar and pestle (or the back of a spoon and a bowl)

Directions:

If you’ve been following us for a while, you may recognize that particular concoction of the first few ingredients - that’s right, we’re using the pie crust from our Vanilla Oolong Blueberry Pie, which is doubly amazing because you can modify this recipe to make cinnamon rolls using leftover crust from that recipe - that’s actually how I was introduced to this by the lovely Rita!

First, steep your tea, and throw a cup in the freezer. Believe me, it takes forever for tea to cool, and I regretted it when I used still-warm tea. Be patient, or start early. ;) Preheat the oven to 425.

Mix the flour and salt together, then cut in the shortening with either a pastry cutter or two butter knives until it’s clumped together to the size of small peas:

Carefully mix in the cold (again, I stress, cold) Sencha Pear until the dough holds together properly, adding a tablespoon at a time.

Roll it out onto a heavily floured surface, trying to make it longer in one direction so that your cinnamon rolls are nice and tiny. Once it’s flattened, slather it in butter or margarine, then cover in brown sugar, the ground tea leaves, and cinnamon. Try to coat it evenly, though with the tea leaves just focus on keeping it even along the length of the dough.

Roll the dough to make a thin, long tube of deliciousness, then cut into about 1/2” thick slices; arrange on a very well-greased baking sheet (I use both butter and flour, and it works quite well) and pop ‘em in the oven, keeping an eye on them. They’re done when they’ve started to brown on top; this took 5 minutes the first time and 10 the second time I’ve made them, so I’ll average it out and say “approximately 7”.

Let them cool, and enjoy!

If you try this recipe, let us know! You can reblog us or add a picture of it to our Flickr stream for this recipe, just use the tag “cssenchammonrolls”.

Nutritional information to follow!

This was the middle recipe from our tea cooking day, together with the Forbidden Fruit Chicken and Vanilla Oolong Blueberry Pie. There weren’t really many photos of the process to make this, but that’s mostly because it’s ridiculously simple! Its simplicity hides complex flavours, though - the Cabernet Sauvignon and goat cheese that make this recipe fairly unique complement each other wonderfully.

Difficulty: Incredibly easy!

Ingredients:

1 cup Cabernet Sauvignon (or another strong black tea - I would also suggest their Lapsang Souchong)

1 package gravy mix (we used pork-based)

Grated marbled cheese (we didn’t measure how much we used - “lots” would be about as accurate as I’d like to get!)

Goat cheese (we used the remainder of the package from the Forbidden Fruit Chicken recipe)

French Fries (we used an entire package of McCain’s straight cut)

Directions:

In case you couldn’t tell from the ingredients list, this is only very loosely called a ‘recipe’.

First, start steeping a pot of your tea - make it nice and strong! While that’s steeping, make the fries according to the package’s directions.

Once they’re in the oven, prepare the gravy according to the directions on the package, using your tea in place of whatever liquid it calls for. Let it simmer while you’re waiting for the fries to cook.

Put the french fries in a large bowl or plate, then coat in grated cheese (and, if you have them, cheese curds would make this something closer to traditional poutine). Dollop on the goat cheese - try not to make the bits too large, and try to space them out fairly evenly. Once that’s done, it’s time to pour on the gravy!

And enjoy! Between the four of us, this was what the dish looked like five minutes later, according to the camera’s clock:

If you try this recipe, let us know! You can reblog us or add a picture of it to our Flickr stream for this recipe, just use the tag “cspouteane”.

Nutritional Info to come!

When DavidsTea began following us on Twitter, we were so very excited. Then we noticed that we were the 314th account they followed and, well, of course we had to make pie! We asked them which tea we should use, and they chose Vanilla Oolong. My immediate thought was of blueberries! Mostly because I love blueberry pie. So we made a blueberry pie with Vanilla Oolong in the crust and in the filling and it was delicious! This was part of a tea cooking day, with Forbidden Fruit Chicken, Pouteane, Vanilla Oolong Blueberry Pie, so be sure to watch for those other recipes as well!

