Cornbread is a satisfying seasonal dinner accompaniment that is quick and easy to prepare.  Present it elegantly at the holidays or throw it together for a weeknight chili. We've sweetened our cornbread with honey, which is a great substitute for refined sugar, particularly when baking muffins, cakes, quick breads, and pies!  Honey contributes additional moisture to the recipe, and when it comes to this cornbread, it creates a really rich and wonderful result. We used Alfalfa Honey, because of the beautiful light florality and hint of spice.

Ingredients:

1 cup Bob's Red Mill Cornmeal, medium grind 
1 c milk
1/2 c + 1 T Alfalfa Honey
1/2 t salt
1 c all-purpose flour 
2 t baking powder 
1 egg
1/3 c melted butter

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 400°F. Spray or lightly grease a 9-inch round cake pan, cast iron skillet, or muffin pan.

In a large bowl, soak cornmeal in milk for 10-15 minutes. If you are using a cast iron skillet preheat it with a little bit of butter.

Then combine flour, sugars, honey, salt and baking powder to cornmeal mixture. Stir in egg and butter until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Serve with room temperature butter and honey!

Here is our a simple yet elegant take on a fall classic, Butternut Squash Soup.  The Ghost Pepper Infused Honey adds a lively dimension to the soup and is complimented with cooling yogurt.

Serves 3-4

Ingredients:

1 small white onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
1/2 apple, cored and cubed
1 medium butternut squash, seeded, peeled and cubed
2 sprigs of fresh sage
3 cups of vegetable broth + more as needed
extra virgin olive oil
salt to taste
nutmeg
Ghost Pepper Infused Honey

Procedure:

In a saucepan at medium heat, sweat the carrot and onion in olive oil until soft. Add in the apple, squash and sage.  Season with salt.  Cover with broth and cook until the butternut squash breaks apart with a spoon. Add a pinch of nutmeg.

Remove the sage and prepare a blender.  Add all the ingredients into the blender and purée until smooth.  Adjust with broth for consistency and salt for flavor.

Reheat the soup to serve.  Swirl in yogurt and drizzle Ghost Pepper Honey.

Tea can be a really wonderful ingredient in your kitchen. It can provide great flavor to soups, baked goods, cures, and cocktails.  We love using Lapsang Souchong, a smoked black Chinese tea, to add a depth of flavor to stews and we were really happy with this recipe using tea and orange peel in the bean cooking liquid.  The smoky flavor can be an economical and vegan replacement to bacon and the citrus compliments the tea and lightens the flavor.  We decided to pair it with duck and sautéed garlic swiss chard, but it would be a great side dish to any dinner, or satisfying as a stand alone with yogurt and hot sauce!  Enjoy!

Equipment needed: Pot for Beans, sauté pan, cheesecloth, twine, peeler.

Ingredients:

2 c dried beans, rinsed and soaked over night in water, rinsed again
1/4 c Lapsang Souchong tea
1 tsp black peppercorns, cracked
1 bay leaf
1 handful thyme
1 orange, peeled
2 cloves of garlic, smashed
1 large carrot, medium dice
1 yellow onion, medium dice
5 c vegetable or chicken stock
extra virgin olive oil
sea salt, to taste

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.  

2.  Place the tea, peppercorns, bay leaf, thyme, orange, and garlic in the cheesecloth sachet and tie it with twine. Double up if necessary.

3. Heat olive oil in a sauté pan and sweat the carrots and onion with a pinch of salt.  Remove once translucent and slightly golden and add to the bean pot.

4. Add the beans and mix with a wooden spoon. Add in the sachet and pour over the stock. Season with salt.  Cover and back for 1.5 - 2hr or until the beans have softened but still have a 'tooth'.

5. Remove from the oven and adjust seasoning.  Serve as a side dish to dinner or  with yogurt and hot sauce.

Of all the tea categories white tea seems to be one of the most misunderstood, and yet quite neatly, the simplest of all. From bud to cup, it is the most minimally crafted of all the camellia sinensis tea categories. Very plainly, high quality white tea is the first glorious bud of spring, plucked carefully after emerging from a short winter dormancy.

