Author Archives: Katie

Masala Chai

by Katie | Leave a comment

Tea is our ingredient of the season this winter. We’re using that as an excuse to sit down more often and relax over a cuppa’. Also, if you find my talk of spices interesting, you may like this post where I use a karha mix to spice up our pumpkin popsicles.

I was stumbling over my computer keys this afternoon while starting this post because I keep wanting to just write chai, but I know that’s not correct, so let’s get some vocabulary out of the way and then get on with this post.

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Chai is the word for tea in India. Masala means spiced or spice mix. So technically, when we Americans are drinking a “chai”, we’re really drinking a masala chai, a spiced black tea, not just a tea. Somewhere along the way we shorted masala chai to chai, and so I’ll stick with that abbreviation throughout this post, even though I’m focusing here on the masala. Or is it the karha?…

There’s nothing I like more than a warm cup of chai in my hands on a chilly winter afternoon. In the past I’ve always purchased either the concentrated liquid chai from the grocery store or tea shop’s chai blend for brewing. Today I want to share a beautifully simple and delicious chai recipe that you can use as the base for personalizing your cup of tea.

Traditional Karha

Another new word: karha. It’s the name for the spice blend used for making the masala chai. Traditionally, the karha begins with a combination of warming spices. This is commonly cardamom with some ginger, cloves, cinnamon, star anise, or nutmeg; all spices that we are familiar with when baking. In addition to those spices, some karha may include black pepper, fennel seeds, or coriander. You can also add spices like tumeric for their medicinal value. And those lists are not exhaustive, if there’s a spice you like, it’s fair game!

There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to the spice mixture. In India, the karha varies by region and even by the time of year. And likewise, outside of India, different regions of the world add different spices to their tea depending upon a region’s access to different spices and its palette.

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Chocolate Chip Cookies with Tahini

by Katie | 2 Comments

I *almost* feel bad posting another cookie recipe so soon after our ginger chews, but these are worth sharing. If you’re still riding the new-year-resolution-exercise-train, our friends have suggested that the addition of tahini makes these healthy. So there’s that.

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This recipe comes from Molly Yeh, and she got it from Danielle Oron’s Modern Israeli Cooking (which I’ve already added to my wishlist!). And to go on a tangent for a second. Have you ready Molly’s blog yet? If not, find some time to sit down and scroll through her creative recipes while enjoying her entertaining writing. That’s some blogger, and I’m so excited that she’s in the process of writing her own cookbook.

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2016 Resolutions : Same Same But Different

by Katie | 2 Comments

Calder’s the keeper of our resolution list. For years now he’s the one who motivates the discussion as we’re all sitting around the table on New Year’s Eve. As we share our goals for the coming year, he writes them down, and then reads them during the same discussion the following year. He’s also become a little too good at adding truthful remarks into the resolutions as he’s writing them. What do I mean?

I looked at the list that we put together last week, and on one of my resolutions he noted that I may “not necessarily enjoy it”. On other resolutions that someone says year after year and then fails at year after year, he’s been known to add the “stop laughing” suffix. As in, “take a weekly yoga class. stop laughing.” or “reach 150lbs mofos. stop laughing.” And then, of course, we’re all laughing at whoever set themselves up to fail again that year. We’re a bunch of dreamers over here.

It’s a tradition that’s become a lot of fun, and the fanfare of the discussion and review has made me take the idea of a resolution much more seriously. Although, you wouldn’t know that based upon my record for 2015. It was a fantastic year, there’s no doubt about that, but I think I failed miserably at almost every resolution!

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Above are my 2015 resolutions, and as you’ll see, their underlying intentions aren’t much different from my 2016 resolutions. I’m just going to keep knocking away at them and see what happens.

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Welcome January

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A new year! Ugg/yay. I’m feeling so many feelings about the flipping the calendar from 2015 to 2016. Excitement about all to come while wanting to slow down time because I don’t want to miss a moment and there’s so much to do, but I’m sure many of you feel the same way. I’m assuming that this is a sign of old age? blah.

