How to Brew Tea without a Tea Ball

I used to have a tea ball, one of those metal things with a chain. I would fill the ball with tea leaves and then dangle it into my hot water. Or else I would leave it in the cup, and I poured boiling water over it. That was many years ago, when I used to get herbal teas from a special shop. But I've moved so many times since then that I don't know where that tea ball is. Today is a cold day and I decided to make some Darjeeling tea, but I had no tea ball, and this tea was the genuine article, sent to me all the way from India, and, of course, it does not come in tea bags.

I discovered two new methods to brew tea without a tea ball. The first is just to use a strainer.

You put the strainer over your cup, and then you pour boiling water over it. The other way is to use your coffee maker and brew it just as if it were coffee.

Both methods work. So even if you don't have a tea ball, you can see brew un-bagged tea.

Bow enjoyed his cup of tea. He took it with a teaspoon of sugar and a  splash of lemon.

Everything is better on blue willow china. Bow is very careful with the cup and saucer, so it's only the best for him!

Salad with Cream Cheese from Sour Cream

I have been reading up on how natural cultures in dairy products might help to fend off mental issues. Meanwhile, in my own refrigerator, unbeknownst to me, a minor transformation was taking place with in my sour cream.

The sour cream was not past its expiration date. It did not smell or taste bad. But part of it had frozen in the back of the refrigerator, and it was dehydrated and seemed a lot more like cream cheese and a lot less like sour cream.

I decided to add cherry tomatoes and leftover brussels sprouts to the cheese and the tortilla. This is what I served Bow for lunch today.

Bow asked for the salad first. Because he started with the tortilla, he kind of forgot to use his spoon most of the time.

Bow liked his salad so much that he only ate an apple afterwards and did not want his banana or his soup.

I am going to have to research the culture they put in the sour cream after pasteurization. How is this culture different from the bacteria they kill during the process of heating? There is so much more I will need to learn before I understand what cultures we may currently be missing in our diet.

But Bow has no questions. It's all good, as far as he's concerned.

Slow Cooking, Fast Eating

During my first year in Taiwan, I had a slow cooker. Well, it wasn't really mine. A friend lent it to me, and I returned it to her at the end of the year. But it was a nice way to prepare food when there was not time to slave over a hot stove.

Here in Missouri, I don't have a slow cooker. But I have found that if you leave the burner on low, the food cooks more slowly. Last night, two hours before dinner, I threw into a pot some chicken stock I had left over, which also contained two baked onions, and about a cup of brown rice. I let the concoction boil, then cool down, and  I left that on the stove for over two hours on low. At the end of the two hours, the rice which had at first been almost invisible, came to dominate the pot.

It was our main course for dinner. Here is what Bow's dinner consisted of:

His rice bowl looked like this:

Bow asked for his red apple first, then the yellow one. After that he asked for the rice. I was not sure whether he would like it, but he seemed to relish this part of the meal and gave me back a clean bowl.

After that, he asked for his Kedem Biscuits. They are from Israel, and my mother brought them over for us in a bag of goodies during her Thanksgiving visit.

Bow eyed the handful of biscuits I gave him, trying to decide which deserved to be eaten first.

Of course, it really did not matter which one he started with. He finished them all.

After he had done with the biscuits, he asked for his turkey breast, and after that the "big" banana, followed by "more banana." By then the entire meal had been consumed.

Bow went to bed on a full belly and in a very good mood.

Cranberry Sauce and Sparkling Red Grape Juice

As always, we had an abundant feast yesterday at Thanksgiving, including a turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie and sparkling red grape juice.

My mother was the chief cook and Sword assisted her. Bow made excited food calls as he saw everything carried into the pen, as always.

But though Bow asked for the stuffing first, his favorite food this year was the cranberry sauce.

 He treated it with all the reverence and solemnity of a truly spiritual feasting experience.

The other thing that Bow seemed to really enjoy was the red sparkling grape juice, which he savored with much ceremony.

It's the simple things that Bow is most thankful for. Especially if they are red, sweet, juicy and sparkle in the light!

The Persimmon

I recently had a path mowed through my pasture so I could go walking there. Around Halloween, I noticed a spooky tree with strange orange fruit on it. What made it spooky was that there was only fruit, but no leaves. Last night, the day after Halloween, I took more notice of the tree.

When I looked at the fruit more closely, it seemed oddly familiar. It was something I had seen before, and I could already taste it just by looking. Yet its name was on the tip of my tongue.

As I often do these days to identify flora and fauna, I posted the pictures on Facebook. The answer came back loud and clear from all quarters: persimmon.

Today, I went and gathered the fruit. I washed it, and I presented a sample to Bow.

Bow was curious and willing to try it, but in the end, he did not seem to like it well enough to finish.

Maybe this evening we will try again.

The Revival of Oatmeal

We haven't had oatmeal in a long time. We used to have instant oatmeal for breakfast, but then Quaker Oats changed the ingredients, and I didn't feel like having it, anymore.

But tucked away in a cupboard, there were the regular oats that you cook to make oatmeal, and today was a good day to remember them. I decided to make oatmeal as part of our lunch.