Difficulty: Intermediate to Hard

Ingredients:

Pie crust:

5-7 T cold Vanilla Oolong, strong.

2 c flour

1/4 t salt

1 c shortning

Filling:

1 t ground Vanilla Oolong (grind finely with a mortar and pestle or with a spoon in a bowl, thank Drew for this brilliant idea )

4 c blueberries (fresh are best, but thawed frozen works too!)

3/4 c sugar

4 1/2 T cornstarch

splash of lemon juice to prevent staining your lips

Instructions:

Preheat the over to 425 degrees and begin with the pie crust. Mix the flour and salt together before cutting in the shortening with two knives or a pastry cutter until the size of small peas. Begin carefully mixing in the Vanilla Oolong, a tablespoon at a time, until the dough holds together.

Roll half of it out on a floured surface until it is large enough to fit your pie pan. Carefully transfer it to the pie pan (a trick I learned from Alton Brown: If your crust is sticking to the counter where you rolled it out, get a long strand of floss and run it between the crust and counter. It should lift right up!), prick the bottom of the crust a few times with a fork, and crimp the edges

The filling is easy. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl and pour it into the crust. Roll out the second half of the crust and either use it to cover the top (cutting a few holes in the top for steam to escape, my mother in law always cuts a smiley face!) or cut it into strips and weave together on top of the pie for a lattice crust.

If possible, put your pie pan on a cookie sheet in case is bubbles over, and cover the edges with foil (something I had to have Drew do as I apparently fail at it). Cook for 40-50 minutes, keeping an eye on it for the last ten minutes to be sure it doesn’t burn.

Then all you have to do is enjoy! And I promise, you will!

If you try this recipe, let us know! You can reblog us or add a picture of it to our Flickr stream for this recipe, just use the tag “csvanillaoolongblueberrypie”.

Nutrition Facts:

Serves 8

Per serving:

Pie crust-

Calories -330

Carbohydrates - 22 g

Fat - 25 g

Fiber -1 g

Sodium -70 mg

Cholesterol -0

Filling -

Calories -92

Carbohydrates -23 g

Fat -0 g

Fiber -2 g

Sodium - 70 mg

Cholesterol - 0 mg

So this was a little experiment with the Forbidden Fruit tea of the month and turned out pretty good! The people I served it to enjoyed it, so I’m going to call it a success! The tea is a black tea with melon, carrot, safflower, and figs in it. It manages to be fruity without being overpoweringly sweet and lends itself well to this savory dish. We had a tea cooking day with a meal of Forbidden Fruit chicken, Pouteane, and Vanilla Oolong blueberry pie, so watch for those other two recipes as well!

Difficulty: Easy!

Ingredients:

Two pots strong Forbidden Fruit

Two boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Goat cheese

Six strips of bacon

Directions:

This was really painfully easy. Start out the night before you want to have it for dinner and brew the first pot of Forbidden Fruit and let it cool to room temperature. Marinate the chicken in the tea. I like to put the tea and the chicken in a large Ziploc bag, put a it in a bowl in case it drips, and stash it in the fridge overnight.

The next day, make a fresh pot of the Forbidden Fruit (Or make the second pot the night before, resteeping the same leaves.) Put it in a pot on the stove and bring it to a boil before carefully adding the chicken. Let it boil for 20-25 minutes, until there is no pink remaining inside the chicken.

Remove from the water and let rest while you cook up the bacon. Make sure it gets nice and crispy! Mine was fresh from the freezer, so I didn’t chop it up into little pieces before frying, but it would work better if I had.

Put a dollop of the goat cheese on top of each breast and sprinkle the bacon pieces on top.

Enjoy!

If you try this recipe, let us know! You can reblog us or add a picture of it to our Flickr stream for this recipe, just use the tag “csforbiddenfruitchicken”.

Nutrition information:

Serves 2, though there were four of us, so we each had half a serving.

