How’s your weekend going?

Atlanta has been crazy hot for the last two months, hovering around 95 degrees every day and threatening to rain all the time, though it rarely does. The air has been still and thick as peanut butter with all the humidity. Yesterday though, we caught a break. High of 78 with a gentle breeze. Perfect day to get outside!

I had a weird breakfast before we went out. Vanilla orange yogurt with grapes, puffed amaranth, and two crumbled up raw nectarine cookies. This did not work, super strange.

And I popped one of these…

Another strange food item: cookies made with oats, almond butter, honey, and……mashed cannellini beans. I’ve seen some recipes around the web that used beans in baked goods so I thought it was worth a shot, no dice though. I don’t hate them but I don’t love them either, so I’m not gonna put up the recipe.

Anyway, we got out and enjoyed the nice weather while it lasted by walking into downtown Decatur and stopping in Leon’s for a few drinks and what turned into dinner.

I started with a cocktail. This one had rum and allspice and some other liquors I can’t recall. It was delicious and refreshing.

And Jeff, who has been on an IPA kick lately, got the Southern Tier Hop Sun.

I even liked that one, and I don’t usually care for IPAs. It has a great bready flavor and isn’t too oily or hoppy.

And we can’t go in Leon’s without getting a side order of fries with their amazing garlic aioli. I am a huge mayo hater, but this house-made thick and creamy aioli is just so good!

I forgot to take pictures of the flatbread and zucchini casserole we got as well, those were downed in like 3 minutes flat.

I did manage to snap a shot of this awesome charcuterie plate though before it was demolished. All house-made cured meats, pates, and fruity mustard. One of the best I’ve ever had.

More beer was consumed…

It was just so lovely out that we didn’t wanna leave. It’s really nice to not have to pay too much attention to how much you’re drinking when you know you’re walking home.

What did you get into this weekend?

July 17, 2011 Alayna Discussion 2 comments

Finally, I got em’ right!

I have been trying to get these Chinese tea eggs to come out beautifully marbled and full of salty smoky flavor and I finally did it!

Tea eggs are a common Chinese snack found in street food stalls and also made at home to eat with a hot cup of tea. The intricate marbled lacework across the white comes from soaking in a marinade of soy sauce, Chinese black tea, and spices. Here’s how it’s done….

If you can boil water, you can make tea eggs. I used this method of hard-boiling eggs to make sure they came out the perfect consistency and it worked marvelously! Place up to 6 eggs in a pot that isn’t too huge for them but also not crowded. Add 1 and a half quarts of water and start heating it up.

As soon as the water comes to a bare simmer (rising bubbles are starting to make the surface bounce and quiver but not yet roll,) remove the pot from the heat and let the eggs sit in the hot water for 10 minutes.

Then rinse the eggs under cool water until they are cool enough to touch.

Now comes the fun part, bashing them up!

Use the back of a spoon to break the egg all over, making a fine meshwork of cracks. There is a membrane just under the shell that will hold all the pieces in place so don’t worry about breaking it apart, just don’t hit it so hard that you jam shell pieces down into the egg!

Add the eggs back to the pot and add just enough water to cover. I use the same water that the eggs boiled in and just pour some out.

Add soy sauce, mirin, cinnamon sticks, anise, black peppercorns, and any style of black tea you can get your hands on, though a traditional Chinese black or pu-erh is best. Heat the marinade just until you can smell the spices infusing and the tea leaves are unfurled and soft. Don’t let it boil or even simmer, it’ll overcook the eggs!

In China it is common to let the eggs sit in the marinade for 2 days to fully absorb the flavor. I let mine sit overnight, on the counter until cool and then in the fridge in a sealed plastic container. If you really wanna eat them sooner, 4 hours should do it.

Then they’re ready to peel. I have not found a good way to do this without half-mangling the egg whites, so if you have a preferred technique by all means use it. One good tip I do know of though is to try to get under the membrane so that you can peel up more of the shell at once.

Serve with tea or any time!

Chinese tea eggs

Hard boiled eggs marbled with fragrant soy, spices, and Chinese black tea.

Ingredients

• 4 to 6 eggs
• 1.5 quarts water
• 1 star anise pod
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 tsp. black peppercorns
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1 tbsp. mirin
• 2 tbsp. or 2 teabags of black tea

Cooking Directions

1. Put eggs in cold water in a saucepan that is just big enough for them.
2. Bring heat up to a bare simmer, remove from heat and let sit in hot water for 10 minutes.
3. Run cool water over eggs then crack all over with the back of a spoon.
4. Return eggs to pot and pour out all but enough of the water to just cover eggs.
5. Add seasonings and sauces and turn heat to medium-low to infuse spices and tea into liquid.
6. After the marinade smells fragrant, turn off heat and let eggs sit in the liquid for at least 4 hours or overnight.
7. Peel eggs carefully and store in the refrigerator in an airtight container.

The flavor is faintly smoky and lightly salty with a slight tickle from the spicy anise. I love to keep of few of these in the fridge for a healthy and satisfying snack in the afternoon. They are perfect to pop right after a good workout for a protein punch! But mostly, I like to savor them in exactly 4 bites, each with the perfect proportion of creamy just-set yolk.

I hope you try them, they’re worth the wait!

July 11, 2011 Alayna Discussion, Recipes 11 comments

I’ve been meaning to give these Raw Revolution bars a shot for a very long time. I happen to love “green superfoods” like spirulina and chlorella so long as they’re not too aggressively bitter, so I thought that I might like this one if it actually tasted like banana, but there’s always that chance that it could end up tasting like a freshly mowed lawn.

I love it when companies make an effort to listen to the dietary needs and wants of consumers by making their products as inoffensive as possible. This one is gluten free, dairy free, soy free, peanut free, vegan, kosher, and contains no artificial preservatives or ingredients to speak of. While I may not necessarily need all of those things, I feel better knowing that this is an extremely “clean” product free of any crap that I don’t need to put in my body.

It clocks in at 170 calories. Not bad, but I tend to feel like 200 to 250 is best for a snack that actually satisfies your hunger for more than a minute. 18 grams of sugar is a little high, but most of the sugars are fruit sugars and the rest is agave nectar, not the worst sweeteners out there. Those are the two things I look at most often when selecting these bars, calorie content and sugar.

Appearance: Darker than expected, definitely from the dates. Looks smooth and ingredients are evenly distributed.

Taste: Mmm! I expected this to taste like banana bread as many banana-based bars do, but it actually tastes like a pina colada! A very present and natural-tasting banana flavor with a twinge of what tastes like pineapple, though there is no pineapple in the bar. And though it’s packed to the gills with green stuff, there really isn’t any bitter or grassy flavor to speak of, just tastes like delicious bananas and dates.

Texture: Smooth and pasty like a Larabar but with little bits of nuts mixed in.

Overall, I loved this one! It’s a really original flavor that I haven’t come across elsewhere. I like that I can take in some healthy green stuff without my mouth tasting like it’s packed full of lawn clippings soaked in algae. And while it has the similar smooth and pasty texture of a Larabar that I love so much, it’s a bit larger and therefore more satisfying than a Larabar. WIN!

Do you prefer smooth or crunchy bars?

July 10, 2011 Alayna Discussion 3 comments