Pineapple matcha smoothie

This is a green smoothie, but the green is from matcha (powdered green tea) instead of bona fide greens. It's a delicious way to start the morning, mostly sweet with some bitterness from the tea.

Pineapple matcha smoothie

1/2 banana

1/2 cup orange or pineapple juice

3/4 cup frozen pineapple pieces

1 tsp matcha

Tea eggs

I've made these tea eggs a few times over the past few years. They're a traditional Chinese snack, or so the internet tells me. The flavoring is mostly from soy sauce, but the spices and tea give the eggs a very complex flavor. I don't remember where I got the recipe; I have it written on a piece of paper and stuck to the fridge.

The marbled surface of the eggs comes from partially hardboiling them, then cracking the shells all over before cooking the rest of the way and and steeping them for a few hours or overnight. You have to crack the eggs pretty well to get the marbling. Here's one example of how mine looked before steeping.

Tea eggs

6 eggs

3/4 cups soy sauce

2 star anise

2 tbsp black or oolong tea

1 tsp sugar

1 cinnamon stick

1 tbsp peppercorns

Some tangerine or orange peel

Place eggs in a small saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer for 3 minutes.

Run eggs under cold water and, when cool enough to touch, crack all over with a spoon. Return to saucepan with still-hot water.

Add soy sauce, star anise, tea, sugar, cinnamon, peppercorns, and citrus peel. Bring to a boil, lower heat to a simmer, and simmer for 40 minutes. Turn off heat and let steep for a few hours or overnight.

Earl Grey shortbread cookies

This is my second time making this recipe for Earl Grey shortbread cookies. The tea flavor is subtle but nice. I have never been a fan of shortbread cookies, but having a little extra flavor is nice, and I find them much tastier homemade than store-bought. The second time I made them, I changed up the method just a little both to account for the fact that I have a mixer but not a food processor and to make them rolled cookies instead of a log that would then be sliced. The rolling process was pretty time-intensive. I don't know if shortbread is meant to be rolled out, and it was kind of sticking to both the cutting board and the rolling pin. Flouring the pin didn't seem to help, so I'm not quite sure what the best way to deal with that would be, besides just being patient.

I didn't mind taking the time to roll them out since I just got a bunch of cute cookie cutters, as you can see in the above picture. I'm not sure what all of them are. There's definitely a dog, but there's also another one that's either a dog or a sheep. There is a hippo, too. That's nice. The one in the top left is either a foot or a bird that's sitting down. I kind of think it's a foot, so maybe it goes with the shark and umbrella as kind of a beach-themed set.

Earl Grey shortbread cookies

2 tbsp loose-leaf Earl Grey tea

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

In a coffee grinder or small food processor, grind the tea until it's not powdered but a bit more broken up than it started. Mix tea, flour, and salt together in a medium bowl and set aside.

Using a mixer or wooden spoon, cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla. Add the flour mixture and stir to combine. Refrigerate until ready to roll out and cut into fun shapes. (Alternatively, you can follow the original recipe's suggestion that you roll the dough into a log, wrap in saran wrap, refrigerate, and cut into discs.)

Bake at 375 for 12 minutes, or until turning golden brown. Allow to cool on the baking sheet a few minutes before transferring to cooling racks.