Engaging stories of love, joy, comfort and friendship with proven scrumptious, healthy recipes, we celebrate LOVE as the secret ingredient for wonderful food!

Stash MerryMint Organic Green Tea Holiday Cocktail

December 27, 2016 by Mary 4 Comments

I love green tea. It’s a super brain food. Not that I need to be any smarter, mind you, just saying… 🙂

Here’s some interesting info: Green tea contains the amino acid L-theanine, which is able to cross the blood-brain barrier. L-theanine increases the activity of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA, which has anti-anxiety effects. It also increases dopamine and the production of alpha waves in the brain.

Well goodbye anxiety, bring on the dopamine and alpha waves and make me happy. I’m in!

This Stash MerryMint Organic Green Tea is so fresh and potent, I LOVE it! The two types of mint – peppermint and spearmint, combined with ginger root, lemongrass and wintergreen oil make this tea so minty flavorful – you will love it! This is the fifth item in our MARY’s secret ingredients 2016 winter subscription box.

Of course you can enjoy it plain or with just a little bit of honey, but I opted to make this truly American Holiday minty and lemony cocktail. This tea in an alcoholic drink is merriment for the season!!

Brew the tea ahead of time, combine with the honey and then let it cool. I guarantee this will be your favorite drink this season. It’s not too strong, yet lovely in a straight up glass. This is what is in fashion now – interesting drinks that are not too alcoholic.

Here’s to the season and an AWESOME new year!!! xoxo, Mary

STASH MERRYMINT ORGANIC GREEN TEA HOLIDAY COCKTAIL – makes 1 drink

1 Stash Tea MerryMint Organic Green Tea tea bag
4 oz. boiling water
½ Tbs. honey
1 oz. American whiskey or bourbon
½ oz. Cynar
Lemon peel twist

Brew the tea bag in the water for 3 minutes. Remove bag and stir in the honey to dissolve. Let the tea cool completely.

Pour over ice in a shaker, the whiskey or bourbon, Cynar, and honeyed tea. Shake to combine. Pour in a straight up cocktail glass or old-fashioned champagne glass. Peel a lemon twist over the glass and drop in.

Sip and enjoy!!!

Pecan, Olive Oil and Benedictine Coffee Cake with Magisso Cake Server

December 22, 2016 by Mary 4 Comments

The Magisso cake server, so pretty in pink, is a sleek, sexy little tool that is included in our winter MARY’s secret ingredients subscription box. Beautifully designed, made of undulating curves of plastic with the edge sharpened on one side, makes cutting and serving your cake a singular beautiful motion. Press down to cut, gently squeeze in to lift, and release your grip to place the cake piece on your plate.

It is a most harmonious motion. No sawing with a knife, no messy pieces, just giving you pure unadulterated pieces of cake with a sexy little curve to the shape of your piece.

So I made this nut cake, trying to recapture a nut cake recipe that my mother used to make. It was her favorite cake. Loaded with finely ground nuts and not too sweet, she loved it. Me, as a kid, not so much. But here I was last Sunday craving it!

Here is the recipe:

PECAN, OLIVE OIL AND BENEDICTINE COFFEE CAKE WITH MAGISSO CAKE SERVER – serves 10

Unsalted butter, for the pan
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt
3 large eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/3 cup Benedictine
3/4 cup pecan halves, toasted and finely chopped
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting
Strawberries, slightly sweetened whipped cream, or ice cream (butter pecan or vanilla) for serving with the Magisso Cake Server

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toast pecans in a pan in the oven for 7 – 8 minutes. Remove nuts from the pan right away to prevent further toasting and place on a cutting board to cool. Then finely chop.

Generously butter a 9-inch round cake pan and dust with flour, set aside.

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl; set aside.

Put eggs in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment; beat on high speed until light in color, about 2 minutes. Reduce speed to medium. Add granulated sugar; beat until mixture is pale and thick, about 4 minutes. Reduce speed to low; mix in oil and liqueur. Lightly fold in flour mixture in 3 batches using a rubber spatula. Fold in toasted pecans. Spread batter into prepared pan.

Bake cake until a cake tester inserted in center comes out clean, 20 – 24 minutes. Let cool in pan on a wire rack 10 minutes. Turn out cake onto rack to cool completely. Turn cake over on a plate and dust with confectioners’ sugar.

Cut with Magisso cake server and serve with strawberries and slightly sweetened whipped cream or ice cream (butter pecan or vanilla). Let the ice cream get a little melty on the cake – pure heaven…

This cake even tastes better after a day or two – wrap it well in plastic wrap. Always serve with LOVE and enjoy!!

