Try a Little Something New

When I was a kid iced tea was this sugary stuff in a canister that we weren’t allowed to have. I went through a phase where I drank a fair bit of it in my 20s but as it is basically non carbonated soda with only one redeeming value: caffeine, I gave it up even before I gave up soda. It’s like an optional level of growing up to give up food that isn’t really food, to start wanting to eat things that actually make you feel good and are full of nutrition and not just sugar, fat & salt. I still indulge in food that doesn’t have much to recommend it, I just try to choose it consciously and not by default.

At some point after giving up sugary, canister iced tea, I found myself needing an ice cold drink on hot days that wasn’t just water. I started making mint tea sweetened with a little maple syrup and it was a hit with my family and with people wherever I brought it. Then I started making an unsweetened mint tea using half spearmint and half peppermint and my family absolutely loves it. This year I am making iced teas with various mint leaves, dried citrus peels and/or dried citrus slices, dried roses, dried apple slices w/cinnamon and so on. I feel 100% free to experiment, to try and succeed or fail, to make mistakes and discover wonderful new things I want to keep in my life. A few years ago I decided, and I’m quoting here: “Fuck it. I am not getting any younger, my life is rolling on by at a steady pace, and I am tired of being afraid to fail. I am tired of talking myself out of things without even trying. I am tired of feel so very STUCK. So this year I am just going to go for it, just whatever I feel like I might want to try, I am just going to try and not listen to my brain telling me it won’t work.”

So that’s what I did. I started small. I watched shows I thought I might not like, I tried recipes I wasn’t sure I could manage, I read books I thought might go over my head, and I tried making things I thought I might not be able to successfully make. I failed to push past my fear of doing a craft show, twice, maybe more than twice, it’s hard to recall. I still haven’t done that, but now I haven’t been producing crafts like I used to so… I DID open an Etsy shop and sold some things for a little while. Definitely didn’t make any money but it was still something of a learning experience. I saw a job for a library assistant and ignored the fact that I wasn’t qualified and actually sent in a resume’. I got an interview and I got the job! About 1 1/2 years later I saw a job posting for a teen librarian, something I did not get the schooling for and librarian schooling is serious, wow, major degrees for it and often for very good reason. But, this was a small, rural library and the expansive and detailed knowledge that might be very necessary in a populated city isn’t as critical. So I applied, sent in a resume’ and cover letter telling myself the worst that could happen would be no reply. I got an interview and I got that job too!

The lesson in this ramble is: GO FOR IT! You might get a wonderful surprise! But, having gained my dream job, I now experiment mostly on a smaller scale, with recipes, art, and that sort of thing. So, Iced tea: Play with it! Have fun! Use your favorite fruits and herbs to create your own signature blends! BE YOU. Put something you thought up out into the world. Anyway, here’s some pics of my “process.”

That was yesterday’s tea and below is today’s still in progress. I opted to pick mint fresh from the yard for today and skip the dried apple I used yesterday. I also made the blend a lot stronger with more dried orange slices and roses.

What am I doing w/ Roses?

I keep mentioning drying roses for tea and it probably sounds a little weird. Flowers aren’t much used for food around these parts but many are edible. Roses, all types that I know of, are safe to eat or make tea with. That doesn’t mean you want to use the ones from the florist though, those are likely to have been sprayed with pesticide. But if you have roses growing in your yard and you don’t use poison on your lawn or other plants, those are probably fine. I have a mad, rambling little rosebush/vine that is producing like crazy and it is looking like I will have more roses than I need this year. *happy dance*

Say you want to gather some roses for tea and you have access in your yard, or through a lovely friend with some in their yard, what do you do? What is the process? It’s simple!