Now, the directions on the container said to add salt and water, but in our house oatmeal always went with sugar and milk. So I took a cup and a half of whole milk, boiled it with two tablespoons of sugar, reduced the heat,  then added  a cup of oats and let them cook for about five minutes. Then I served it in two bowls, one for me and one for Bow.

It was still kind of hot when Bow asked for his bowl of Oatmeal. But he enjoyed every bit of it.

Poppy Seed Cake -- Not from Scratch

My mother is the one who knows how to bake a real poppy seed cake from scratch. But I can do a nice impersonation, using off the shelf ingredients.

I take a regular pound cake mix and follow all the directions on the box, except that I also throw in a can of poppy seed filling. After I am done mixing everything, this is what the batter looks like.

Once the cake is in the oven, Bow gets to lick the bowl:

When the cake is ready, it looks a little like this,

It is hard to say what Bow enjoys better, eating the cake or licking the bowl!

Israeli Tahini

My mother was recently here for a three day visit. One of the treats she made us was homemade tahini. She also brought the recipe with her from her first cookbook.

I don't know why, but the recipe is entitled "Tahini Salad", although I would not classify it as a salad at all. Here is what is says:

• 100 grams tahini
• about 100 grams of water
• lemon juice to suit your taste
• garlic, lemon, parsley
• stir the tahini with the water and the lemon juice
• add as a condiment ground garlic, salt and chopped parsley
• The density of the tahini is dependent, of course, on the amount of water. It is possible to reduce or increase the amount of water, depending on the thickness you want.

My mother no longer relies on the exact directions given in her first cookbook, of course. She doesn't measure everything, and she just has a sense of how much of each ingredient is needed. We did not have parsley as one of the ingredients on hand, so no parsley was used.

The ingredients my mother  used were 2 cloves of garlic, the juice of one lemon, a sprinkling of salt and, of course, the tahini and water. Tahini is a sesame paste made from ground, hulled sesame seeds. It has a very high fat content and is good for people on a low carb diet.  Even though I never use them, it was good that I had on hand both a primitive hand powered juicer and a press for the lemons and the garlic.

My mother prepared the lemon juice and the garlic and the water and tahini in the kitchen.

Then she added the water to the tahini.

By this time, Bow, who was watching us from the pens felt a little left out, so we took everything and finished the preparation in the pens. My mother showed Bow what she was doing and also explained it.

The first batch was for an event at Orchard House. Lanie Frick spoke about the transformation of her artistic process. It was a great talk, and the refreshments afterwards included my mother's tahini, which was very well received. 

Before she left, my mother made another batch for us to enjoy at home. Here is some footage of  Bow savoring his portion.

Normally, one uses the pita bread to dip in the tahini. I explained that to Bow, and he had seen it demonstrated, too. But he preferred to do things his way. First he ate the pita bread, and afterwards he licked the tahini off the plate.

Whichever way you decide to eat it, Israeli tahini is very good. You might be tempted to lick the plate yourself, if you run out of pita bread.

Zucchini in the Salad

I have been spending a lot of time at Orchard House every chance I get. I am trying to prepare the property for either a sale or a rental, and it looks as if we may have found a good tenant. Meanwhile, as I spend time there, I notice all the beautiful flowers.

Some of the flowers are the result of meticulous and effective landscaping by the owners who preceded me. Although nobody is tending them, the flowers come out every year, each at its appointed time and station. Some were placed there by design.

Others are wild and spring up unbidden in the woods.

First I spot them as a flash of color from afar.

Then I come in closer for a better look.

If you look very closely at some flowers, you can actually see the pollen spilling out.

Pollen is a feast for insects. Eating alone at Orchard House, as it was my day off, I spread out my own  feast.

Lunch consisted of a peach, some cherry tomatoes, blackberries and fried chicken.

With it, I had club soda in a can. The food was good and better out in the open than it would have been inside.

The blackberries were fresh picked from the Orchard House grounds.

Later in the day I went to visit musician and piano and voice teacher Jill Dabney. She is helping me with the music for the Debt Collector. Before I left, she gave me some zucchini from her garden. This pretty much determined what sort of salad Bow and I would have with our supper.

First I sliced the zucchini. Then I added tomatoes, sugar snap peas and cauliflower.

Then I generously sprinkled on sesame seed oil.

When the salad was ready, I presented it to Bow.

Bow enjoyed the salad, though the zucchini was not necessarily his favorite vegetable of the bunch.

First Blackberries of the Season

The first blackberries of the season are starting to ripen. You can find them along the fence line, growing among an assortment of wildflowers.

Those that are not yet ripe are white, pink or red. But there are others that are fully black and ripe for the picking.

Growing next to the barbed wire fence, the blackberries also have their own barbs or thorns to protect them.

They grow hidden among other foliage.

Wood sage and poison ivy surround them.

Other animals also covet the blackberries as they ripen. Listen to the birds sing about them.

Last night, I picked the first blackberries of the season. I washed them and presented them to Bow this morning on an heirloom glass plate that I inherited from my grandmother.

The blackberries were all black, but some were more luscious than others.

I thought they looked splendid on the glass plate.

A small residue of water from washing the blackberries remained on the plate. I presented them to Bow.

Apparently, some blackberries are better than others. Bow chose the pick of the crop, then left me the rest. Notice, though, how gentle he was with my grandmother's plate!