Loose Leaf Tea

For almost a year I have been contemplating making the switch to loose leaf tea. The quality of the tea is just so much higher, it's really incredible. It is, however, somewhat daunting to start buying loose leaf, especially when you have nearly 20 different kinds of tea in bags on hand at any one time. In order for it to be economical, you have to commit to almost three times as much tea as when you buy tea bags. My almost non-existant stint at Teavana convinced me to finally take the leap. After looking up several different companies online, I finally settled on Adagio Teas. Many of the companies I'd found had rather outrageous shipping, while Adagio had very reasonable shipping prices. Their tea was also reasonably priced, yet it was evident that it was also really high quality tea. They also have superb blending options and a really awesome vibe. In the end, I think I found the perfect place to buy my tea.

As this was my first loose leaf tea purchase, I also splurged on some tins in which to store the tea. In a tin, they can last for about a year, whereas their shelf life is much, much shorter in the pouches. Another awesome thing was that they also let me pick out a sample. The teas I got were Earl Grey Bravo (as Earl Grey is Mike's favorite and a tea I greatly enjoy), Masala Chai (because I always like to have a chai on hand), and Ginger Peach (this is my new favorite flavor of tea and what finally gave me the push I needed). I kept getting Ginger Peach tea at Panera and went online to try and find it. Only a couple companies sell it in tea bags, but almost everyone had it as a loose leaf tea, so that ended up being the way to go. The sample I got was Coconut. I've tried them all so far except the Ginger Peach (ironic since that was the one I wanted most).

The Earl Grey Bravo is simply delightful. It's definitely one of the best Earl Grey's I've ever had and was well worth the price. The Masala Chai wasn't as spicy as I was hoping/expecting, but I did a little digging and it seems that I actually need to seep it for longer. It was definitely good (as good as tea bags) but it didn't knock my socks off. Hopefully a longer brew time will make it better. Like I said, I haven't tried the Ginger Peach yet, though I think I'm going to make a cup right now. The Coconut was delicious. I was a little trepidatious as the coconut smell is almost overwhelming when you smell the tea, but once brewed it is fantastic. The coconut blends in super nicely with the ceylon tea for a really great cup of tea. When the sample is all gone I'm definitely going to want to buy some of it.

Well, I'm off to brew a cuppa!

Soap Sack Anyone?

Over the past few years I've amassed quite a collection of unique little soaps. Problem was, I generally use a luffa and body wash as my preferred method of shower time dirt removal and they just languished in a drawer. Recently, though, the addition of the two awesome smelling soaps Gerry got me from Lush inspired me to actually start using them. I was good and waited until I used up the last of the body wash I had before switching over to soap and a wash cloth. The one I went for first was the Snow Globe (which you may remember me getting really excited about in this post). There's a couple things about soap though, especially specialty soaps. First, soap is slippery and no matter how careful you are, it likes to take trips out of your hands. Second, it's not always easy to get the right amount of soap onto the wash cloth and then trying to use the part of the washcloth you have the soap on is not always as easy as you'd think it should be. Finally, soap gets very small as you continue to use it and it doesn't help when it came in three rather thin slices to begin with, like the Snow Globe did.

This morning, I woke up with the worst crick in my neck/shoulder that I've been alternately icing and heating all day, but which is still very painful. Let's just say my shower was not a totally pleasant experience and I had to deal with the soap on top of it all. I got to thinking about the soap socks and sacks I'd seen on Ravelry when I was looking for something else. They're kind of awesome because they make the soap easier to hang onto, you don't have to worry about them getting soggy gross soapiness on a soap dish in between showers, you can use the bag itself as a scrubby instead of a separate wash cloth, and tiny pieces aren't an issue since they're contained in the bag. And so I found an easy pattern and whipped myself up a little soap sack.

All ready to be filled with soap!

Quicky Soap Sack
(link to the Ravelry page)

Supplies:
25 yards worsted weight 100% cotton
Size US 7 knitting needles
Ribbon, raffia, or yarn for drawstring

To knit:
Cast on 15 stitches.