Awakening in the spring, the tea plant shoots out the bud of new life which carries the energy, nutrients and glucose needed to develop into leaves and if plucked and dried, has the potential to make a most delicious cup of tea.  The bud itself or 'tip' is covered with a soft downy fur, called 'trinomes', that defend against water loss and bugs.  Caffeine and polyphenols also act as natural deflecting agents against insects and UV rays. 

White tea buds are carefully plucked and brought to a factory to be withered and dried. It is a short recipe that requires, for good result, the original product to be treated well after it's departure from a very carefully tended tea garden. It is also a tea of prestige, the spring buds are the most precious, and the yield of harvesting only the bud, is so minimal. The varietals used in white tea production in China are the results of years of propagation to reach the desired profile and the polyphenol and caffeine levels are higher than what is often marketed.

Classically, the finest white teas come from Fujian Province, China, but we are also experiencing white teas being produced well in other parts of Asia, Hawaii and South America.  

We carry two white teas, Bai Mu Dan Wang (pictured here), also called White Peony, which consists of buds and leaves, from Fuding, Fujian Province.  Also from Fuding, Bai Hao Yin Zhen (also known as Silver Needles) is the result of more punctilious harvesting, and consists of pure bud.  Nan Mei Wild Tea Trees, from Lincang, Yunnan Province, is the result of the harvesting of wild old tea tree buds and takes quite a bit longer steep than the others.

When steeping white tea, we suggest measuring the quantity of tea by weight, not by volume as with teaspoons.  This is important because white tea is very voluminous, and measuring by weight will give you a much richer cup of tea.

Our recommended steeping times for 2.5 grams of tea per 8oz:

Bai Hao Yin Zhen  185° / 3 minutes

Bai Mu Dan Wang  185° / 3 minutes

Nan Mei Wild Tea Trees  185° / 5 - 7 minutes

Scented White Teas:

The Canfield in Red  185° / 3 minutes

Yaddo Rose Garden  185° / 3 minutes

For continued enjoyment, re-steep the leaves!

In the remote woodland hill regions of northern Thailand, in the province of Chiang Rai, tea trees flourish in the tropical climate.  This area is part of the historical tea regions that anthropologists have found as the birth place of tea. This tea belt traverses through Yunnan Province, China to northern Assam, India, Laos and present day Myanmar, into Northern Thailand and Vietnam.

We have no better honey room clientele than our local kiddos and we are delighted to offer some easy recipes for their after school snacking!

Warm Apples with Oats and Cinnamon Infused Honey

Cinnamon Infused Honey to taste

Procedure:  In a small microwave-safe bowl add the apples, butter and oats.  Microwave for 1.5 minutes or until the butter has melted and the apples have slightly softened.  Drizzle with Cinnamon Infused Honey and serve!

Pumpkin Pie Spice Smoothie

1 frozen banana
1/2 c canned pumpkin
3/4 c unsweetened almond milk
2 T almond butter
2 t Buckwheat Honey
1 t Pumpkin Pie Spice

Procedure:  Blend all ingredients and enjoy!

Nut-Free Granola with Saratoga Wildflower Honey

1 c pumpkin seeds
1 c gluten free oats
1 c coconut flakes
1/2 c quinoa
1/2 c sunflower seeds
1/2 c flax seeds
1/4 c chia seeds
1/4 t sea salt
1/2 c extra virgin olive oil
1/2 c Saratoga Wildflower Honey

 Procedure:  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix all dry ingredients together in a bowl. In a small saucepan, heat the honey until it becomes less viscose.  Pour the honey and the olive oil over the dry ingredients and mix well.  Line a sheet tray with parchment and spread evenly.  Bake for 15 minutes, turn with a spoon and bake until golden brown, about 5 minutes more.  Serve with yogurt, ice cream or milk!