Pluck as many nice, full blossoms as you need. (open flowers, leave all partly open blossoms and all buds)
Gently rise each blossom under cool water.
Shake the water off each blossom and place in a bowl.
Line a baking tray w/parchment paper.
Set the oven to 170F. (or lower, that’s as low as mine goes.)
Again, shake each blossom and place face down on the lined baking tray.
Place tray in oven and gently dry for 20 minutes.
Check every 15-20 minutes until they are thoroughly dried out. This can take a while depending on humidity and other factors. Mine have been taking up to 90 minutes with the humidity we’ve had lately.
Alternatively, you can dry them on bamboo trays in the sun. (if it isn’t humid or rainy) Do everything the same but place the flowers face down directly on the bamboo trays, cover loosely and lightly with cheese cloth, and place in direct sunlight. (I dry mine on our deck when I can.) It might take a couple of days depending on your climate, bring them in at night and put them back out in the morning.
When roses are dry, gently remove them from the paper or tray, they may stick a little, and pop the dried blossoms into dry, air-tight bags or jars.

They are now ready to use to make your own tea blends. I make a blend of roses, mint, dried apple, and a bit of dried citrus peel, usually orange or clementine. Delicious, but you can play around and try other flavors. I’m allergic, but I know a lot of people like roses with dried strawberries and a bit of black tea. You can make your hot teas into iced teas for hot weather too. I like to make an iced blend of peppermint and spearmint, (1/2 & 1/2) by making a really strong pot of it hot, steeping at least 20 minutes, and then pouring it into a 2 quart pitcher filled to the brim with ice. It is utterly refreshing on a hot day. Maybe this year I’ll add some roses.

I also crumble the petals of some of the dried blossoms and run them through my coffee grinder to make rose powder. You can use it to color and flavor breads and cookies and things. I haven’t used it yet but I plan to experiment with it as soon as I can. I am expecting great things! ^_^

Isolation Interlude

How crazy is the world right now? It’s almost a sincere question because I am trying to keep my head down and not look at the news because I’m trying to preserve my sanity. Some stuff still gets through and a lot of it is depressing and enraging and horrifying in the extreme. I don’t hide from the news all the time, just when I need a break.

I’ve been reading a book called Mark of the Demon; by Diana Rowland and I’m really enjoying it. I ordered the next couple of paperbacks in the series because I had a Barnes & Noble gift card. I’m reading tons of other stuff, The Color of Law; by Richard Rothstein, The Witch must Die; by Sheldon Cashdan, plus many more and I’m still waiting for my copy of So You Want to Talk About Race; by Ijeoma Oluo. But Mark of the Demon is my escape read at the moment so it’s getting gobbled up in a hurry.

The other ways I’m distracting myself from reality are working on a project that may or may not be anything at all, work and the Summer reading preparation that is swallowing me whole, replacing instacart shopping because gods, does instacart SUCK. We had good luck with them for a few months but when they fail they fail BIG. Wasted my entire day dealing with it and I’m DONE. We did the curbside pick-up at Hannaford’s for the first time today, it went well so I’m hopeful. It was also way cheaper! We grabbed the farmshare on the way home so the fridge is full to bursting and I will be committing acts of vegetable preparation and loads of cooking in the next few days.

My roses have gone ballistic! I harvested at least 150 blossoms this morning. At this rate I will have enough for tea all year long. I just need another couple of harvests like that. Since we finally have rain, the mint should start going crazy too. Yay! I need a lot of mint to keep me in tea through the winter. I still possess exactly zero apple trees though and that is sad. I bet they take forever to get established and get going too. I’ll have to look into it. I am not good at growing plants for food. I do okay with house plants but I’ve been frustrated for decades at my inability to get even the hardiest herbs to grow. But I DO have mint now. It’s a ray of hope that I am determined to capitalize on. The golden raspberries look like they will do well this year, as do the wild blackberries. What can I say? Little dreams keep me going through the dark times.

Everything else is continuing on as normal. We’ve got 4 or 5 RPGs going at the moment so that keeps us busy. The kids are all staggering along doing their best to keep occupied and sane too. I look forward to a day when we can do regular stuff like run out and get yummy soft-serve ice cream, or stop by a store to pick up that one thing we forgot, or maybe get haircuts or something. It’s so weird right now and it seems even weirder with people rushing to get back to normal. I hope things will start truly improving soon but I don’t know. I keep dreaming of tornadoes.

