A Tea lover’s dream (Afternoon Tea at the Biltmore)

There are two types of people in this world. Tea lovers and people who haven’t discover how awesome tea really is. I my friend  fall in the former. I’ve always liked tea over coffee but when I started transitioning  to becoming a pescatarian ,that preference for tea grew. I started researching the different types of tea and their benefits and how adding it to your daily intake can do great wonders.  Slowly but surely I was drinking at least 3 cups of tea a day varying from Green ,Black Oolong and Rooibos.

By the time my birthday came around this year, I was pretty much enamored with tea that I wanted to incorporate  it into my birthday festivities somehow.So I did Afternoon Tea at the Historic  Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. The experience was so much fun that from that moment on ,I sought out to find the perfect tea set to have Afternoon Tea at home. Up until last week,I found a cute starter tea set that served 4 and was perfect for Matcha tea. I finally received it in the mail today and had my very first Afternoon Tea party at home with my family. It was so much fun that I’m thinking this might be a weekly or monthly thing for us in 2015.

I don’t personally have a preference of any brand of tea, but I am particular about the ingredients in my tea. Being that I drink my teas without sugar or cream I like the  teas to only contain organic tea leaves.  The closer to nature the better in my book! But sometimes that is not always the case especially when dealing with gourmet tea companies. Below I’ve added a list of the teas that I like and have tried in the past few months. Most of them are one ingredient teas and the others aren’t but they taste so good we’ll give them a pass. Happy Sipping!

• Prince of Peace Organic Oolong Tea
• Prince of Peace Organic Green Tea
• Prince of Peace Organic White Tea
• Prince of Peace Organic Black Tea
• Rishi Sencha Green Tea
• Republic of Tea Moringa Tea
• Republic of Tea Dandellion Tea
• Uncle Lee’s Organic Green Tea
• Choice Rooibos Tea
• Celestial Seasonings Vanilla Rooibos Tea
• Yogi GreenTea Kombucha Tea
• Guayaki Yerba Mate Organic Tea
• Teavana Green Moroccan Mint Tea

 

Lunch at Panera Bread

With all that been going on lately with school ,work and life, i decided i needed  a little break to do nothing for a whole day.  That lasted for about 2 hours till my mom suggested we run some errands. Let me be the first to tell you that there’s nothing like running errands , that aren’t really your errands on your day off . Being the team player I am though, I got dressed and went . While running around the city with my mom, my sister called and said “lets do lunch at Panera”. I gladly accepted and brought my mom for the fun as well. So we met up with my sister at Panera Bread and  we had the best daughter  and mother lunch you could ever have. I ended up trying their new summer shrimp roll and their summer corn chowder and my sister had her usual.I generally don’t like eating cold shrimp sandwiches and chowder but this was the exception, It was everything that you would expect from Panera Bread  and more.I like switching things up every once in a while and this didn’t disappoint, but I’m still sticking with my tried and true tomato mozzarella panini and broccoli cheddar soup . But who am I kidding, you can never go wrong with Panera Bread.

Switching things up a bit: Tropical Oats Smoothie

One thing about me is that i like trying new things, Food wise but I’m not much of a risk taker in other aspect. So since transitioning  I’ve been a green smoothie drinker addict. I went from one smoothie a day to sometimes three, I went from super sweet smoothies to barley  sweet smoothies the list goes on.  But I wanted to switch things up a bit cause a girl can only take so much green smoothies. So i decided to do  raw oatmeal smoothies instead, trust me I’m not sure how i came to that decision but it made perfect sense at that moment.   This is very similar to the No cook oat smoothie i did when i first started transitioning, but this has more nutritional and tasty  ingredients. I was excited and nervous to try this recipe because I’ve been on a mission to avoid food and drinks high in arginine for personal reason. So oatmeal was an issue, but i kept it to organic raw rolled oats ( it is said that instant oatmeal has a high arginine content but who knows).  Since I was avoiding nuts all together due to the foods i was avoiding  almond milk was a no go , so i opted  for SO Coconut milk unsweetened vanilla and Chobani Vanilla Greek yogurt.

So after i had those main staples ingredients, i  then added mix ins of fruits, juices and teas and water all to my liking. On this particular day this was what  i like to call my Tropical Oats Smoothie. If you follow me by now, you should know i  free hand everything so i  don’t have exact measurements. But, here’s the run down on my hearty nutritious smoothie

• Organic Raw Rolled Oats
• Coconut Milk Unsweetened (can use sweetened if preferred and any kind of milk)
• Greek Yogurt Vanilla
• Flax seeds
• Chia seeds
• Tropical Blend Frozen Fruits (Banana, Pineapple, Mango)
• a small ripe banana
• Coconut Water (optional)
• Unsweetened  Green Ice Tea ((optional)
• A couple dashes of cinnamon

Mix all that together and you get a satiating tropical  oatmeal smoothie. I find that using the NutriBullet give a  smooth silkiness that i never achieved with my blender ,but if you’re having  a hard time mixing add more liquid to the blender till you get the consistency that you want.

FYI: I don’t add protein powder because I’m not a fan of the gritty taste. If you want a hearty high fiber smoothie for breakfast,  sans protein powder double up on the the yogurt and oatmeal. This smoothie can be made a head of time and stored in the fridge in an air tight container for 1-2 days. A great on the go breakfast option but great for any time of the day as well!

Hot and Cold

Summer in South Florida is not what its cracked up to be, Its usually one of the two extremes. Which is generally Super Sticky Hot or Super Wet and Rainy. Usually if we’re lucky, we tend to get both in the same day. Any-who, I don’t know how to explain the science of how the temperature of an air conditioned room drops to practically below zero when it raining outside. But at  my job this is what pretty much happens. So usually mid day when  the afternoon showers roll in, I’m in need of a parka and snow boots. Well today i couldn’t take it any more, so during lunch i went over to Starbucks to grab a hot zen green tea . When she handed me my tea, it was such a euphoric feeling that words can not describe how great it felt. To just hold that hot cup in my hands and defrost *sigh*… life simple pleasures :).

But for those who didn’t know, green tea have great health benefits check  out the list below:

Anti Aging

Immunity Boosting

Promotes Weight Loss

Lowers your risk of cancer

Prevent arthritis

Lower your cholesterol and blood pressure