Pan Roasted Duck Breasts with Red Rocks Cherry Sauce

Pan Roasted Duck Breasts with Red Rocks Cherry Sauce is an elegant dinner for two that is easy to make...

Ingredients: Duck

·      2 duck breast, scored

·      Salt & Pepper

Preparation - Duck

1.     Pat dry, score & season with salt & pepper.

2.     Heat skillet over medium heat until hot, 3 minutes.

3.     Lay breast, skin side down, and lower heat a little. Render fat for 15-20 minutes and until skin is golden brown.

4.     Flip breast and cook until brown and crispy.

5.     Place on baking sheet with rack & place in oven until instant thermometer reads 125-130°, 10 minutes.

Ingredients: Red Rocks Cherry Sauce

·      1 cup chicken stock

·      2 TBS Red Rocks tea

·      1 shallot, minced

·      ¼ cup red wine, dry

·      2 TBS dried cherries

·      1 TBS butter

·      1 tsp lemon juice

·      Salt & Pepper to taste

Preparation - Red Rocks Cherry Sauce

1.     Steep 2 TBS of Red Rocks tea in 1 cup boiling chicken stock for 6 minutes. Strain tea leaves.

2.     Pour off all but 1 TBS fat from pan and heat.

3.     Add shallots and cook until soft.

4.     Add wine and cherries, scraping bottom of pan. Simmer until wine evaporates, 2-3 minutes.

5.     Stir in Red Rocks chicken stock concentrate and simmer occasionally, until sauce has reduced and is thickened, about 1/3 cup, 3-5 minutes.

6.     Off heat, stir in butter, lemon juice, salt & pepper to taste.

Holiday Tea Infused Turkey...

If your turkey turns out like this, you got a problem...

Photo by HaloHaloph

Don't worry, no kids were hurt taking this photo...

If you want a turkey infused with holiday spices and healthy red tea, follow this recipe...

Photo by Christina Perozzi 

Holiday Tea Infused Turkey

Ingredients:

• (14 to 16 pound) frozen young turkey
  

For the brine:

• 1 gallon chicken stock, low sodium
  
• 4 tablespoon Holiday Spice Rooibos Tea (blend of red rooibos and aromatic holiday spices... cinnamon, clove, orange peel, apples, almonds, & rose petals!)
  
• 1 cup kosher salt
  
• 1/2 cup sugar
  
• 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
  
• 1 gallon heavily iced water

Preparation - 2 to 3 days before roasting:

1. Begin thawing the turkey in the refrigerator at 38 degrees F.
   
2. Tea-Infused Brine: Combine the vegetable stock, Holiday Spice Rooibos Tea, sugar, salt and in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Stir occasionally to dissolve solids and bring to a boil. Then remove the brine from the heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate.
3. The night before you cook the turkey, combine the tea-brine, water and ice in the 5-gallon bucket. Place the thawed turkey (with innards removed) breast side down in brine. Ensure the turkey is fully immersed, cover and refrigerate 8 to 16 hours, turning the bird once half way through brining.
   

For the aromatics:

• 1 red apple, sliced
  
• 1 orange, peeled and sliced
  
• 1/2 onion, sliced
  
• 1 cinnamon stick
  
• 2 TBS Holiday Spice Rooibos Tea
  
• 1 cup water
  
• 4 sprigs rosemary
  
• 6 leaves sage
  

For turkey coating:

• Tea-soning:
  

·      1 ½ TBS Holiday Spice Rooibos Tea

·      1 ½ tsp rosemary

·      1 tsp thyme

·      1 tsp sage

Salt & pepper to taste

Canola oil

Aromatics & Gravy Base:

• 1 lb onion, large dice
• ½ lb fennel, large dice
• ½ lb carrots, large dice
• ½ lb apple, large dice
• ½ cup almond, roughly chopped
• 1 TBS Holiday Spice Rooibos Tea
• Canola oil
• Salt & pepper
• 3 cup dry white wine
• 6 cup vegetable stock
• Corn Starch slurry, mix 1 TBS cornstarch & 1 cup water together
• 1 lemon, juice
• 3 TBS unsalted butter, chopped

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 525° F. Remove the turkey from brine and completely rinse it with cold water and pat dry with paper towels. Discard the brine.
   
2. Combine the apple, orange, onion, Holiday Spice Rooibos Tea, cinnamon stick, and 1 cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes. Add steeped aromatics to the turkey's cavity along with the rosemary and sage. Truss the turkey and coat the skin liberally with canola oil and sprinkle tea-soning. (How to truss a turkey video by Alton Brown: www.foodnetwork.com/videos/how-to-truss-a-turkey/27751.html)
   
3. Mix onion, fennel, carrots, apples, almonds & tea together and coat with canola oil and sprinkle with salt & pepper. Place mixture on bottom of roasting pan and place the turkey on roasting rack on top of aromatics to make gravy base.
   
4. Place the turkey on lowest level of the oven and roast at 500 degrees F for 30 minutes. Reduce the oven to 350° and insert a probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast. Roast until an instant thermometer reads 160° F, about a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Let the turkey rest, loosely covered with foil for 15-20 minutes before carving.
   
5. While the turkey in resting, place the roasting pan with gravy aromatics on top of stove and heat on high. Add wine and deglaze by scraping the bottom of the pan. Add chicken stock and simmer for 5-7 minutes. Add 1/2 of the slurry and stir occasionally. Cook until thickens and remove from heat. Add more slurry, 1 tsp at a time, if you want gravy thicker. Strain gravy and place back on medium heated stove. Whisk in lemon juice and butter until combined. Season to taste with salt ad pepper. Serve with turkey.
   