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Three Champagne and Shrub Cocktails for New Year’s Eve

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_DSC1436Happy New Year’s friends!  This morning we took a few minutes from our hectic, kid-wrangling schedule to create some quick and delicious shrub and champagne cocktails.  Shrub is pretty much our favorite mixer and champagne is hands down the alcoholic bevy of New Year’s so boom – this post was born.  If you’re having a dry New Year’s, no worries, just swap out the champagne for seltzer and ignore the liquor suggestions or stir up some of these delicious mocktails instead!  If you’re down to drink, read on!

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Last Minute Gift for Pre-schoolers

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liveseasoned_winter2016_sewingbag5It’s Christmas week!!! We’ve been having so much fun with Alex this year since he really understands that Christmas is something special, but he’s still asking a lot of questions and trying to make sense of what’s going on around him. “When can we open the presents?” “We get to put the tree in our house?!” “It’s Christmas season, but not Christmas day, right?”

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Merry Christmas Everyone!

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Somehow it’s turned into a busy week around here, but some people have more on their to-do lists than others. I mean, Calder’s laughing at us because he hasn’t even started his Christmas shopping yet! How does he do it?

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Boulder got hit with a big snowstorm today and I was totally unprepared. I should have bought that molasses yesterday so we could be making ginger cookies today. Or ran to the craft store so I could put together some other little gifts. Instead, we’re just playing with play dough and eating leftover tortellini. #lifeishard

So, while the boys nap I’m working on a plan for the next few days.

  • We’ll make those ginger cookies.
  • I want to make some of this English toffee (scroll down).
  • I’m waiting for our Christmas cards to come and hoping to pop those in the mail.
  • We don’t include a letter with our cards, but Plum Organic’s holiday letter template has me cracking up. Ours is above. You just answer a few quick questions and the letter is made for you.
  • I just burned some Palo Santo because it makes the fire in our gas fireplace seem a bit more real and rustic.
  • I’m almost done with Luc’s stocking and then I want to start new winter hats for Alex and Luc. While working on this year’s design, I came across Tricksy and think it could be really helpful for future colorwork projects.
  • I’m now in the last-minute personalized gift stage of my shopping, so I’m spending quite a bit of time here and here. How about you?
  • Yesterday I reserved tickets for our first Christmas ride on the Georgetown Loop RR. Santa’s going to be there! I asked Alex what he’ll say when he sees Santa. “I’ll say ‘ho ho ho’ back to him.” Fair enough…. and yesterday he was going around saying “Merry Christmas Everyone!” to everyone. <3

And that’s our snow day, a whole lot of scheming going on over here.

Tasting Teas : Pu’er Tea with Dried Orange Peel

by Katie | 1 Comment

Tea is our ingredient of the season this winter. We’re using that as an excuse to do a lot of tasting and to share our finds with you. Also, if you like orange-y things,  it was our ingredient of the season last winter!

When Sarah was in town last week, we made it a point to visit Boulder’s Ku Cha House of Tea. We’re excited to tell you more about the shop and its tea house in another post, today I wanted to share some photos and details about the Pu’er tea in a dried tangerine that we took home for our afternoon tea.

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To make this specialty a fermented tea is stuffed into the whole rind or mandarins or tangerines. The stuffed fruit is then left to dry, allowing the tea to absorbs the light citrus aroma. The tea leaves can be brewed alone or with broken pieces of the dried tangerine peel, thereby amplifying the citrus flavor.

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Two Bits

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Sarah and I don’t have two bits to rub together today (hah!), but we are working behind the scenes scheming up some fun stuff for the season.

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In the meantime, our sister Kris sent us a picture early this morning, and she’s totally winning the race on getting crafty with tea. Those are chamomile & lemon bath balms. They look fantastic, and we are so excited to do some product testing for her ;-).