In my previous post, I mentioned my distaste for purposefully dyed green items for the sake of St. Patrick’s Day. Just as I did last year with naturally vibrant & green vegetables, I present to you some recipes that are green because of their ingredients rather than glowing green because you walked down the “baking” aisle to grab dye. No dyed green beer here, folks, just deliciously healthy green recipes featuring, you guessed it from the title, matcha!
Never heard of it before? Let’s get y’all educated then! Matcha is a type of green tea from Japan & is one of the healthiest teas you can consume because you’re drinking the entire tea leaf. It was first made in China & brought over to Japan by a Chinese Buddhist monk named Eisai. After a hundred years of its introduction, matcha tea ceremonies became a pretty big deal in Japan. So, how is it made? After the tea leaf is plucked, the leaves are steamed & dried. It is sorted meticulously to yield all the best parts of the tea leaf called tencha. The tencha is then pulverized–with care of course–to become matcha, an ultra-fine powdered green tea, naturally green! So, instead of dying your cookies, pasta, or eggs green with propylene glycol, FD&C Yellow 5, FD&C Blue 1, & propylparaben, just add a little bit of matcha, baby!