Rows 1-4: Knit in stockinette (knit one row, purl the next, repeat).

Row 5: *K2tog, YO* then knit the last stitch.

Row 6: Purl

Rows 7-10: Knit in stockinette (starting with a knit row).

Row 11: Knit the entire row, wrapping the yarn twice around the needle when forming each stitch (so that it looks like you have double the number of stitches by the end of the row).

Row 12: Purl, dropping the second loop of every stitch (as in purl one, drop one, repeat). You should be back to 15 stitches when this row is complete.

Repeat these 12 rows two more times (for a total of three times).

Knit four more rows in stockinette (starting with a knit row).

Knit one row *K2tog, YO* then knit the last stitch.

Knit four rows in stockinette, starting with a purl row this time.

Cast off. I chose to cast off knitwise to match the cast on, but binding off purlwise would have resulted in a smoother edge.

Seam the sides of the bag using mattress stitch. Line up the YO rows and the drop stitch rows, noting that the middle drop stitch row is the bottom of the bag. (I was lazy and didn't use the mattress stitch, partially because my knitting wasn't neat enough to do it easily.)

Weave a piece of ribbon, raffia, or yarn through the top row of YO's, insert soap, and tie the drawstring. I chose to braid some left-over yarn for the drawstring.

I can't wait to fill it with my soap and use it tomorrow!

Slow Cooker Corned Beef and Cabbage

The Corned Beef and Cabbage I made yesterday was really delicious and timed out better than in any previous year. Therefore, in addition to re-writing the recipe card for myself, I thought it might be a good idea to document on my blog what I did.

Slow Cooker Corned Beef and Cabbage

~4lb corned beef brisket
1 onion peeled and quartered
3 whole cloves garlic
1 Tbsp whole peppercorns
1/4 tsp allspice
4 bay leaves
4 large carrots, peeled and cut into chunks
6-8 red potatoes
1/2 to 1 cabbage
(Base how much potatoes and cabbage to use based on how many people are going to eat and how much they like cabbage. Mike's not a fan of cabbage, so I only did a half.)

1) Put corned beef and two cups of hot water in the slow cooker on high for one hour. (If you don't heat up the water individually, it takes a very long time for the poor slow cooker to do it and delays the cook time of the meal.)

2) After one hour, skim off grey foam. Add spices, onion, and garlic. Cook 4-6 hours on high or 10-12 hours on low.

3) Four hours before serving, add the potatoes.

4) Two hours before serving, add the carrots.

5) One hour before serving, add the cabbage.

6) You know it's done when the beef (as well as the carrots, potatoes, and cabbage) is fork tender.

I can't wait to enjoy the left-overs for dinner tonight! We even went and got a second corned beef brisket today because Mike is thinking about making corned beef hash. We'll see how that goes.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

As is tradition, I'm celebrating St. Patrick's Day with food. For breakfast I made Irish Soda Bread and I have Corned Beef and Cabbage cooking away in the crock pot. I even went the extra mile this year and bought Guinness to go with dinner. As I haven't posted my Soda Bread recipe yet, I figured it was high time to do so. I've started making it every year on St. Patrick's Day and then randomly during the rest of the year. It's sort of like scones or biscuits, Mike likes it, and it usually lasts for a few days, which is nice. The recipe I use is a recipe I got from a Guinea Lynx member, who got it from her daughter's Irish step dancing teacher, who brought the recipe over with her from Ireland- aka it's a real authentic Irish Soda Bread recipe.

Hot out of the oven and waiting to be consumed.

Irish Soda Bread
4 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup margarine or butter
1 egg
1 cup rasins
1 1/2 cup buttermilk

1) Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a large cookie sheet.

2) Sift together dry ingredients (I'm usually lazy and just stir them together). Chop in margarine until the largest bits are pea sized. Add rasins.

3) Beat the egg and add to the dry mix. Add buttermilk and mix to a dough. Add water if it's too dry, flour if it's too wet.

4) Knead lightly on a floured surface. Shape into a round and pat to ~1 in thick.

