Teatopia

Quick & Easy Tiramisu

Tonight we had a great night with our friends Stef, Mike and Andy. We had Pasta Puttanesca, brushetta, and a salad with bacon balsamic dressing. It was a nice night and also somewhat sad because this was one of our last get-togethers with Stef and Mike. They are moving to Seattle and although we are sad, we are also very excited for their adventure. We are anxious to visit them with our free plane tickets from frequent flyer miles. :-)

I made my first Tiramisu-- recipe courtesy of Rachael Ray. If you choose to make it in martini glasses, serve oit quickly or the coffee/liquer mixture will end up at the bottom of the glass and not on your lady fingers.

Click below for the recipe.

1 package lady fingers sponge cakes
1/2 cup strong black coffee or espresso
2 ounces (shots) coffee flavor liqueur (I used Kahlua)
2 cups mascarpone cheese, available in specialty cheese case of supermarket
1/2 cup powdered confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Open the ladyfingers and separate them. Paint the ladyfingers with coffee combined with the coffee liqueur using a pastry brush. Line 4 martini glasses with a single layer of ladyfingers, letting the cakes overlap a bit at the stem. Press the cakes down a bit to fit the lines of the glass. Beat cheese and sugar together 2 or 3 minutes. Spoon sweetened mascarpone into glasses. Top glasses off with a cap of the ladyfingers. Use any remaining mascarpone to dot the ladyfinger tops and sprinkle each glass with cocoa powder combined with a touch of cinnamon.

Pumpkin, Sausage, and Sage Pasta

Initially, I planned to save this good find until the fall. I'm all about mood food, aka, pairing food with certain moods and/or circumstances. I have my comfort dishes, my "I'm in the mood to cook" dishes, my quickie dishes, and my favorite, the themed dishes. I pair Asian cooking with great foreign films, like Chana Masala with Monsoon Wedding for example. Anyway, this is a terrific fall dish, perfect for cold fall nights after I've been teaching all day. There's nothing like school to remind you of fall.

Anyway, this pasta dish by Rachael Ray is a new favorite of ours. And I've decided that this dish is perfect for any time.

Click below for the recipe.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus 1 tablespoon
1 pound bulk sweet Italian sausage
4 cloves garlic, cracked and chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 bay leaf, fresh or dried
4 to 6 sprigs sage leaves, cut into chiffonade, about 2 tablespoons
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup chicken stock, canned or paper container
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup (3 turns around the pan) heavy cream
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg, ground or freshly grated (I used fresh)
Coarse salt and black pepper
1 pound penne rigate, cooked to al dente
Romano or Parmigiano, for grating ( I chose Romano)

Directions
Heat a large, deep nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Add 1
tablespoon of olive oil to the pan and brown the sausage in it. Transfer sausage to paper towel
lined plate. Drain fat from skillet and return pan to the stove. Add the remaining tablespoon oil,
and then the garlic and onion. Saute 3 to 5 minutes until the onions are tender.
Add bay leaf, sage, and wine to the pan. Reduce wine by half, about 2 minutes. Add stock and pumpkin
and stir to combine, stirring sauce until it comes to a bubble. Return sausage to pan, reduce heat,
and stir in cream. Season the sauce with the cinnamon and nutmeg, and salt and pepper, to taste.
Simmer mixture 5 to 10 minutes to thicken sauce.
Return drained pasta to the pot you cooked it in. Remove the bay leaf from sauce and pour the
sausage pumpkin sauce over pasta. Combine sauce and pasta and toss over low heat for 1 minute.
Garnish the pasta with lots of shaved cheese and sage leaves.

Hot Off the Press!

Today, in town of Columbus, Ga, a breakthrough occured. As Hannah Chambers, 23, walked up to the door of the local Indian Grocery "Deep Asian" to purchase fennel for her sausages, she noticed a sign reading "Lunch & Dinner Buffet-- $7.99 with mango lassies and samosas!" Hannah thought to herself, "this is too good to be true!" And, indeed it was, for they were not serving food today, but they will be starting Thursday.