Still have a gift to get for that difficult person on your list? We have MARY’s secret ingredients gift cards here!! Gift cards are delivered by email and contain instructions to redeem them at checkout. Our gift cards have no additional processing fees. Easy peasy!

The Tea Spot Meditative Mind Shortbread Cookies

April 30, 2016 by Mary 13 Comments

When our kids were in grade school and high school, I would make homemade cookies on Sunday afternoons for their lunches during the week. Those were the days I went through a LOT of butter. And they’re both slim as can be now while a pound of butter lasts forever in our household with just my husband and me.

But every once in awhile, a little sweetness with butter really cuts through the mustard of life!

So last Sunday, I made these DELICIOUS tea-infused shortbread cookies, with the added touch of white chocolate chips!! Rich and buttery with the sandy texture of shortbread that contrasts wonderfully with crunchiness of the white chocolate chips, as that’s what they become. These little cookies, quick to make, will bring unmatched sighs to whomever you’re sharing with, should you decide to share.

Meditative Mind tea sachets from The Tea Spot in our recent spring MARY’s secret ingredients boxes will not only calm your mind but will also make your knees wobbly, it’s so relaxing. When you take a close look at the contents in your sachets, there’s actually miniature rosebuds visible in each bag. How cool is that??

Maria Uspenski, started this company as a way to spread the word (and products) about the restorative benefits of fine herbal teas when she was recovering from cancer. She is writing a book due out in the fall titled Cancer Hates Tea. Thankfully she is fine now and 10% of her sales are donated in–kind to cancer and community wellness programs. The Tea Spot is a Colorado–based, Certified B Corporation, woman-owned and operated business.

This tea, finely ground with a mortar and pestle and blended in the cookies, adds just that extra touch of mystery taste you will LOVE.

The Tea Spot Meditative MInd tea in a white porcelain mortar.

Meditative Mind tea – before grinding. Just look at that cute rosebud!

THE TEA SPOT MEDITATIVE MIND SHORTBREAD COOKIES – makes 24 – 30 cookies

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups flour
1 Tbs. cinnamon
1 1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground fennel seeds, ground with mortar and pestle or in a clean coffee grinder
1/2 tsp. ground cardamom
1 Tea Spot Meditative Mind tea sachet, remove the tea and grind with mortar and pestle
1 rounded cup white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla in a large bowl with a mixer until smooth. In another bowl, stir together flour, cinnamon, ginger, fennel, cardamom, and tea. Add to butter mixture and beat on low speed until blended. Stir in chocolate chips.

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Set 1 Tbs. balls of dough 1 in. apart on sheets and flatten slightly with a floured glass.

Bake until cookies are light golden on undersides, 15 to 18 minutes, switching pan positions halfway through baking. Transfer to racks to cool.

Serve with LOVE and a cup of Meditative Mind tea and go straight to heaven here on earth!

Store in an airtight tin or container.

Tea and Honey Marinated Chicken Breasts

May 11, 2014 by Mary 24 Comments

The Calmer Sutra Peppermyntle Tea and Ginger Infused Honey from Australia, which were in the spring box of MARY’s secret ingredients are, of course, divine as a cup of tea with honey. Lovely before going to bed at night, the peppermint is a digestive aid as is the ginger in their ginger infused honey. Add the lemon kick from the myrtle and you’ve got a flavor explosion in your cup. I LOVE the ginger honey! The ginger adds a kick of heat perfectly combined with the sweet honey, the combo is quite nice! (Please remember to refrigerate your honey after you’ve opened it.) With the myrtle being indigenous to Australia, a little research came up with a lot of dessert recipes for this herb. So of course I could have followed in that direction which would also work well with the honey, but I chose to go the savory way instead with this Tea and Honey Marinated Chicken Breasts recipe.

This is my first time marinating with tea and this resulting dish was just delicious! Besides the chicken being juicy, tender and subtly flavored, the browning was beautiful and I do believe that was because of the tea and honey!

