I love saying Matcha Latte.  It makes me want to burst out in song: “Where’s all mah soul sistas? Lemme hear y’all flow sistahs… Giuchie, Giuchie, ya ya dada… Matcha Matcha Latte ya ya…”  You know.

Matcha tea is super healthy for you.  Because you are ingesting the whole tea leaf and not just the steeped water, you get mucho benefits.  Drinking one glass of matcha is like drinking ten glasses of green tea, apparently.  If you are new to the benefits of green tea, check out this.

I learned myself how to whip up a Matcha Latte recently, and it is so yum, I thought I’d share it as a tip of the week. Suburban Matron Becky was here this past week, and I made one for her, and she can vouch for its deliciosity.  On that side note, look at how cute we are:

Remarkably Domestic & SubMat!

We were hanging in L.A., and soon we’ll be Blissdoming it, too.  Here we were at our mutual friend Erika’s house.  We’re even cuter all three of us.

PhD ladies

Y’all, that is some serious brain power in that photo.  We alls of us have PhDs.  That’s some thirty-odd years of esoteric studying-of-literature you got right there.  I think we should become a superhero alliance.  We’d travel the country– nay, the world!– helping innocent victims unravel the true meaning of Jane Eyre, or David Copperfield, or Clarissa.

ZOMG, get to the latte, right?

So, to make a Matcha Latte you need several things:

• Matcha green tea.  This is a powdered version of green tea, so the leaves are actually crushed into a fine powder.  I bought mine at Teavana, a store you can find at some malls.  You can also order online; I found a place called Matcha Source that has a lot of options.
• A whisk.  To make matcha, you need to mix the water and the powder.  There are actually special matcha whisks for this purpose, and I bought one at Teavana that looks like this:

You could probably just use a small metal whisk, though, too.  Or even a fork.

• Milk of your choice: I use nonfat.

Boil a small amount of water, and find yourself a bowl– cereal size will work well.  Put about one teaspoon of the matcha powder in the bowl.

Once the water is boiling, pour about ⅓ cup water onto the powder.  Whisk it up with whatever implement you are using.  You’ll need to whisk it for a good thirty seconds or so; the matcha should be frothy.

Heat your mug.  I fill mine with water and heat it in the microwave for two minutes.  When it’s done, pour out the water.  Then, strain your matcha mixture into the warm mug.  I usually strain mine since I haven’t yet been able to avoid one or two small matcha clumps.

Heat your milk, about ½ cup.  I have a milk frother on my espresso machine that I use, but you could just as easily heat milk in a saucepan.  If you want foam and are using a saucepan, just whisk the milk as it is warming.

Once your milk is warm, pour it over your matcha.  I also usually add about a teaspoon of agave nectar, or you could add a little regular sugar.

You’re done!  And this is what you get:

The green color is fabulous.  And it tastes super yummy, too.

As I posted about last year, around the holidays I always have a little cookie exchange with some lovely ladies.  We all bake about five dozen cookies, bring them to the party, eat them, take some home, and donate the rest to a food pantry.  It’s a fun little holiday tradition.

Of course, this year, I’m posting super late about this, but that seems to have been my trend during the latter half of 2010– overwhelming time commitments, and RD suffers.  But anyhoo, here’s the deets.

It’s often a small affair, since during the holidays many people have too many obligations.  This year we had nine different kinds of cookies, all fantastically delicious.

My contribution was Hot Chocolate Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Chocolate, anyone?  They were fantastic.  I found them on Savory Sweet Life here.

We had some traditional cookies, like these Peanut Blossoms:

Or these Molasses Spice Cookies:

And new takes on old classics, like these Chocolate Hazelnut Crinkles, made by none other than Foodism Mom:

Other contributions:

from top left: Crunchy Chocolate Treats, Mexican Sugar Cookies, Oatmeal Cookies, and Grasshopper Squares (brownie with mint and chocolate ganache)

It was a lovely time, and we made quite a few bags of cookies to take to the food pantry.  The people there are always so grateful, since as a food pantry they don’t really have anything for the kids who come by with their parents.  With individual bags of three cookies each, they had something nice to give out to the kids during the holiday.

I pulled out an old Christmas tablecloth that my mom made years ago.  I’d never used it, and when I pulled it out I was completely amazed at how… amazing it is.  She embroidered this whole deal, with matching napkins to boot.

This photo doesn’t do the whole thing justice; it’s actually an enormous tablecloth with snowflakes and trees embroidered around the edges, and these two angels in the middle with snowflakes around them.  Some of the embroidery has sequins and rhinestones embedded into it.

