Longjing, High Performance Truly Delivered

In a startling revelation, I realized today I have become my dad. Case in point: my dad was always sipping on hot loose leaf tea when I was a kid, and I could not understand how he liked that acerbic stuff. Apple juice; now that was my jam.

My, how times have changed.  These days I often find myself craving a strong cup of hot tea that my relatives have gifted me from China. Apple juice? Haven't touched the stuff in months and cannot remember the last time I purchased a bottle.

The stuff picture above is called Longjing (龙井), a variety of green tea literally called "Dragon Well" and renowned throughout China.  I really have not had a hankering for this stuff until recently--this in spite of drinking it on multiple trips to China.  When friends and I happened upon a quaint Chinese tea shop in Georgetown and decided to sit down, the fragrance of this tea had me swooning, and I had to have a canister after that.  To the uninitiated, this stuff is a completely different beast from Matcha, which, it bears remembering, comes from a completely different cultural context.

Shout out to Aunt Xin for getting this for me, even though she will never see this.

Return to Healthy Lunches!

I have been eating out for lunch quite a bit recently, so I decided to pack for tomorrow!  Lunch includes blanched snow pea leaves and baked beef pie.  The beef pie is more of a casserole but I feel bad calling it that considering...well, it is not what an American or European would call a casserole.  Still, it should be good with grated carrots, diced onions, minced green onions, and minced garlic.  Oh yeah, and a little bit of soy sauce, salt, sesame oil, sugar, and fish sauce in order of amount added.  The sugar was probably unnecessary as the carrots probably made the pie more sweet than expected.

It is nothing pretty, but it should taste great.  Here's to healthy lunches again!  Oh, and I kind of feel like a food snob for using the word "blanched," but hey, that's what I did to the snow pea leaves.