Tempting In A Teapot Former Actress Brews Up A New Career With A Cookbook Of Recipes Using Herbal Tea

A quest to perk up steamed carrots led one woman to come up with what might be the freshest approach to food since chipotle pepper became a household word.

Jennifer Siegel shares her secrets of infusing food with vivid flavor in a new book, “Cooking with Tea: The Celestial Seasonings Cookbook” (Park Lane Press, 128 pages, $20). She co-authored the book with her husband, Mo Siegel, the founder of the Celestial Seasonings tea company.

The vivacious former actress was in Spokane recently to give her recipes a road test at a regional bookseller’s convention. If her book is as well received as her menu, Siegel might have a best seller on her hands.

It might take time for some to warm up to her inventive approach to cooking, though.

“I was a little nervous at first to work with new flavors,” said Yannick Droogmans, the chef at The Windows of the Seasons, who prepared the dishes for the bookseller’s banquet. “I told her, ‘This is Spokane. I don’t know if people are ready for this.”’

But the word of mouth on the dinner, which included polenta spiked with chamomile tea and grilled tuna served with a strawberry-kiwi tea salsa, was positively glowing.

“We had such good comments, I’m going to include some of her recipes in upcoming fresh sheets,” Droogmans said.

Not bad for a woman who once played a good-girl-gone-bad on daytime soaps.

The former Jennifer Cooke started acting when she was 9 and made more than 200 commercials by the time she was 13. Later, she played sap-turned-hussy Morgan on “The Guiding Light” and was featured on the short-lived sci-fi series “V”.

But when she met Mo at a conference in Las Vegas, it was love at first sight and she gladly chucked her acting career to become a wife and mother in Boulder, Colo.

It was in her role as busy mom that she stumbled onto a delicious discovery.

“I was so sick of plain old carrots, I decided to throw in a couple bags of Mandarin Orange tea and I was shocked at how much flavor they added,” Siegel said.

Soon, she was experimenting with all sorts of tea. Raspberry Zinger steeped in vinegar created a vibrant flavor that duplicated much more expensive products. Almond Sunset added to rice made for a fragrant, sumptuous side dish. A couple of peppermint tea bags added to peas gave them an added dimension.

“It makes them taste like I had been out in the meadow all morning picking fresh mint leaves and simmering them all day,” Siegel said.

Her basic rule for recipes was that if it wasn’t easy, she wasn’t interested.

“I love to cook, but when I became a mother, I had a lot less time to spend in the kitchen,” Siegel said. “Using the tea is a quick way to add a lot of flavor.”

Two years ago, her “Jen’s Kitchen” recipes began showing up on the inside flap of Celestial Seasonings tea boxes. And soon afterward, Random House publishing came calling.

“They wanted to know if I was a real person and if I was interested in writing a cookbook,” she said.

Siegel admitted the thought was initially intimidating.

“I’m not a formally trained chef. I’m a mom,” she said. “At that point, I probably had only about 15 recipes.”

But she accepted the challenge and spent the next year concocting more recipes. Her kids pitched in, stirring and measuring things. Her neighbors volunteered to taste dishes. She learned by trial and error.

Her biggest goof, she said, was inviting a group of ladies from her parent-teacher organization over for brunch and serving something she hadn’t yet given a test run.

“It was apple-cinnamon baked French toast, and when people began arriving, the house smelled wonderful,” she said. “But I found out that when the red in the tea mixed with the yellow in the eggs, the whole thing turned green.”

Fortunately, her guests were good sports, and the dish still tasted good, so everyone ate something that looked like it belonged in a Dr. Seuss story.

“It might be fun to serve on St. Patrick’s Day, but it didn’t make it into the book,” Siegel said.

Her criterion for the cookbook was that the flavor of the tea had to come through vividly in the dish. Again, she was surprised how much taste she could wring out of the tiny tea bags.

“But if you think about it, these are master blends of herbs and spices from around the world,” she said.

And it’s an alternative to stocking your pantry with expensive seasonings.

“I’m not the kind of person who will run out to the store to pick up saffron threads for a recipe. But a lot of people keep tea bags around,” Siegel said.

For inspiration, she would study the ingredient list on the tea packages and imagine what flavors might complement each other. Often, her dishes are classic recipes with a new twist. For instance, a chicken soup is seasoned with chamomile tea (“Can you imagine anything more comforting when you have a cold?”), Wild Cherry Blackberry tea added new interest to traditional rice pudding, and Firelight Orange brew gave a London broil an Oriental edge.

One of the biggest hits with her family was the strawberry-kiwi salsa she served over grilled tuna steaks.

“My kids couldn’t get enough of it,” she said.

While she had great luck in developing recipes, Siegel said she came up blank when it came to the section dedicated to cocktails. So, she collaborated with her husband.

“We sat down with a whole bunch of liquor bottles and tried all sorts of combinations. By the end of the evening, it was like an ‘I Love Lucy’ episode,” she said.

But they did come up with such “happy tea” drinks as a Raspberry Zinger martini, a Chamomile Hot Toddy Throat Soother and what Siegel describes as the best margarita she’s ever tasted.

“You just steep a couple of bags of Strawberry-Kiwi in the margarita mix for about 20 minutes and you won’t believe how good it is,” she said.

After coming up with more than 100 recipes, Siegel isn’t ready to rest, either.

“I’ve already started working on the next book,” she said.

Bengal Spice Shrimp Bisque

This soup, which has an exotic, elegant flavor, can also be served chilled.

8 Bengal Spice tea bags

3 cups cold water

1 pound medium raw shrimp, peeled and deveined

3/4 cup diced yellow onion

1 cup chopped green pepper

1/2 cup sliced water chestnuts

1 tablespoon butter

1 pint heavy cream

1 (14-1/2-ounce) can chicken broth

1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro, for garnish

Combine the tea bags, water and shrimp in a large bowl. