Ice Cream Tea Party, When Chai is Not Enough...Plus A Giveaway!

 
   The one thing I love on a cold winters night here in Sonoma is a nice hot cup of chai. I always make my own as most of the store bought stuff is far too sweet for my taste. I want control of my spices and sweets. When Summer rolls around and the hot weather is upon us, there's always iced chai but somehow I'm always too lazy to make it. Enter Adagio Teas......

   I was contacted a couple of weeks ago by the folks at Adagio asking me if I'd like to sample some of their teas. I love tea, and always have a lot of it in the cupboard, but what I really like to do beyond drinking it, is to cook and bake with it, such as these Earl Grey Macarons with Meyer Lemon filling I made for CocoaPlanet last year...GlutenFree of course as all macarons are, but also Vegan all the way.
 

  
   Anyway, I was extremely impressed with the tea choices at Adagio...the teas are Direct Trade, and beautifully described as to flavors scent etc. There are full instructions as to how to brew it, and what the cost is per cup (I, being a canny shopper love that!) and who's growing it. Everything anyone needs to know, plus the varieties they offer are extensive. If it's a specific tea you want, chances Adagio has it.

   After checking out everything, I chose some of my favorites to work with and I started with Darjeeling Sungma Summer Tea. Since it was about a zillion degrees here in Sonoma the day my tea arrived, there was only one thing I wanted to do with it first and that was to make ice cream!

   So, I'm saying up front, this recipe is for an ice cream maker. If you don't have one I'd say try and find one. I got my first one used for 25 bucks and it was the best investment on my money I ever had. It's still working and I have added other brand new ones since then. I kind of have a thing for ice cream machines, as ice cream is one of the fastest, easiest kid- pleasing desserts out there. 5 minutes in the machine, an hour in the freezer and you are good to go. So just putting this out there...for this recipe one needs a machine. It's very simple and only uses a few spices...so here we go.

Darjeeling Ice Cream

Here's What You Need:

2 cups of whipping cream
2 cups of whole milk
3/4 cup of sugar
10 whole cardamom pods, cracked
4  whole cloves
2 slices of peeled fresh ginger
6 peppercorns
1 cinnamon stick
5 Adagio Teas Darjeeling Sungma Summer Tea Bags


Here's What To Do:

Mix the whipping cream and milk together with the sugar, ginger, cinnamon, peppercorns, cloves, and cracked cardamom pods
When it's well mixed put it on a medium flame and heat it up.
DO NOT BOIL it, just get it nice and hot below the boiling point.
Take it off the flame and add in the Adagio Darjeeling Sungma Summer Tea Bags.
Put a lid on the pot, and let everything steep for about 10 minutes.

Remove the tea bags, and strain all the spices out.
Place the mixture in the fridge for a few hours or overnight to chill thoroughly, then when it's cold enough, put it into your ice cream machine and follow ice cream making instructions.
When you take it out of the machine, put it into a freezer container and let it chill in the freezer for an hour or two till it firms up.

   When I served it, I couldn't resist baking a few madeleines to go along with it ...click on the link for the recipe for those.

      
 Now here's the Giveaway...

   Adagio Tea and The Colors of Indian Cooking are giving away 5 pouches of Darjeeling Sungma Summer Tea to 5 winners. All you have to do to be entered to win...is follow @AdagioTeas  and @kathygori on Twitter and leave me a comment here about it. The Contest is open now and we'll announce the winners on July 7th...so if you'd like to try this amazing tea, and get creative with it..let me know!

2nd Blogiversary Giveway!! Enter Now!

