Did you have a nice long weekend?  Three days seems to be just long enough for me to forget every single thing that was on my to-do list.  It’s taken me most of the morning to get reacquainted with my goals for the week, and now I have that “oh-my-gosh-that’s-a-lot-to-do” feeling.  Well, shall we get started?  We only have a few letters left in More to Love: A to Z.

T is for Tea

I start my day with coffee, but in the afternoon, I’m all about tea time.  It’ s a nice break in the day and feels like a reward.  Today, I decided to test out one of my Christmas presents — the flowering tea pot.  Have you seen these?

The container on the right is filled with little packets that contain a tea flower (which looks like a green leafy blob).  You can actually see the tea flower in the tea pot above.  The instructions tell you that the tea flowers are sewn by artisans in China.  When you pour your hot water, the tea flower opens up to reveal a blossom.  That part was almost impossible to photograph — but you can sort of see the flower in the picture below.  It was just beginning to open.

The white tea with peach has a light flavor and a really great aroma.  Each of the tea assortments contains 12 different flowers, so you see a different bloom each time.  This definitely makes tea time fun.

For more tea inspiration, I love this post from Alex at Hygge House.  (Her site is currently undergoing rennovation, but this is a great how-to on brewing the perfect cup of tea.)

I am trying to become better friends with breakfast.

There is breakfast during the week.  Well, for some people, there is.  I’m not sure that eating waffles at lunchtime counts.  Maybe it does if you are still in your pajamas.  I seriously think this is the closest I get.

Then, there is the breakfast of the weekends.  This is the romantic side of breakfast that eludes me just as much.  I have visions of getting up early and making something fabulous and arranging it on a beautiful tray with fresh squeezed orange juice and flowers.  I’ve even tried to do this a few times.  However, while I can cook dinner and bake with the best of them, I lack the golden breakfast touch.

Blah eggs.  Burned pancakes.  Or recipes that sound wonderful on paper but taste surprisingly like paper too.  My husband has given up and is quite dutiful about bringing breakfast in on the weekends.  (Donuts.  There, I said it.)

However, I’ve decided to keep trying.  I think it would be the fair and healthy thing to do.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to try making some granola.  Homemade cereal and some fresh fruit sounded like a pretty healthy start to me.  I used this granola recipe (minus the dried fruit and seeds).  I definitely plan to make some tweaks.  The maple syrup I had on hand was the good stuff (from Quebec, no less) – and I think the flavor was a little too subtle for the cereal.  (Truth be told, my husband claims the cereal tasted “like trees.”  I thought it was good, but I guess to each his own.)  Next time I plan to add in a little bit of brown sugar and some toasted coconut.  However, I have to say that the house smelled SO, SO good.  It had really never occurred to me to make homemade cereal before, but if someone had told me the house would smell like that – I would have tried this a long time ago.  The smell was so good that I don’t mind needing to experiment a little bit more to get the recipe just right (and maybe less “tree” tasting).

If you have any suggestions – let me know.  I’ll report back on round 2.

More letters of the alphabet next week.  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.