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This is part 3 of a series on my love for tea!  You can check out part 1 and part 2 if you’re interested in some household tips for using tea, as well as some ways of brewing your tea and some of my favourite helpers in the kitchen for making tea!

This week I want to talk about keeping your tea available as a means of hospitality.  As we all know, tea is a wonderful beverage to serve after dinner and any other time of entertaining.  It’s a social thing, and it’s one that we enjoy sharing with our guests.  

In our home, we don’t just have guests over for dinner though…they’re over at all times of the day, invited and uninvited, and for days at a time!  Our house is always busy and some people refer to it as a "hostel"!  As such, it’s good for us to have our tea out and available for people to use so they can help themselves.  We’ve turned our kitchen table in a beverage station permanently, and this is what it looks like:

  <– Full table display   <– Up close of one box, sugar, honey and cups.

It was especially useful this past weekend when we had 14 people coming through our doors!  In one box I have Twinings tea (my favourite brand) and in another I have Stash tea (another one of my favourites).  In the basket is an assortment of green teas someone gave me, and I also keep the sugar, some honey and a couple of mugs ready and available.  The fruit is a nice touch too, but has nothing to do with tea.  :)

If I know people are coming over, I usually boil the water just ahead of time and put it in my carafe and leave it on the table as well so people don’t even have to worry about boiling their water! 

It’s just a nice way to let people know they’re welcome in our home, and that they can make themselves at home.  

"Tea pot is on, the cups are waiting, favourite chairs anticipating, no matter what I have to do, my friend there’s always time for you." (Unknown)

This week is a bit unusual as we are not eating at home a couple of times, and then from Thursday-Sunday we have company!  So here it goes…

Monday: Out for dinner

Tuesday: Chicken Bombay, Rice, Veggies

Wednesday: Ribs, Mashed potatoes, Veggies

Thursday: Chili, Homemade bread

Friday: Homemade mac ‘n’ cheese

Saturday: Spaghetti

Sunday: Leftovers

Better late than never!!!  I’m trying to get caught up on blogging since going to Hong Kong!  Here is my menu for this week:

Monday: Out for dinner

Tuesday: Sloppy Lentils

Wednesday: Shake ‘n’ Bake Chicken, Potatoes, Zucchini

Thursday: Creamy Carrot & Apple Soup, Bread

Friday: Saucey Meat, Rice

Creamy Carrot & Apple Soup:

4 carrots, coarsely chopped

1 large potatoe, peeled and cut into chunks

1 large apple, peeled and cut into chunks

5 cups chicken broth

1 tsp. applie pie spice (or a combo of nutmeg and cinnamon)

1/2 cup half and half (or 1/3 cup of plain yogurt and the rest with milk works for me)

salt and pepper to taste

Combine first 5 ingredients in a large pot.  Simmer for 20 minutes until vegetables are fork tender.  Blend in food processor or blender until smooth.  Return to pot.  Whisk in cream and season to taste with salt and pepper.  Once blended it could be put in the crock pot to simmer which brings out the flavours!  Add the cream in at the last minute if you do that.

Saucey Meat:

4 pieces of meat, cut into bite-sized pieces

1/4 cup chicken broth

1/4 cup italian salad dressing

1 red onion, chopped (or other vegetable)

1 tsp. italian seasoning

2 cups broccoli florets (or other vegetable)

1/4 cup shredded cheese

Take meat with 1 tbsp. oil and 1/4 cup chicken broth and cook meat in hot oil in large covered skillet on medium-high heat for 5 mins. on each side or until browned on both sides.  Stir in dressing and seasoning until well blended.  Bring just to boil.  Reduce heat to med-low; simmer 3 mins. or until meat is cooked through.  Add vegetables and cheese; mix well.  Cook 2-4 mins. or until vegetables are crisp-tender, stirring occasionlly.  Serve over a bed of rice.  Sprinkle with more cheese before serving.

What are you eating for dinner this week?  What food is tempting your tummy?

As I mentioned in my previous post, I haven’t been a very good blogger lately.  One of the reasons is that we don’t have the internet at home so I am left to my lunch break or odd moments at work to blog!  But an even more exciting reason is that I went to Hong Kong for vacation!  Check out my previous post for some pictures! 

As a part of that post I asked what you wanted to know about my traveling, and so I’ve broken it down into your questions, and added a few more tips!  If you want more tips, check out my previous post on traveling. 