This may not sound like news to those of you who live in a cool town, but for Hannah, who used to live in Washington, D.C., it felt a bit more like home. Finally, we have a bit of culture in Columbus.

Red Fire Bar

Today I found this exotic candy bar from a local cafe. It's made from dark chocolate (my favorite) and flavored with Mexican ancho y chipotle chili peppers and Cassia cinnamon. They are made by Vosges who also makes truffles and ice cream among other goodies. The site in general is pretty cool and it's interesting to hear about the other candy bar flavors. Next time I want to try the Naga bar with Sweet Indian curry powder, coconut flakes and milk chocolate. And then? Why the Black Pearl bar of course with Japanese ginger, wasabi, black sesame seeds and dark chocolate.

Truly amazing!

Chocolate Handbags

Ganache infused with rose petals, lightly spiced milk chocolate with chili pepper, dark chocolate with Marc de Champagne filling, chocolate ganache with coconut milk, and my favorite-- ganache steeped in blue flower Earl Grey tea . . .

Sound good? These are all flavors of these amazingly cute and tasty handbags found at the Choco Choco House.

I may treat myself to one when I get my first paycheck for my new job.

Time Off!

Poor James has worked until midnight every night this week. Thankfully, his company told him he can hire a couple assistants. The work has just become unreasonable for one person.

To make up for lost time, James is taking a much needed day off next week so we can spend time together. I start my job next Thursday, so it's good timing. He told me to pick something I've been wanting to do, but strangely, my mind is blank. Any suggestions for our date? Daytrip ideas are welcome.

Yummy Puff

I posted about this on the teaswap blog also, but these treats I'm about to tell you about deserve lots of attention. Today's Daily Candy was about these wonderful, flaky, layered cookies made by anna's puff. Just look at the flavors in the picture above. As Daily candy said, they sound more like flavors of tea than flavors of cookies. I also read on the site that they have additional flavors like earl grey. I think I need to order some of these.

This girl anna sounds like a genious and you can go to her site by clicking here.

What's This World Coming To?

I am very upset because I am fairly sure that someone has been stealing stuff from our mailbox! What's wrong with people?

I started a week or so ago when I found that someone had placed an empty soda can in our mailbox. Assuming it was the kids across the street, I didn't pay much attention, but then last week, I assumed the mail had come because my flag was down and the bill inside gone. I had no mail, but I assumed our mailman had come. well, 3 hours later he came bringing a pile of mail. And, btw, our bill has not arrived at its destination yet, meaning it wasn't mailed but probably stolen.

Today: Our DVD from Netflix has not come when it was due last week. Could someone have stolen it? They are NEVER late. I think someone has been in our mailbox.

James thinks I shouldn't, but I am tempted to tell the kids across the street that if I catch them near my mailbox, I will call the cops in a heart beat. I want to scare the crap out of them. It was them, afterall, that made us have to deadbolt both our gates because they wouldn't get the heck out of our yard. They'd open our gate and go in.

I hope to goodness I'm wrong about this.

Vallerina

As my new career teaching middle school draws closer, I am thinking about vacations I will be needing to take! :-)

Check out this website for a beautiful resort in India called Vallerina. It's actually really close to Mumbai. It's incredible!

Summery Blueberry Cobbler

Last night I baked a blueberry cobbler with blueberries my parents gave me. For the first time ever, I baked using Splenda and it actually turned out well. Although the Splenda package will tell you to measure just as you would sugar, Splenda is actually a little sweeter, so I'd recommend using slightly less.

Click for the recipe:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine 4-6 cups of blueberries with 1/2 cup of sugar and spread into 9" greased pan.

In a food processor, combine 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp. baking powder, and a pinch of salt and pulse for 5 seconds.

Add one stick butter and pulse 10 more seconds.

By hand, mix in 1 egg and a 1/2 tsp. vanilla.

Spoon onto blueberries in clumps. (You want it to look messy and natural).

Bake 35-45 mins.