  Well, it's that time of year again. Actually if you want to be technical, it's waaay past that time of year. I missed my blogiversary. Yes, I did. And I thought I loved me too. I thought I cared. That's what I get for all the sweating over hot clay pots, and cooking and dicing, and chopping and peeling. That's all the thanks get. I forget??!! My own blogiversary??? I should make myself sleep on the sofa in the guest room for a few days. Then I should come crawling back to myself with one of those dressed up teddy bears, flowers, chocolates and lingerie. I'd like to come up with some great excuses. I was shopping for goat and I got really caught up in all the glamour????? The dog ate my clay pots? Alas, I have none. I screwed up. I lost track of time. I forgot. So here I am two weeks late to the party but at least I haven't come empty handed. I come bearing prizes!
   I can't tell you how much fun this blog is for me. As someone who spends her life writing for a living, if anyone had told me that after working on a script all day I'd love to just sit down and write about the big mess I made in the kitchen earlier that day, I would have thought they were nuts. When I'm done writing comedy for the day, I want to sit down, put my feet up and watch some dark, depressing Icelandic cop movie. Something about a guy eating a sheep's head for dinner every day, (Jar City) and not just your ordinary sheep's head... this is Iceland, they have take-out sheep's head.
   Or maybe I'm, in the mood for a good old fashioned down home cat-fight with the Real Housewives of Wherever. But writing for fun?? Hey, I'm a pro. Do movers like to schlep pianos around after hours for the hell of it? Yeah, you see what I mean? But something happened when I started writing this blog. It went from something that I did to augment the podcasts I was doing for "A Million Cooks," to a big big part of my life.
   Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love what I do for a living and count myself lucky in the extreme that I have been able to earn my living as a screenwriter. But screenwriting is only one part of the process. There are directors and studio execs and actors and producers and agents, so it's collaborative in the extreme. Hey, you've seen "Entourage," you get it. The cooking however, is all me. I am the auteur of my kitchen. There is no one telling me "make the cilantro sexier", or "the beets wouldn't really do that in real life, would they? " or "the goat needs an arc. " Well, maybe the goat might.
   An actor cannot leave my vindaloo on a plane and I have to get him a fresh pot. No director  insists  his girlfriend come and chop mangos with me while I'm trying to make chutney. I am the queen of my kitchen, I am the master of my domain.
  I so appreciate all the friends I've made while doing this blog, and look forward to actually getting together with some of you one of these days at some of these blog events I'm always hearing about. I'm getting a pair of stilettos all ready since that seems to be required wear.
  Anyway, I can't believe another year has passed, and to all who've helped "The Colors Of Indian Cooking" grow, thank you. I don't know where I'm going with this quite yet. But I'm serious about getting there. My friend Paula Wolfert has encouraged me to do a book, and since I'm a writer and I certainly have reams of material, that's something I'm working on.
    But on to the prizes.
    I have two prizes this year:
   One of my favorite and much used source cook books is Mangos and Curry Leaves Culinary Travels Through The Great Subcontinent .

The good people at Workman Press have been generous enough to give me a copy to give away to one of you. I love this book and I know you will too. It is worth it's weight in gold and that's saying quite a lot 'cause this is a big book!

  The other prize I have is a new discovery. Organic Coconut Water Vinegar from Tropical Traditions. I use their products in most of my cooking because when I cook, I cook old skool and I want the best most authentic flavor I can get.

They sent me a bottle of Coconut Water Vinegar (which I'd never heard of before) to test, and I tried it in my goat vindaloo. It turns out that coconut water is what is intended for use in the recipe, and the flavor it added was over the moon perfect. They have been kind enough to offer to share a bottle of this great vinegar with one of you.

    So how do you get this stuff???? Here's what to do?

1.) Follow  @WorkmanPub  and  @Troptraditions on Twitter 
2.) Follow @kathygori on Twitter or follow my blog The Colors Of Indian Cooking
3.) Tweet about the sponsor and my giveaway  or mention it on your blog
4.) Let me know you've done so

 The drawing is going to be conducted on Random.org. It starts today July 1st  and ends on July 14th. Thanks again to everyone who helps make this blog possible, especially my husband Alan Berger for his great photographs.
  
Coming up next  I go #goaterie ..see what coconut water does to Goat Vindaloo! Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Tropical Traditions Shredded Organic Coconut Giveaway! The Rules Of The Road.

       
My friends at Tropical Traditions have invited me to share with you some of their wonderful shredded organic coconut. They sent me a sample a few weeks ago and it's been a regular coconut fest at our house ever since. A lot of Indian food involves a lot of coconut so you can imagine the fun I've been having.
   It hasn't been easy (okay, it's been impossible) to get any sort of fresh, shredded coconut in Sonoma, but Tropical Traditions dried, shredded coconut is a great substitute for the recipes that call for the fresh stuff. I just moisten it with a bit of water and bingo, I'm in business. As for the recipes that call for dried coconut, it's way beyond any of the other dried coconut brands I've used.
   If you'd like to get some of this for yourself, I'm going to be giving away 1 tub of dried shredded coconut to a lucky winner. Here are the rules.
  1.) Subscribe to Tropical Traditions free e-mail Newsletter by clicking the link. They offer all sorts of product specials and cool free recipes.
   After you do this, leave a comment on my blog letting me know you have, and either Twitter about my giveaway (@kathygori) or mention it on your blog with a link, and let me know.
Or
2.) Subscribe to the Tropical Traditions Newsletter and if you don't follow me on Twitter, follow me @kathygori and Twitter about the giveaway. Or sign up to follow my blog The Colors Of Indian Cooking and let me know you've mentioned the giveaway on your blog with a link.
Or
3.) Subscribe to the Tropical Traditions Newsletter and mention my blog and giveaway on Facebook, then let me know you have.
    I have to add for the fine print here:
Tropical Traditions provided me with a free sample of this product to review and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose.  Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product.
    I'm offering this shredded coconut because I've been using it and it's great and I wanted  someone else to be able to enjoy it also.

  The winner will be drawn randomly through Random.org on Sept 1st

So c'mon and enter...you know you want it!