Details:

It’s super awesome, right?  The napkins are just as cool.

I also like to give a little party favor.  This year it was little tea cups filled with hot chocolate mix, tea bags, chocolates, a cookie cutter and a little cute whisk.

I hope you had a sweet holiday.  Did you have any excellent holiday cookies?

Back with another gift guide!

I just bought myself another cookbook, which is outrageous since I have way more than I could ever use.  But I can’t help myself.  I keep seeing fantastic ones that I must have.

So, in light of that, I thought I’d give you my top 5 “family” cookbooks.  I use scare quotes here because some of them aren’t specifically aimed at cooking for families, but I find that many of the recipes can be great for kids.

Here goes!

1.  The Family Dinner, by Laurie David.

I confess, this is the one I just bought.  But already I love it.  It naturally makes a case for family dinner, although I was in no need of persuasion.  But what I love about this book is that it isn’t just recipes.  It’s also ideas for fun thought- and conversation-provoking questions that will make your dinner interactions a little more profound.  Every recipe also include a list of steps that kids can do to help with the cooking, and there are quite a few “green tips” throughout, which isn’t surprising considering Laurie David produced Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth.  She was, at one time, married to Larry David of Curb Your Enthusiasm.  She is no longer, and she includes suggestions for family dinners when couples are separated or divorced, which is nice, too.

2.  Clean Food, by Terry Walters.

Clean Food is full of eco-friendly and healthy recipes that are really delicious.  The book is arranged seasonally, which I love, because you can usually count on finding everything fresh and tasty if you are cooking within the season.  Everything is vegetarian, with plenty of recipes that include alternative proteins like tempeh or seitan.  And if you’re more of an American traditionalist, you can stick with the legume recipes– or the plethora of simple vegetable dishes.  One great thing about this book is that it includes yummy recipes for cooking foods you may have always wanted to try but never found the right recipe.  I always wanted to include more kale in our diet since it’s just about the healthiest thing ever, but it just tastes so… bitter.  Enter Roasted Kabocha Squash with Kale, and now your kale is paired with possibly the sweetest squash on the planet, and the two balance each other nicely.

3.  Bean Appetit, by Shannon Seip, Kally Parthen, and Carisa Dixon.

True confession: Shannon is a friend of mine.  But her cookbook is too awesome!  She’s even been on Good Morning America with it, so she’s got food cred.  She and her business partner Kelly opened a kids’ cafe in Madison, WI, and this book follows their restaurant’s philosophy: getting kids to eat healthy by participating in food production and making eating fun.  There are great recipes in here, but probably even better are the questions for the dinner table (“if you were a hungry caterpillar, what is the last food you would eat before building your cocoon?”), food-related games, and fun facts that will make kids laugh.  Chapters are arranged by themes, including a section for book-themed foods, picnic menus, global foods, and party ideas.  You’ll love their little bean mascot, too.

4.  Everyday Cooking with Dr. Dean Ornish, by Dean Ornish.

You may not know who Dr. Ornish is, but he’s famous amongst us health-neurotics.  He was the first doctor to discover that heart disease is reversible; that is, if you have clogged arteries and go on his meal plan, you can actually reduce the plaque in your blood vessels.  Before Dr. Dean, the conventional wisdom was that you could halt its progression, but not cure heart disease.  So he’s kind of like, a big deal.  His book is old news, but it’s probably one of the most-used books on my shelf.  His chili recipe is the only one I ever make (vegetarian, of course), and it gets rave reviews all the time.  A Caesar Salad recipe with nonfat dressing that actually tastes good!  Mushroom and spinach lasagna!  The recipes in this book stick to his healthy heart plan, which means they all have less than 10% fat in them.  That’s pretty low, and you may not want to eat like this all the time, but his recipes are so good you probably won’t even notice you are eating super healthy.

5.  Moosewood Restaurant New Classics, by the Moosewood Collective.

This is the latest of eight cookbooks that the collective (19 chefs strong) has produced, and it is chock–CHOCK!– full of great recipes.  Moosewood is a vegetarian restaurant in New York, but what’s nice about these recipes is that they are takes on all kinds of classics.  Tofu Sloppy Joes, Low-fat Latkes, Pad Thai, Cioppino, Bibimbap… and Big Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Yum.  There are over 350 recipes, so you definitely get your money’s worth.

So if you have a foodie on your list, or someone who has to cook for him- or herself or a family, you might check one of these out.  They are fab!

Happy weekend!