5) Place on greased cooked sheet. Cut a cross all the way to the sheet, but do not separate. Bake for 40 min or until light golden brown.

It is a super easy recipe, is super quick to make, and is super delicious. When it is hot out of the oven, I usually eat it with just a little butter. When it's day-old, I heat it up quickly and then eat it with butter and jam.

DIY Deodorant

Ever since I hit puberty I have had to cope with BO. And I was unfortunately not blessed with my Indian grandmother's lack of BO. No, I had to get one of my white European ancestor's BO. A regular deodorant just won't do when I really work up a sweat, so I turned to anti-antiperspirants. Of course, science has revealed that it is bad to use an anti-antiperspirant since it suppresses your body's need to sweat and most underarm protectors contain ingredients that are very bad for you. All of this has somewhat turned me into a deodorant crazy person. Exhibit A: my medicine cabinet.

That's right, I have FIVE deodorants.

The first deodorant (the yellow one) is a really cheap deodorant I got at Whole Foods called Herbal Clear Naturally! It's hypoallergenic and aluminum free, so it's pretty good health wise. It does have a few ingredients that some people say shouldn't be in deodorants, but it's better than most mass market options. I use this mostly if I need to throw on something before I run out of the house and I haven't showered. It's not really strong enough to be what I wear on a daily basis, but it's a good refresher.

The second deodorant (the green one) is the bad boy of the bunch. It is my trusty Mitchum Power Gel. It's a really bad-for-me anti-antiperspirant, but it's what I wear when I'm going to be working a 16 hour day of carpentry and really don't want to smell. The third one is also one I really shouldn't wear, but do. It's Tom's of Maine's "Naturally Dry" anti-antiperspirant. It has aluminum in it, which is bad and it doesn't work as well as the Mitchum, but it does make my pits feel less skeevy than the Mitchum. What I tend to do is if it's a day that I may need more protection than just regular deodorant, I throw just a tiny bit of it on under my deodorant of choice for the day.

The fourth and fifth deodorants are both small batch deodorants from Bubble and Bee. One is the JasMint 'Pit Putty and the other is the Lemongrass 'Pit Putty. They work fabulously and are 100% organic with no bad stuff. These I can wear any day when I won't be perspiring excessively. They're also what I layer over the Tom's of Maine. I like the smell of the JasMint better, but the Lemongrass actually works better. The best part about them is that if you do start to smell and you put more on, you instantly don't smell anymore. And not just because it covers the smell, it really eliminates it. The only downside is that you do sometimes have to reapply. And if you're not at home in the middle of work, that's not always an option.

Long story short, I love the 'Pit Putty deodorants, but they're not the cheapest product ever. They're around 10 bucks a piece plus shipping, which is really expensive. So, I decided to try a natural deodorant recipe to try and mimic the results for less money. I adapted this recipe from Crunchy Betty.

Rachel's Homemade NATURAL deodorant

DIY Deodorant
3 Tbsp chamomile
2 Tbsp green tea w/mint
5 Tbsp coconut oil
3 Tbsp grapeseed oil
1/2 cup baking soda
1/2 arrowroot powder
20 drops tea tree oil

If you want to make this, I'd definitely recommend reading Betty's instructions, as they have lots of pictures and are very clear, as always. But, here is what I did.

First you have to infuse you herbs in the oil. I combined the coconut oil and grapeseed oil in a clean, sterilized jar. Make sure to heat up the coconut oil so that it is a liquid and fully combines with everything else. The easiest way to do this is to sit your jar with the oils in a pot of very hot water (I just used the same pot and water I'd used to sterilize everything with). Then you add the herbs to the oil. I had trouble finding chamomile (and the calendula) the recipe called for, so I did a short cut and used tea. I can't remember how many tea bags it took, but I opened up enough chamomile tea bags to get the 3 tablespoons, and then I used my green tea with mint as my second herb. Green tea is soothing and mint is a nice scent, so I thought it would work well. You then need to let the herbs and oil seep for a minimum of two weeks, remembering to shake it up every once in a while.

