Tammy's Recipes

I've been getting emails from people around the world who read about my teabag collection and want to exchange teabags with me.

There seems to be a demand for U.S. teabag envelopes, since most collectors are in Europe. I've been collecting empty tea bag wrappers for 10+ years, but the time constraints of being a wife and mom (along with the costs of mailing packets overseas!) have diminished my exchange capabilities.

I haven't been able to find any good tea bag collection exchange lists online. So, I'm inviting tea bag collectors to leave comments on this post! Post a comment with your name, location and email address. You can email people directly from this list. :)

This week, we got a free sample* of Celestial Seasonings tea in the mail! The packet pictured above is an instant herbal mixture, sweetened with stevia. It's quite a small packet (perhaps 1/2 teaspoon or so) and makes two cups of iced tea when added to water.

We added the powder to an almost-full bottle of water. I let Yehoshua shake the bottle for me.

I don't usually like the instant herbal tea mixtures I've tasted, but this one was wonderful! It was slightly sweet and had a great berry flavor! I took one sip and told Yehoshua, "Oh, you're going to love this!" And he did. He drank most of the tea, until I took the bottle from him and said the rest was for me!

The next day, he asked me to make more of that red tea for him. ;) I told Joshua, "I know why they send out free samples to people. Now I want to buy some of that instant tea! And I would have never bought it without first tasting how yummy it is!" :)

But, I still have lots of pregnancy tea, so I don't really foresee myself actually buying instant tea that I don't need. I thought about getting some for Yehoshua, to use as a special treat or reward, but I doubt I could keep myself from drinking it all!

Have any of you seen this instant tea in stores, or tried a sample of it? If so, I'd love to hear what you thought! :)

*I've been regularly checking Wal-mart's free sample page, since they usually have 4-6 different free samples posted there. Right now, all I see is one for NutraSweet, which I would never use -- but in a few days, they should add more. I have the link saved in my favorites folder and just check back once or twice a week. :)

Red raspberry leaf tea is an excellent health supplement for women, especially during pregnancy. In the past, I had been given various herbal pregnancy teas, but I used the last of those a few months ago. I have been patiently impatiently wanting to order some herbs to mix up my own pregnancy tea. My herbs came this week, and I have been jumping for joy! Literally! Just ask Joshua how many times I've said "Honey, I know I already told you this, but thank you so much for the herbs!!!!!" :)

I ordered my herbs from BulkHerbStore.com. It's a family-owned Christian company with great service and great herbs... and great prices, as well! I had tried a few of their herbs before, but never purchased any myself. I ordered online, and my order came promptly. One of my items was marked as "backordered" on the receipt in the box, but, that item came in the mail the very next day!! That was amazingly fast. :)

I mixed my own pregnancy tea, based on the measurements given for the pre-mixed "Mama's Red Raspberry Brew".

8 parts red raspberry leaf
3 parts alfalfa
3 parts peppermint
2 parts nettle leaf

I whisked everything together, and then put it into a container in my tea drawer. I've already been really enjoying my "pregnancy tea"! :)

This handy little teapot makes it so easy to brew loose-leaf teas! (You can read my review and watch a video clip of me using it here!) I love it. Yehoshua does too (that's his hand in the picture). ;)

You know you're a teabag collector when:

You feel compelled to purchase new kinds of tea that you don't particularly care for, just so you can save the wrappers.

You know words like "tea", "green", "black", "lemon", and "apple" in ten (or more) different languages.

You've drank tea without knowing what kind it was, because you couldn't read the wrapper.

You get excited when you see a new packaging design for Lipton's old kinds of teas.

You've secretly taken empty teabag wrappers from someone's trashcan when you were at their house.

You never, ever just tear open a teabag. In fact, you have a special knife or scissors just for opening teabags.

You never make a cup of tea with a teabag that still has a tag attached to it.

When your guests have tea, you open the bag for them. If you're feeling especially kind (or self-conscious), you might let them use the tag, but you keep a watchful eye on it so you can remove the tag before the used teabag gets thrown away.

When your friends offer you a cup of tea, you look at their selection and drink a kind that you don't already have in your collection. Usually you already have envelopes from most of the kinds of tea they have, anyway.

You have developed specialized detective skills so that when you're in the tea aisle at the grocery store, you can shake, tap, jiggle, and squeeze an unopened box of tea and figure out whether the teabags inside are individually wrapped.

You're extremely disappointed when you open the new box of tea you bought and discover that the individually wrapped teabags are in plain white envelopes.

When you're putting empty teabags into your albums, you can identify whether the teabag still has the tag inside (or attached) by simply feeling the bag rather than looking.