Life is Like a Bowl of Cherries

Lately we have been addicted to these rainier cherries. They are so pretty and juicy. I like them more than their red counterparts because they aren't so tart. I definitely recommend grabbing some if you haven't already. In a couple weeks they'll be gone 'til next year! :-(

Bat in the Cave

First, let me say that the title of this post comes from something our friend Mike said when he and Stef brought home their Big A$$ TV (aka a BAT). When we bought our BAT tonight, we jokingly said that our bat was in the cave, at least it will be this Friday.

We celebrated the final stage in my new job-- signing contracts-- with this wonderful new purchase. You can see the specs here. I will post pics on Friday when it comes home. :-)

A Day in Hotlanta

After a few agonizing days of insanely long hours at work, James decided he wanted to get away and have fun! So . . . a trip to Atlanta seemed appropriate. We drove up just after lunch yesterday and made our first stop at Penang, a fatastic Malaysian restaurant we first visited with Stef and Mike. We started off with an appetizer of roti, a crispy style Indian pancake with a dipping sauce of curried chicken and potato bits. It was delicious. They also bring you a nice pot of Jasmine tea, which of course we love. :-) Gotta love the tea! For our main course: I ordered Penang Kari Mee, which is a noodle soup: a spicy broth of lemongrass, coconut, and curry served with chicken, bean sprouts, crispy friend onions, and shrimp. James had Nasi Lemak, which is coconut rice with spices served with hard-boiled eggs, curry chicken, and a mixture of chilis and anchovies. (I didn't even know my husband ate anchovies until last time we came here). We really enjoyed the meal. Stef and Mike: we thought of you guys!

Next we visited a Chinese tea house called Jinhuchan. I bought some green pu-erh which tastes kinda funny. We also ordered bubble tea. I had my favorite-- honeydew, and James had chocolate. Later we shared a smoothie-like strawberry bubble tea from a Vietnamese fast food place.

Next we went on a wild goose chase looking for the Hong Kong market, which we think we found, but decided not to go in. It appeared to be a bunch of stores rather than one market. Then we went to Lotte, a Korean groecery store, which was kind of disappointing. It was nothing like the ones we went to in Korea. So, we decided to try one we knew was good-- Ranch 99, which Stef and Mike introduced us to. There we bought numerous canned teas, Monkey picked oolong, frozed tapioca pearls for bubble tea, frozen edamame, Korean candy, and rock sugar. It was a wonderful, much needed liitle getaway. :-)

Death By Chocolate Cake

Because James had to work ALL day again yesterday, I decided to surprise him with a nice chocolate cake. Of course, the cake did double duty since I've been having major chocolate cravings (typical for me at this time if you know what I mean). It turned out so moist and yummy. When he finally came home at 2:00 after calling me a dozen times from work to say "just another half hour . . .", I presented him with a piece of cake and a cup of tea. You can find the recipe below.

Ingredients:
4 Eggs
1 c Sour cream
1/2 c Water
1/2 c Oil
1 pk Chocolate cake mix
1 pk Chocolate instant pudding
12 oz Semisweet chocolate chips
Confectioner's sugar (but I used icing instead!)

Directions:
Beat eggs, sour cream, water,and oil together in a large bowl until thoroughly mixed. Add cake mix and pudding mix. Beat until smooth. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour into Bundt or tube pan and bake at 350 F for 1 hour. When cool, sift powdered sugar on top of cake or spread icing if you prefer. Variation: Replace 1/4 cup water with Grand Marnier.

New Teapots

can you believe that Marshalls sells cast iron teapots? I purchased the one on the left from Marshalls last week after thoroughly inspecting it. I even checked out the brand online and it's pretty decent. It holds heat well and has the strainer in it and everything. What a find!

The one on the right is the cast iron teapot James surprised me with the other day. I love my hubby. I've been wanting a smaller one for the evenings when we don't want to drink too much and he got me just that.