And this is where my deodorant went a little wonky. Betty's oil turned a lovely yellow shade from the calendula and chamomile. Mine turned an odd olive green color because of the tea. I thought I was growing a mold farm the first time I checked on it. I also let mine seep for over a month because I never had time to actually make it. However, I'm about to run out of my pit putty, so I bit the bullet and made it.

Once your oil is infused and you're ready to make the deodorant, you need to strain out the herbs from the oil. Your best bet is cheesecloth. I ended up using a strainer, to okay results. You then add your baking soda and arrowroot powder. I did more than Betty called for, because I had oil that kept separating and seemed to need more dry ingredients. Once that is all combined, add your essential oils (I did tea tree as it's what I have and in theory should be good for a deodorant). Then put it into a sterilized jar of your choice!

It's much more liquid than a traditional deodorant, but seeing as I've been using non-traditional deodorants anyways, it's not all that strange. I just scoop some up on my finger and spread it all over my pits. The resulting smell from the chamomile + tea + mint + tea tree is a bit odd, but not unpleasant. And I've been pretty pleased with it's BO fighting power so far. I have yet to really put it under stress, so we'll see how that goes. It is actually what I'm wearing right now!

Outfit of [last Tues]Day

This past week I started rehearsals for New England Conservatory's La Gazzetta (which I'm ASMing) as well as prepped for tech of An Ideal Husband (which I'm Props Master for). I only got three hours of sleep Friday night- not fun. I made up for it, though, by sleeping almost 16 hours yesterday/last night. As a result, I haven't blogged all week. I did take a blog worthy photo on Tuesday however, which I figured I could throw up today.

I just noticed that this photo make me look short and stocky.

I am wearing:
My favorite blue boots I got from Payless several years ago.
My tan trench from Ross (it was a steal and I'm always getting compliments on it).
The Ravenclaw scarf Maureen got me from Harry Potter World in Orlando.
A grey t-shirt from Forever 21.
An off-white sweater from Wet Seal.
Tweed-ish shorts that were Lilly hand-me-ups, originally from Forever 21.
Grey leggins/tights from Forever 21.
Thigh high blue socks (can't remember where I got them).
And you can't see my blue and brown striped tie belt from Goodwill.

Because it is so darn hot in the rehearsal room, I took off the jacket and sweater for all of rehearsal. Forgot to take a picture like that though. This was definitely the outfit I put the most effort into last week. The rest of the week I pretty much just wore my "uniform"- jeans, chucks, a t-shirt, and a fun sweater.

Chocolate Ginger Bread

It seems that on my days off I like to do a lot of dishes and bake things. We made a nice big dinner tonight, as it was the first day off for both Mike and me in a long time. It started with salad and then we had our crock-pot pulled pork and mashed sweet potatoes. Even more exciting was the Chocolate Ginger Bread I made after that. I think I found the recipe from a pin on Pinterest, but I modified it slightly. This is the first new kind of sweet bread I'd made in a while (my staples are Pumpkin Nut Bread and Cranberry Orange Bread), so I'm really glad that it turned out so well.

Delicious chocolate ginger bread

Chocolate Ginger Bread
1 cup + 1 Tbsp flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
pinch of nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
4 Tbsp butter or margerine
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup molasses
3/4 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350F and grease a 9x4 loaf pan.

2. Combine flour, baking soda, cocoa powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt.

3. In a seperate bowl, cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg. Mix buttermilk and molasses, then add to the butter mixture. Add dry ingredients and mix until the batter is smooth. Fold in the chocolate chips.

4. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, 25-30 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

The original recipe called for crystallized ginger as well, but it's not exactly something I have in the house and it seemed like it would make it overly gingery. It also called for "coarse chopped chocolate," but I made it simpler by just using chocolate chips. Two other notes- I "made" buttermilk the milk + vinegar way, and my loaf took almost 45 minutes to cook all the way through (but I find I almost always have to cook sweet breads longer than the recipe says). I ate it with a little bit of margarine, as I do with all bread. :)