Tiffany Bee

Delicious recipes for vegetarians, vegans, pescetarians, & omnivores alike.

Tea Time Thursdays

Tea Time Thursdays: Jumpy Monkey

September 17, 2015 // Posted in Breakfast, Gallery, Photo Journal, Recipes, Tea Time Thursdays

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YOU GUYS, it’s pumpkin season again aka my favorite season. Summer? Pft, too hot & also bugs. Spring? The melting snow becomes black mush & it’s gross. The blooming cherry blossoms hang out for like 2 weeks & then they die. Also, bugs are back with vengeance. My point is that it’s pumpkin season – the most important season because pumpkins????. Look, there are a lot of pressing issues in the world, so I’m going to make it clear that I’m being facetious, but I must emphasize with hyperbole how much I love pumpkin season.

This Tea Time Thursdays will not be with a pumpkin tea because it’s embarrassing that the time before my last TTT was on pumpkin tea, so…here’s my attempt to mix it up. But just so you know, DAVIDsTEA has 4 new pumpkin teas. Yep. Get PUMPED y’all! Okay let’s actually talk about what’s in my picture right now.

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Tea Time Thursdays: National Hot Tea Month

January 29, 2015 // Posted in Food I Made, Photo Journal, Recipes, Soups, Tea Time Thursdays

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Did you know that this year, January is National Hot Tea Month? Pretty spiffy, 2015, I like you already. I ended 2014 with a deliciously spicy, but totally not winter appropriate, noodle recipe & begun the year with a completely appropriate winter soup recipe. Since this month is extraordinary as it’s National Hot Tea Month, I thought what better way to combine the tail end of last year’s last recipe with this year’s first recipe? Well, what better way? I’ll tell you: put a bird on it! Couldn’t resist a Portlandia reference – let’s try this again: pour some tea on it! Using tea as soup broth is not some new invention, but it’s underrated & not trendy…yet. Depending on the quality of tea you’re using, green tea is packed with antixoxidants, light caffeine, & so darn healthy for you (lowers cholesterol!). Slurp it up with some noodles & you’ve got one great healthy meal recipe! No need to go on some strange Beyoncé lemonade detox! Drink more liquids (*cough* tea *cough*), eat fresh, seasonal whole foods, & avoid fast food! Boom, detox. & you thought shedding that holiday weight would be hard, pffffffpfpfpfpfpft. Now hit that “continue reading” button to get ahold of my new recipe celebrating National Hot Tea Month!

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Tea Time Thursdays: Pumpkin Edition

October 30, 2014 // Posted in Desserts, Drinks I Made, Food I Made, Photo Journal, Recipes, Tea Time Thursdays

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Just in time for Halloween, Tea Time Thursdays gets an added layer of sweetness in the form of pumpkin chocolatey goodness. Guess where this inspiration came from? Pinterest. I have this love/hate relationship with Pinterest – the photos I pin from my own website barely get any pins, but when more popular pinners pin my photo, well, my site gets a flurry of views, but no new followers. I’m going to break this 1k follower barrier somewhere eventually! I’m looking at you, Instagram.

As I’ve mentioned previously, more pumpkin delights will be shoved in your eyeballs. Forgive my inappropriate coffee mug – I stupidly left my teacups at home, but they’ll be back in Boston with me in January. So, let’s dive right into pumpkin goodness.

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Tea Time Thursdays: Coconut Tea & Macarons

July 17, 2014 // Posted in Drinks I Made, Food I Made, Photo Journal, Tea Time Thursdays

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Remember that macaron craze back in 2011? Yeah, so I was late to that party by 3 years; I just tried to make them this month. My second attempt at making them went really well, but they were stuck to the wax paper, so I had to start all over. Almond meal is pretty expensive, so if you’re a Slowpoke like me in experimenting with macarons, you’ll want to get the cheapest almond meal you can find (Trader Joe’s) so it won’t hurt your wallet so much if you mess up. The art of making macarons is a science more than it is an art & when I get my hands on more almond meal, I’ll be posting up some recipes for macarons.

For the most part of last week, I came down with a terrible cold thanks to hanging out in a cold wet swimsuit for 5 hours at a day club in Vegas. I felt as though death was approaching as I figuratively coughed out my lungs, so the simplest throat soothing remedy was a nice warm cup of tea. When you’ve a cold, it’s best to go with a pleasant green tea with ginger to help make you feel a little better. Fortunately, I just purchased a tin of loose leaf coconut tea with ginger & lemongrass from Trader Joe’s the week before. Coconut is all the rage these days & it deserves to be! It’s got amazing healthy & nutritious properties such as having the same amount of electrolytes you’d find in a sports drink & it’s rich in fiber, vitamins (C, B1, B, E, B3, B5, B6), & minerals (iron, magnesium, calcium, phosphorous, selenium). Using coconut water instead of plain water in your smoothies will help jump start your day to a healthier one, so imagine how wonderful it is as a tea paired with ginger & lemongrass.

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Tea Time Thursdays: Green Tea & Sandwiches

May 15, 2014 // Posted in Drinks I Made, Food I Made, Gallery, Photo Journal, Recipes, Sandwiches, Tea Time Thursdays

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If you thought I only had three obsessions–books, Ryan Gosling, & sushi–you’d be wrong. I have four, okay? So, what is this elusive fourth obsession? It’s tea, but more specifically loose leaf tea. If you already knew that because I wrote about it in my sidebar, shut up, I already love you. I’m obsessed with tea. I collect it, consume at least 3 cups of it daily, & I’ve accrued lots of fun facts on tea. Tea originated in China & is the second most consumed beverage in the world, only trailing water. Although green tea has less caffeine & is praised for its health benefits, 90% percent of tea sold in the West is black tea. So what’s the difference between the two? Fermentation! That’s right, black tea is fermented green tea & has a longer shelf life than green tea. Black tea is also richer in flavor, higher in caffeine, & also has many health benefits such as cancer prevention, stress relief, & immune system boosts to name a few.

Tea Time Thursdays is a new series in addition to Musical Mondays & Foodie Fridays that I hope some of you will look forward to, if not for the tea, then maybe for the snacks that accompany the teas. This Thursday, I chose a nice & light green tea from Taiwan, which I paired with two different open faced sandwiches that are vegetarian & can be made vegan. In the future, I’ll provide the company & website so you can buy from them if my post peaked your interest. Since the tea I’m featuring doesn’t have a website, you can find high quality loose leaf green tea from American Tea Room, Mountain Tea, &/or Tea Chai Te. Loose leaf tea is worth your money, trust me.

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