Here’s the recipe:

TEA AND HONEY MARINATED CHICKEN BREASTS – serves 4

3/4 cup of water
1 tbs. Calmer Sutra Peppermyntle Tea
4 scallions, white and pale green only, chopped
3 tbs. canola oil, divided
Zest of one lemon
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tbs. low salt soy sauce
1 tbs. Calmer Sutra Ginger Infused Honey
1 tbs. chopped fresh ginger root
3 garlic cloves, minced
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Heat the water over high heat to a simmer. Pour over the tea leaves and steep for 5 minutes. Strain the tea mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl, and discard the tea leaves. Add the scallions, 2 tbs. canola oil, lemon zest and juice, soy sauce, honey, ginger and garlic. Stir to combine and place over a bowl of ice water to cool. Make 4 to 5 diagonal cuts 1/4” deep across each chicken breast half. Pour marinade into a zip lock bag, add chicken and massage the chicken with the sauce, turning occasionally and refrigerate overnight.

Heat the remaining tablespoon of oil in a large skillet over medium high heat.

Remove the breasts from the marinade and pat dry. Place the marinade in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce to a simmer. Add the chicken to the skillet without crowding and cook until browned, 3 – 4 minutes.

Turn the breast and continue cooking until the juices run clear when pierced with a knife, an additional 3 to 4 minutes. Set aside on a platter to rest for 5 minutes. Serve the chicken topped with the sauce.

I served this with fluffy Jasmine rice, topped with the sauce and a side of the Eggplant Tomato Yum.

Sanctuary T

June 16, 2013 by Mary Frances 12 Comments

The week before last I was invited to Sanctuary T, a restaurant on West Broadway here in NYC, for a tea service with other food bloggers. I let them know I couldn’t be there at 3pm due to an important client presentation, but I could get there at 4:45 or so, and would it still be going on? Yes, yes they said, please come. This is a restaurant and bar that serves breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. Whew – they seem never closed! They are known for their innovative approach to using tea as an inspiration and ingredient in their fine food and beverages.

Well my client meeting went even longer than expected and then I walked the wrong way getting out of the subway and arrived at the restaurant at 5:45. The official tea was, of course over, but they were oh so gracious and wanted to serve me anyway. I apologized and teasingly said it was way past tea time and time for cocktails!

They agreed and promptly served up a tea infused martini!! My kinda folks! Dawn Cameron is the owner and truly lovely and then I got to spend time with East, the manager of the restaurant. First off, it was a gorgeous day and they had all the doors wide open to the street. The “martini” was an Earl Grey infused gin with lavender infused angostura bitters and prosecco, served straight up. It was fantastic with the layering of flavors and much lighter in alcohol than a traditional martini. Perfect for a weeknight.

The tea service of sandwiches and sweets was beautiful, as you can see. My favorite was the garbanzo puree and kale chip and the traditional scone with roasted strawberries and clotted cream was to die for. There must have been 1000 calories in those few bites but no matter, I couldn’t stop eating it. The scone was so buttery, delicious and rich, it didn’t really need anything, yet I still put on the wonderful clotted cream and strawberries. I asked the chef how he roasted the berries but he wasn’t giving away any secrets. I was also excited to try the truffled egg salad but I couldn’t really taste or smell the truffle oil. And then the Nutella filled bomboloni was a little piece of heaven. I had the remaining sweets and sandwiches wrapped up to take home and share with my husband

After having a lovely conversation with East all through this, he suggested I try a real tea. I went for a tiramisu rooibos. They served it in a tall thermal sealed glass with a rock sugar stick – very pretty as you can see. See that little box there on the left – that’s their tea timer – each side has a different time for the different types of tea and the color of the sand tells you what’s what. Very clever. East said so many people love these custom hand made timers that most of them got stolen. Sad.

This is a lovely place – perfect for private bridal showers – which East said they do a lot of. I must bring Steve back for lunch or dinner. But taking a break in the afternoon for tea and little nibbles and sweets is truly a welcome pause from the fast-moving events of everyday life. We all function at such a hectic pace, I recommend you try this place out when you can.

We are in the country right now and will head back to the city soon. Since Zach is in Austria, our oldest and his girlfriend are cooking up a Father’s Day dinner for Steve. He has requested Beef Wellington. I made that dish once for Steve’s birthday several years back and I’m delighted that I’m not doing it tonight! It is labor intensive. I’ll report on our evening later this week.

Happy Father’s Day to all you Dads out there!!

Engaging stories of love, joy, comfort and friendship with proven scrumptious, healthy recipes, we celebrate LOVE as the secret ingredient for wonderful food!

Stash MerryMint Organic Green Tea Holiday Cocktail

Pecan, Olive Oil and Benedictine Coffee Cake with Magisso Cake Server

Tea and Honey Marinated Chicken Breasts

Sanctuary T

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