2020 day 3

I have read every day of 2020 so far. I wrote a fair bit yesterday, blogged here, started a recommended Tarot Journal on paper. Also started learning about Tarot reading, so double duty there. My reading is also doubling as working on learning to garden properly. I feel so efficient! ~_^ I managed to work in a little crafting yesterday, I ate pretty healthy, and failed to make progress on any other fronts, which is fine, I need to pace myself and be realistic. Fighting my instincts here. This is day 3 of just kind of winging here, on the goals, I may need to set an actual structure up at some point.

I’m currently reading a gardening book and a mystery novel. Our first Book Boot Camp is going to be Mystery so I should really get cracking on that sucker. My TBR pile is ridiculous.

Reviewing my goals this morning I realized that I have no professional goals listed. I need to think about it for a bit but I think I should have some of those. Right off the top of my head, one basic goal is just to have my programming planned out and publicized at least 3 months in advance, beyond that I need to figure out what else makes sense. Maybe to try to take in one seminar a month or something on professional development? I should have goals, some kind of plan, or vision for my job. That seems awfully grown up.

Oh, hilarious development yesterday, it turns out my youngest had school yesterday and I blithely let him sleep until 1 pm thinking he didn’t go back till Monday. Ha ha ha! I am such a bad mom! Oof. My husband thought so too and, apparently, so did lots of other parents from our kid’s school… the one that prides itself on communication but is really bad at it. Yeah. I just don’t feel too bad about it. I mean, it ate up one of his allowed sick days, but I think the school must have been pretty unclear about this winter break. If it was just me, sure, my fault, but the school was, reportedly, a ghost town yesterday so I’m not taking it on. My kid wasn’t exactly broken up about it either. LOL

I’ve got a new trick for getting him out of bed now! My old method involved loud, poor singing, bright lights, and getting the dog riled up. Now I bring him tea or food. How civilized! I should have thought of it sooner. I bring my husband tea, and occasionally breakfast, in bed every day. He used to get breakfast in bed every day, if you can imagine. That fell apart at some point, I think 18 years ago when I was pregnant. It’s been sporadic-to-rare ever since. Maybe I’ll start that up again? Add the boy to it and bring up tea and breakfast on weekdays. Hmm, maybe I will, it always made for easier mornings for my husband, and it made him feel super appreciated, loved, and looked after. I suppose I worry about spoiling the lad and giving him insane expectations which his future partners will hate me for. Hmmm, maybe we’ll try a limited test of it?

Preserving Food and Menu-Planning

Drying more apples today. I’m trying something new, using cooling racks on the wood stove, because I hate leaving the oven on all day. I also used the peels to make apple peel tea which turns out to be quite tasty. https://food52.com/recipes/38604-apple-peel-tea Dried oranges and apples from yesterday seem to have turned out well enough.

The hot peppers didn’t seem to be drying quickly enough so I looked it up. The tray method was really meant for sun-drying so I tied them all along a string and hung them in a kitchen window.

Peppers on a string. Pictured here hanging about my straggling/struggling basil and rosemary.

I’ve been pulling together my menus for the upcoming holidays. Thanksgiving:

Gordon Ramsey’s Xmas Turkey
Mashed potatoes
Broccoli Casserole
Home made Cranberry sauce
stuffing
gravy
rolls
mulled cider
wine
apple pie and as-yet-undetermined desserts

I’m looking forward to the deliciousness and the house smelling like Heaven. Also the leftovers and the turkey broth I’ll get to make. I have a couple of quarts of chicken broth in the freezer right now and I use when I make soups like Winter Potato-Leek, or Cream of Winter Squash. Broth also comes in handy for sauces, adds some nice layers of flavor. As soon as the Thanksgiving feast is over I will start crafting in earnest for Yule. So much to do!