And lastly:

Your husband is afraid to buy you tea for a gift, because he has no idea which one(s) you still need for your collection. :)

This week is going to be a full week of projects. For starters, I have put off filing our taxes and am only just now working on that. After dreading the process for months (mostly due to the time involved!), I know I will feel greatly relieved when it's over. I am generally not a procrastinator so I'm not sure why I've waited so long on this!

One project I recently did was organizing my teabag collection. It was already organized, but over the past year, I had collected many more empty teabag wrappers and needed to put them in my albums. I took a photo of the kitchen counter where I was working.

For those of you who have never heard of collecting teabags, my collection is basically one of each "design" of any and every teabag wrapper/envelope, including the little tags. I drink the tea and save the wrapper.

I started my collection when I was 13 or 14 (I really can't remember now!) and eventually found other collectors (mostly in other countries) and have traded tea with several ladies over the years. My collection has several thousand different teabag envelopes, but it's tiny compared to some collectors who have ten times as many!

When I was younger, I had much more time and money to devote to buying and trading tea. At this point in my life, I can't really afford to buy every new tea in the stores, or to do a lot of trading; nor do I have the time.

Since I still love drinking tea, I save all of my wrappers, and some of my friends save wrappers for me, also. My pile of "empties" grows, and once a year or so, I sort them all out. One of each kind goes into my collection, and the rest get sent to my collector-friends.

I think teabags are my only real collection of anything. I love collecting something that's "free", and I think they're fascinating! And my entire collection only fills part of a shelf on our bookshelves. For a practical tightwad like myself, it's the perfect thing to collect. ;)

Yesterday and today, while battling a sore throat, I have really been enjoying Long Life's Organic Ginger Blend. My friend Lin S. sent me a box of this tea as a gift. :)

This is one of the best ginger teas I've ever had! Normally, ginger tea just isn't my favorite.  And although this ginger blend isn't marketed as a medicinal infusion, it is helping my sore throat immensely.

This herbal tea has a natural sweetness (but is spicy-sweet rather than sugary-sweet) and a light, smooth ginger flavor. It isn't hot or biting, like so many ginger infusions.

Long Life's Organic Ginger Blend is delicious hot or cold. I think I must have drank 10 or 12 cups of this tea in the past couple days. I love it!

My friend Lin sent me some Snapple tea to enjoy! I'm excited to be reviewing five of Snapple's hot tea bag flavors -- Strawberry, Le-mmm-on, Mangoooooo, Orange-Inality, and Wild 'Bout Berries.

Read more for my reviews of these teas!

I thoroughly enjoy Adagio.com's tea chef contest. This month's tea was Golden Monkey, a Chinese black tea that is beautiful, smooth, and looks exactly like the photo on their website -- perfectly delightful! I love sampling new teas, and I love cooking. Somehow, the tea chef contest sparks creativity (Okay, I'll admit, I like the free tea! Who wouldn't?! ), and I usually really like the results! :)

Since I had never had Golden Monkey tea before, I made myself a glass of it, to help me decide what sort of recipe to create. The results were today's lunch: Golden Veggie Fried Rice. I thought it was delicious, and am looking forward to the leftovers tomorrow. ;)

I'm excited to be reviewing three different flavors of Revolution Tea: English Breakfast Tea, Sweet Ginger Peach Tea, and Earl Grey Lavendar Tea! My friend Lin sent these teas to me as a gift, and, having already tried the Golden Flowers Herbal Tea, I was expecting to really enjoy these three teas, as well!

Read more for my reviews...

Click here for the video review of Adagio.com's ingenuiTEA! (8 MB, WMV file, 2 minutes)

Some of you may recall my recent excitement over the discovery of adagio.com's monthly online Tea Chef contest! A free sample of their tea, and the opportunity to create a new recipe? Count me in! My two tea recipes so far have been Double Cranberry Crumb Cake and Almond Chestnut Biscotti.

Last Thursday, I was surprised with a FedEx package from Adagio.com. I was unaware that the most recent tea chef winner had been announced -- and that it was ME! Needless to say, I was shocked and delighted! 

The prize included adagio.com's ingenuiTEA tea pot, a beautiful, fun clear glass mug, and a tin of delicious Chestnut flavored black tea. You can bet I'm having a blast with this handy little tea pot that brews my loose leaf tea easily and conveniently! I am debating whether to ever buy bagged tea again -- which is monumental considering my addiction to collecting empty tea envelopes/bags!

And, if you're wondering how many cups of tea I drank the first day I used the ingenuiTEA tea pot, well, I'm not telling! ;) Let's just say my loose-leaf tea supply isn't going to last another year as was previously predicted. ;) The ingenuiTEA tea pot is just too easy to use. If you love high-quality tea, you're doomed. :D

I am also thoroughly enjoying the glass mug, since I normally brewed my tea in just any old mug. The glass mug they sent is light, holds a lot of tea (13.5 ounces), and shows off the beauty of the tea in a really great way!