How do I choose accommodations? This varies depending on where we’re going.  Peter and I like to take one "exotic" international trip each year if we’re able.  While we’re brainstorming this, we usually consider who we know in other countries (we have a lot of friends all over the world!), and then narrow it down to a general list of countries.  Once we’ve done that we debate on where we’d like to go based on cost (we price out the flights on websites), and then the topic of accommodations comes up!  Of course, if we go to somewhere that we know someone, it’s much cheaper.  This worked out when we were in Europe in 2002, 2005 and 2007.  In 2002 and 2007 we stayed with friends.  In 2005 we did half and half.  We stayed with people we "knew" (either directly or through others) in Belgium and Holland.  In the case of Hong Kong, we didn’t know anyone well enough to stay with them.  Because we were going with my parents, they have timeshares with Disney and so we were able to use their timeshare to stay at Disney’s resort, which meant that we didn’t have to pay for our accommodations! 

How do we plan our sightseeing? Once we know where we’re going we like to make a list of all the major sites.  We do this by googling the city and checking out some travel websites.  Wikitravel is useful in telling us what’s a good hilight.  Then we try to make a list of the important ones that we care about.  Sometimes I’ve even gone to bookstores and bought a book that tells me about the country or city and I use their day-by-day guide to recognize how long it will take to accomplish everything.  Libraries are awesome for this because you can sign out books for a lot longer and then you can just return it and you’re not bound to it if it’s no good!   

Biggest difference between North America and China? There is no cut and dry answer to this.  I was in Hong Kong, and it’s an amazing city.  In most senses it’s far more advanced, cultural and interesting than any of the major North American cities I’ve been to (and I’ve been to most!!!).  It was exceptionally clean, their transit system was amazing, and the people were friendly and helpful.  I liked how they infused their older culture with the modernity of everything.  I did see a difference though when I went to mainland China for a day.  It wasn’t as "polished" and things were still getting updated from when things changed a while back.  I think I may have experienced more culture shock had I been to a small place in mainland China, but for the mostpart there was zero culture shock.  We loved eating the local food, but there was tons and tons of other places to eat if that wasn’t your idea of fun! 

Here are some other helpful sites for planning your trip:

Trip Advisor

Lonely Planet

Frommers

Ryan Air - amazingly CHEAP airfare for flying between European countries.  We used them to fly from London to Marrakech, and London to Belfast, and Dublin to London.  Check out their policy on luggage!  It’s never been an issue for us, but it might be for you.  And also, you don’t get assigned seats.  You’re guaranteed one, but you have to line up and rush to get on the plane to get seats together if you care!

Trek Escapes - we used this travel agency to book a really great tour with Gecko Tours when we went to Morocco.  They were excellent, and we were very happy with their services. 

Any other questions??  If so, leave them in the comment section and I’d be glad to do another post to answer them!

Where are we going next?  Our sights are set on India…but no plans are made as of yet.  I’ll keep you posted!

Monday: Cantonese Chicken, Rice, Veggies

Tuesday: Masoor Daal, Naan bread, Veggies

Wednesday: meatless

Thursday: Steaks in my homemade marinade, Roasted potatoes, Veggies

Friday: Pasta, Veggies

Saturday: meatless

Sunday: Leftovers

Since sometime in the new year I have been steadily menu planning for my dinner meals each week.  Of course there are weeks where it doesn’t happen as much as I’d like it to, but for the most part, I’ve followed it pretty well!  I have really come to see the value in it, and I just want to share a few of the hilights for me from menu planning:

1.) It has cut down on costs.  I know exactly what I have to purchase when I go grocery shopping, and so this eliminates most (if not all!) of the impulse buying that happens.

2.) It simply organizes my meals and I know what I’m having on what day, and that’s a nice feeling!

3.) It saves time.  I don’t have to rush home and wonder what to do, and stress when I don’t have something thawed, or not enough time to cook something!  I have it all ready, and all I have to do is prepare it.

4.) It helps control weight and health.  This is not a benefit I thought about prior to starting meal planning, but it has helped a lot.  By knowing what I’m eating, I’m not just grabbing things to satisfy my hunger temporarily.  Plus, I’m eating much healthier.  This has worked for me, and I can’t promise that you’ll lose weight from menu planning, because it depends on what you cook!  But it has been an added bonus.

Do you menu plan?  If so, why?  If not, would you consider starting?