34 Hours and Counting . . .

My husband has been at work since 8:00 yesterday morning. Yes, you read that correctly- yesterday morning. I will try to be kind because he just might find the time to read this someday. I am furious that his company expects so much. Believe it or not, my husband actually has a life. I have never heard of anyone working this many hours at once. I am so pissed off. It's a combination of his work and my upcoming certain time of the month, but let me tell you, I am one minute from either bursting into tears or throwing something at the wall. *sigh* I'd say at least it's Friday, but he'll be working tomorrow too. I promise, these terrible ranting posts will be few and far between, but since I don't wanna bitch to James (again), I will simply post it here for the world to see, or whoever is nice enough to read my stupid entries. Thanks guys. :-)

Wuyi Rock Tea

I just recieved a package I have been waiting for. After someone posted about Wuyi Rock tea on our teaswap website, I decided to order some peach flavor with splenda to take to work. They are so convenient-- little packets of tea liquid and all you have to do is add water! I triedit iced first since it's about 90 some degrees. It's wonderful! I suggest ordering some, and you can do that here.

Comfort Food

There's nothing like good food to make you feel better. Those Thai wraps were awesome and you can find ther recipe here. Yesterday I was feeling kinda down, but today is a better day.

I have the most wonderful husband-- I really do. He came home for lunch today and brought in a cooler that has been sitting in his back seat for weeks. He told me that it smelled and I needed to wash it today. I gave him a "yeah, right" look, but he just said, "just smell it!" I hesitantly opened it to find a nice, clean cooler with a present inside. He said he knew I'd been feeling down and wanted to cheer me up. I opened it and found a cast iron teapot. :-) Soooo sooooo happy!

Deep Thoughts . . .

I've been thinking a lot today about change. I guess what prompted it is the recent chain of events happening in my life-- my college graduation, trip to Korea, new job, and finding out that Stef and Mike are moving. I've always hated change, although I adapt relatively quickly. My life is going to be very different soon. I'll be out in the real world.

Forgive me while I bitch about Georgia, but arrrghhhh. I was born here for those of you who didn't know, but I grew up in D.C., so I was surrounded by culture and education. There isn't enough here in Georgia to stimulate me. My interests are so diverse. I'm tired of my friends here who have never been anywhere asking me why I like to cook "weird" food. Forgive me, I didn't realize curries and potstickers were that strange. Not to sound bitchy, but there are soooo many people here who have never been anywhere and can't understand why I want more than this. I love my house. I mean I LOVE my house. I don't know many states where you can afford a nice single family home at 21. I love that my family is here, but I need more . . . James probably could take Gerogia or leave it, but I can't take it for more than a few more years.

We're talking about moving to Korea, for a year or two. I remember, standing on this one particular street corner, looking up at the huge tv's advertising everything under the sun. The lights, the people, I don't know what exactly made me feel as I did . . . I could have stood there forever and watched the people and the crazy drivers. Maybe we will go to Korea. Who knows?

Funky Shoes

I bought these fun Steve Maddens at a 4th of July sale. I've been eyeing them for a while, but that 50% off really caught my eye! Lately I seem to be on a funky accessories kick. I'm pretty conservative in the way I dress, but in the past few months I've bought some kinda funky shoes, earings, and scarves (I have adored scarves ever since I studied abroad in Europe). I've never really cared what others think, but I hope these shoes aren't TOO funky. :-) They are so comfy and cute!

Happy 4th!

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy fourth of July! We are so fortunate to be living in this wonderful, free country. Thank you to everyone in the service for protecting us and allowing us this quality of life.

Caprese Salad

Here is one of the dishes I made for James' cheese themed birthday party. Yep, that's right. I gotta love my hubby for being so cute. He loves cheese as much as I love tea, so the theme seemed appropriate. I even made cheesy (corny) cheese decorations. hehe. We had cheese dogs, Stef and Mike's awesome blue cheese casserole (thanks again guys for bringing it), seafood cheese dip, a fruit and cheese, plate, and other goodies. Anyway, this was the prettiest dish and it's so easy: alternate with slices of tomato, basil leaves, fresh mozzarella and then driizle olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette and season with salt and pepper . . and viola!