So thank you, whoever took the time to vote for my little recipe. I love tea, and receiving a special prize just make my week!

We wanted to thank Adagio.com by making a short video review of their ingenuiTEA tea pot. The video is about 2 minutes long (8MB, WMV file), and shows how the tea pot works. I had never done a video review before this, so it was an interesting experience! :) You can right-click on the graphic below and save the video to your computer to view. Enjoy!

Trader Joe's sells an excellent Honey Lemon Herbal Tea. I can't seem to locate this tea online, so hopefully you live near a Trader Joe's store! We don't have one here where we live, but last year we were in the Seattle area visiting some family and I was able to go to a Trader Joe's and get some tea.

Trader Joe's Honey Lemon herbal tea is the BEST of its kind. I love honey lemon teas, and I've tried many brands. This is my absolute favorite for herbal (not flavored) honey lemon tea. It just tastes so REAL! The lemon is tangy but not powerful enough to make your face scrunch up. The honey flavor is a perfect complement.

Yehoshua and I drank my last bag of this tea last week when we all had colds. Trader Joe's Honey Lemon herbal tea is soothing and comforting. If you're a fan of honey lemon teas, this one is a must-try! :)

My Tea Chef entry for this month has been posted on the Adagio Tea Chef website! This time, I created a biscotti with almonds, vanilla, and chestnut tea.

When I envisioned this biscotti, I wanted a classic biscotti texture, nuts sprinkled throughout, and a highly fragrant aroma.

I couldn't be more pleased with the results of my experimentation! This tastes exactly as I had hoped, and the flavors of almond, vanilla, and chestnut combine for a soft, flavorful biscotti.

In short, this is really, really tasty! Joshua was very impressed and said it tasted like gourmet biscotti. I'm just delighted that I was actually able to create the biscotti I wanted. It's not too sweet, but perfect for serving with tea, coffee, or hot chocolate.

You can go here to view my recipe (and cast your vote for it, if you want!) or go here to view all the recipes submitted to the contest this month.

I also put the recipe here on my website, now that it's public. :) And for the record, I think any nutty black tea, or maybe even vanilla flavored black tea, would work in this recipe. :)

This afternoon, I was lying on the couch in the living room, nursing Eliyahu before his afternoon nap. Yehoshua was wandering around the house.

I couldn't see him from my position on the couch, but somehow since having children I've developed a great sense of hearing and some stellar detective skills. If I listen real hard, and think long enough, I can usually figure out what's going on.*

From the kitchen, I heard him exclaim, "Bear's talkin' on the telephone and drinkin' tea!"

I said, "Yehoshua! Put that box of tea back!"

"But Mama, Bear's talkin' on the telephone and drinkin' tea! That's goofy, Mama!"

Yehoshua likes to look at the pretty pictures on the Celestial Seasonings boxes of tea. I like to drink the tea! Read more for my review of Celestial Seasonings Golden Honey Darjeeling tea!

*Unfortunately, my skillz didn't prevent an iodine spill on the bathroom floor. Oh, fun! Did you know that iodine stains floors? That incident is what provoked my intense cleaning and organizing streak, which included the bathroom.

My friend Pinja in Finland once again sent me samples of four Nordqvist teas to enjoy and review! Yehoshua helped me taste these teas. Read more for our reviews of Nordqvist Darjeeling, Ceylon, Kenyan, and Assam teas!

I was very excited about entering the Tea Chef contest for the first time. My cranberry crumb cake turned out really yummy, too!! But, I didn't win.

I'm going to try again, of course. I mean, it's free tea and a great incentive to create a new recipe! Next month's tea is chestnut. Hmn. Should be interesting!! :)

I am excited about this. Today in the mailbox I received a cute little tin of cranberry black tea and I'm planning to buy some cranberries at the grocery store tomorrow.

I did a little reading in my Cooking With Tea cookbook and already have the start of a (hopefully!) fabulous new recipe in my head. It will be a few days before I have it made, photographed, and eaten, but I will be sure to update when I've created something!

This could be fun!

This week at Rite Aid Pharmacy, I got another box of Celestial Seasonings tea... for free! If you have a Rite Aid Pharmacy near you, you can go buy a box of tea (on sale for $1.99) and submit the receipt online to get your rebate. Every week or two, I get a couple things from there that are free after rebate.

I've had Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer tea in the past, and it never seems to last long at our house. Not sure why, since I even make two cups of tea from each tea bag. At any rate, I was delighted to get another free box this week. ;)

Read my review!

Why, why, why do I have to have about 50 different things I want to blog about?!

Why couldn't I just have, say, one thing on my mind at a time?

I feel like my mind is scattered between about 200 different little yellow folders on my desktop, all in one HUGE folder called "tammysrecipes"!

I think I need some

.

Good night! :)