Apples with Cheddar, Walnuts, and Cranberry Blossom Honey

2 small apples
local cheddar, sliced
walnuts
Cranberry Blossom Honey to taste

Procedure:  Plate all ingredients to your fancy!  Enjoy!

Almond Butter Rice Cakes with Alfalfa Honey

3 c roasted almonds
3 dried dates
2 T Alfalfa Honey + more to drizzle
1/4 t sea salt

Procedure:  Blend all ingredients in a food processor until creamy, about 10- 15 minutes.  Serve almond butter on your favorite cracker, rice cake or bread and drizzle more Alfalfa Honey to taste!

We would like to share with you the unique story of our oolong Guei Fei.  

In September of 1999 Taiwan suffered a 7.6 magnitude earthquake with the epicenter falling in Nantou County.  In the area of Dong Ding, tea farmers were busy rebuilding and repairing their homes and villages and were distracted from their winter harvest of tea.  As a result, little tiny herbivores (Empoasca onukii) or leafhoppers came to nibble on their tea plants.

Disaster?!  Not at all.

Leafhopper bitten oolong not only can be acceptable, but desirable. In fact, in the north of Taiwan Bai Hao or Formosa Oolong is famously loved for its honeyed notes of sweet succulent fruit. This altered flavor is thanks to the provocation of these little bugs.  

The tea plant, as with other plants, knows when it is being attacked and sometimes is aware even before the attack occurs.  The defense mechanisms can be a sudden change in chemistry that might release toxins, decrease nutrition in the leaf, or release airborne chemicals. In the case of tea plants, airborne volatile chemicals are released when attacked by this 3 mm insect. Curiously, by our perception, a wonderful fragrance is released in the field and then, in the cup.

You are able to witness these little bites by looking closely at the unfurled steeped leaves, but most wonderfully, you will witness this little attack by the sweetness of the tea on your palate.

Experience our bug bitten oolongs:  Guei Fei, Bai Hao Jing Mai, and Gabacha.

Our producer of Guei Fei, Mr. Chang sharing some tea with us.

Hello, Honey Butter Chai Muffins!

Monette of @thesecretgf created the perfect breakfast muffin for any morning where there might be a little chill in the air.  This recipe proves that baking with tea is as simple as infusing it into a liquid and/or a fat component to transfer its complex flavors. We love to consider tea as not only a beverage, but as an ingredient to enhance cookies, muffins or cakes!  And, as the pièce de resistance, our Cranberry Blossom Honey from the cranberry bogs of Wisconsin is simply whipped with butter for an extra treat. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

½ c almond milk

½ c coconut oil

1 T Masala Chai Tea

1 c all-purpose GF flour blend

1 c oat flour

2 t xanthan gum (reduce to 1 tsp if your flour blend lists this as an ingredient)

½ t salt

1 t baking soda

1 c agave

3 eggs

¼ c butter (Use Earth Balance to make it dairy free)

3 T Cranberry Blossom Honey

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven to 350⁰F. Line a muffin tin with muffin wrappers.
2. In a small saucepan, add the almond milk, coconut oil and tea. Keep at a low heat, stirring occasionally for 20 minutes to infuse the tea into the milk and oil.
3. While the tea is infusing, combine the dry ingredients (flours, xanthan gum, salt, baking soda) in a medium mixing bowl.
4. Once the tea has infused for 20 minutes, pour the almond milk and oil mixture into your mixing bowl through a fine mesh strainer to catch the tea leaves. Discard the leaves.
5. Add the agave and eggs to the mixing bowl and whisk until everything is combined and you have a smooth batter.
6. Divide the batter in the muffin tin and bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.
7. When done, take out of the oven and wait until the muffins are cool enough to handle, then remove them from the muffin tin to finish cooling on a wire rack.
8. Meanwhile, prepare the honey butter by using an electric beater to whip together the honey and butter.