Happy Thanksgiving...

Be Grateful & Eat Well...

A Simply Perfect Mother's Day Gift- Make your mom fall in love with tea this Mother's Day.

I have to tell you, once I started working for a loose leaf tea company my mother was excited but skeptical. My entire life, and her entire life for that matter, we had grown up drinking Lipton, Tetley or Salada tea bags or some other tea bag that was most likely found in a plastic bag, in a Tupperware container, behind the bag of flour, at the back of the lazy susan. Despite the fact that we didn't know much about tea, tea was a part of a somewhat daily ritual, definitely a Saturday or Sunday afternoon ritual complete with biscotti, ricotta pie and friends. Still the idea of loose leaf tea seemed to evade my mother.

She wanted to learn about it, had heard from myself that it was so much better than what we had grown up with, and much better for you, but she wasn't sure that she could handle the process. So around February I sent her and my father their first loose leaf tea package, complete with STEEPING mugs,(my mom got the red one, red is her favorite color, dad got the blue) and the Tuffy Steeper. The tea arrived on Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon I get a call while I'm doing a demo of our tea at a local Gourmet Housewares store. I don't pick up. By the time I can get a second to take a look at my phone, my mom has called three times in a half an hour. Now just to note, my parents live in Vermont and I am 2000 miles away, so when she called three times in a short span of time, I get nervous.

I call her back and all I hear when I pick up the phone is "I LOVE this tea!!!" My mom repeated herself, "Oh my God Andrea, I LOVE this tea. I can't believe how good it is and it was so easy to make! I would be happy if I never had another tea bag again!" The tea she was referring to was Red Rocks, our Rooibos tea with vanilla and almonds. "And your father LOVES his Earl Grey," she said. She was so excited that the tea was amazing and that it was easy to make, but was also saddened that she had been missing out on this her whole life! Every day after their tea arrived, I received one or two phone calls a day describing how much she loves her tea and how cozy the mug is. When my mom took a trip down to Boston to see our relatives she had to call me from the car "Do you know how hard my life is right now? The worst thing in my life is that I am going to your grandmother's house, and I know the only tea she is going to have there is Lipton, and all I want is a cup of Red Rocks!!! ". I quickly explained to her that she should have taken her Tuffy Steeper with her and some tea so she could have it on the road. She poo-pooed that idea saying that the Tuffy Steeper was for her office and that she would have to get another one to travel with. You can change some things with my mother, but once she has an idea in her head, its normally not all that easy to change.

So why am I telling you all of this? I am letting you know that I grew up in a family who only drank pretty bland Lipton tea and now my mom is thrilled to have a cup of amazing loose leaf tea every day. Loose leaf tea and a STEEPING cup or mug is a fantastic gift for Mother's Day. For the mom's who are more on-the-go or traveling types, the Tuffy Steeper paired with a tin of tea is a great idea. No more searching or wondering how to get a cost effective and useful gift this Mother's Day! And if your mom or grandmother is anything like my Italian mother who is set in her ways, convince her that making a cup of loose leaf tea can be an everyday luxury and they will be very grateful to you!

Simple Steps to Improving your Rooibos Tea

If you're new to loose leaf tea, seeing particles of your tea floating around in your cup isn't necessarily appealing to look at let alone drink. We're a culture that is used to bag tea, no muss, no fuss, nothing floating around in your drink.

The tea, or rather teasane, that is the worst culprit of this problem is Rooibos tea. Rooibos is not actually from the tea leaf, but rather is an South African herb that is very flavorful, has tons of nutrients, is caffeine free, but is VERY difficult to filter when making a cup of tea. It seems that no matter what strainer you use, a metal ball, mesh plastic, a Tuffy Steeper, etc. little bits of Rooibos get out and not only settle at the bottom of the cup, but many of the bits of tea feel the need to float right at the surface, ready to enter your mouth upon first sip. I no longer mind having the tea leaves or herbs floating in my tea, but for those of you who do, I am going to explain to you a fantastic and very simple way of steeping your Rooibos, like our Red Rocks, so that you can have your cup of tea without choking on any tea bits.

Step 1) Boil your water.

Step 2) While the water boils, put your Rooibos tea in an infuser/steeper, like the Tuffy Steeper pictured here.

Step 3) Leave the infuser off to the side, aka. do not put inside the cup, mug or teapot.

Step 4) Once the water comes to a boil, pour the water 2/3-4/5 of the way up the mug.

Step 5) With the water already in the mug, take your infuser with the tea in it, and slowly lower it into the mug.

Step 6) Wait at least 6 minutes for the Rooibos to steep.

Step 7) Pull the infuser out and you have a practically Rooibos free cup of tea!

The important step in this process is #5. Typically with loose leaf tea, our infuser with the tea is already in the mug and we pour the water over it. Normally this is the best way to steep. However, by doing this with Rooibos we're forcing the already fine tea bits right out of the holes of the infuser. Instead what we're demonstrating is that when you slowly lower the infuser into a cup or mug mostly filled with water, the water comes rushing into the holes and pushes the tea into the middle of the infuser. What you end with is a cup of tea with hardly anything floating it in.

I must give credit where credit is due, it was not me, but rather my coworker who came up with this idea and described this simple change in procedure and therefore we can all thank him for a better cup of Rooibos tea!