Friday, August 6, 2021

Moonstruck! Once In A Blue Moon There Is An Ice Cream.... I Call It Bella Luna Blue

   We've all heard the expression "Once In A Blue Moon!". It's an expression that denotes scarcity, rarity, the unusual. Blue moons themselves are pretty dang rare. They only occur every two or three years. We had two of them in 2018, and  those were only two months apart.  In 2021 we're expecting 3 Super moons, 2 lunar eclipses, and 1 Blue Moon. August 22/23 are the dates to look out for, as that is the night of the 2021 Blue Moon.

When this Blue Moon happens it doesn't mean that the moon is going to change color. Nope, it's not that simple. 

All this Blue Moon business started when the Christian Ecclesiastical calendar used the phases of the moon to determine the start of Lent, and the feast of Easter. They had the Lenten Moon, they had the Paschal Moon just before Easter, so they decided to name the third moon of the year the Blue Moon in order to make certain that Lent and Easter coincided with the right moon phases so that all religious celebrations would still fall during their "proper" times. If you want all the rest of the info on Blue Moons just check THIS out. It explains everything.

 When the follks at Adagio Teas  contacted me and asked if I'd like to try their Bella Luna Tea, ONLY available during a Blue Moon, of course I couldn't resist. Who turns down a rarity like that? An when someone gives me something to try, I'm not going to just drink it, I'm going to get really involved and see what else I can do with it. After all, Blue Tea? I've drunk teas of several shades, green, red, pink, green, black, and brown but never, ever blue. Who ever heard of Blue Tea? Well now you have.

The secret is in the Blue Butterfly Pea Flower.

This little beauty has the most glorious scent and taste. It's reminiscent of blueberries, and lemongrass, with it's own natural sweetness. 

This is a tea one does not have to add much sweetener to. When added to hot water, the flowers turn the tea blue. Add a dash of lemon and it turns purple (more on that at a later date. I immediately started to think about what I could do with it besides just brewing a pot and staring at the pretty blue color. I thought about several ways to use it, but then the weather turned hot. I mean hot hot hot. Not as bad as the heat dome squatting over the pacific northwest, but close. 

It hit 104 a couple of times and to me, that's ice cream weather. Actually  any weather is ice cream weather. I grew up in cold and foggy San Francisco and remember hearing as a kid that more ice cream was sold in San Francisco despite the chill. Maybe it was just local pride, who knows if it was true or not.  One thing is certain, my hometown sure does love it's ice cream, even if most of the time when it's eaten in a San Francisco summer, one's wearing a coat. I don't know if that's what influenced me but I do know that when I received my bag of Bella Luna Blue Tea, I had ice cream on my mind. So that is what I decided to make out of my tea.

 

BELLA LUNA BLUE MOON ICE CREAM

Here's What You Need:

2 cups of whipping cream

2 cups of whole milk

3/4 cup of sugar

6 to 8 tsps of Bella Luna Loose Leaf Tea 

1 pint of fresh blueberries

Here's what To Do:

In a small pot mix together the milk, cream, and sugar.

Add in about 6 to 8 tsps of Bella Luna Blue Tea.


 Heat the mixture, while to stirring it.

When the milk, cream and sugar mixture nearly hit's the boil, you will see the color start to change.


When your mixture is a lovely robins egg blue, strain it into a bowl.

Place a piece of clingfilm across the top and refrigerate the mixture over night.

The next day place the mixture into an ice cream maker...

...and turn it on

After about 20 minutes add in your fresh blueberries.

Let the ice cream churn for another 5 minutes or so then scoop it into a container and set it in the freezer to firm up for several hours.

Then scoop it out, scatter some fresh blueberries on top and enjoy. Because of the natural sweetness of the butterfly pea flower, this ice cream does not need a lot of sugar added. I use about 3/4 of a cup and that is because of you don't, your ice cream will freeze sooooo hard you will think you are in Antarctica. Trust me, I found this out the hard way many years ago. So, 3/4 of a cup is enough sugar, don't worry about it not being sweet enough. It will be.

      

So there you have it, delicious, sweet, blueberry-fresh. If I'd had this tea on the 4th of July I'd have served it with strawberries and whipped cream for a whole Red, White, and Blue  Patriotic  Dessert Extravaganza.

Now......here's what makes this special. This tea is ONLY available right now. Yes, you heard me  it's only available on the days of a Blue Moon and the next one is on August 22...so get shopping!!!

Order Loose leaf teas here:

This chance only comes along once in a Blue Moon, because after all isn't that the point?!

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