Per serving:

Calories - 440

Carbohydrates -5 g

Fat -24 g

Fiber - 0 g

Sodium -1150 mg

Cholesterol - 145 mg

This recipe is an oldie but a goodie, my mother and I have been making these donuts for as long as I can remember! The original recipe came from a Salvation Army cookbook.They made these donuts to feed the homeless and as a result, it makes a ton! I’m only using a half recipe here, and I still managed to get 3 dozen donuts and 6 dozen donut holes! The Forever Nut adds a nice nutty, almondy flavor to it…don’t worry if it’s not as obvious at first, it’s coming! Best when dipped in milk!

Difficulty: Intermediate to Hard

Ingredients:

2/3 cup strong Forever Nut tea, or any tea that strikes your fancy, Cinnamon Heart would be good, or the Mint Chocolate Rooibos.

3 1/4 cups flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon melted butter

2/3 cup milk

at least 3 cups shortening

Directions:

Now, the directions I have written here from my mother are as follows: Mix, roll, cut out, and fry, but I’ll try to expand on that for y’all.

First of all, sift together all of the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and nutmeg.

Then, mix the rest in a separate bowl. Before tea:

After tea:

Yay pink! Okay, so then you mix the wet into the dry. I played with the recipe a bit by adding the tea, so you may find you need more or less flour. If it’s too sticky, you need more. If it won’t quite mix together, you need less, which is easy to fix by adding a few more drops of tea, but never more than a teaspoon at a time.

My dough could have used a bit more flour, but I was getting impatient! Take out half of the dough and set in out on floured surface, heavily floured. Trust me on this. Dust the top of the dough and your rolling pin with even more flour and start to roll it out. If it sticks to the rolling pin, you guessed it, more flour.

Begin cutting them out. I’m lucky enough to have a donut cutter (complete with removable hole!), but if you’re not, a drinking glass will work for the donut and the mouth or bottle cap of a 20 bottle will work for the hole. Just be sure to dip them in flour between each cut, or the dough could stick and well, then you don’t have a hole cutter anymore. Any small circular cutter will do.

Now, here comes the tricky part, and if you haven’t been doing it for years and years, I suggest working as a team for this bit, one person cutting the doughnuts out and the other frying them. My wife was my teammate today, it’s always good to have a butch on hand, just in case. If you do them alone, I would suggest cutting them all out and then frying them. Just be sure not to stack the raw dough, or they’ll get all stuck together.

You want to take your shortening and put it in a medium-size pot over medium heat until it melts. You want to test it with a donut hole, carefully putting it on a slotted spoon and slipping it into the oil. If it doesn’t rise to the top after a few seconds, the oil needs more time to heat up. If it cooks too quickly and burns within a minute or so, it’s too hot, turn down your temperature.

Try not to crowd your oil, stick with frying 2-3 donuts and 3-4 holes at a time. Be very careful with this, that is hot oil. I’ve burned myself many a time and it is not fun.

When they’re done, they will be golden brown. Lift them out with the same slotted spoon you put them in with. We’ve always dumped them into a cake pan or something, put the next batch in to fry, and then move the donuts to a rack lined with paper towels.

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT use plastic utensils for this. Learned that the hard way the first time I made them on my own. Use metal or wood…and yes, I know that’s a chopstick and not a slotted spoon…I don’t happen to own a metal slotted spoon, somehow.

Let them cool on the rack, and, well…eat!

I built a retaining wall out of donuts to keep the holes from rolling away. They’re best warm and dipped in milk (though I had quite a few more after I started dipping them in my Cinnamon Chai.)

If you try this recipe, let us know! You can reblog us or add a picture of it to our Flickr stream for this recipe, just use the tag “csforeverdo-nuts”.

Nutrition info:

Makes around 60 servings (1 donut = 1 serving, 2 holes = 1 serving)

Calories - 62

Carbohydrates - 7 g

Fat - 3 g

Fiber - 0 g

Sodium - 24 mg

Cholesterol - 4 mg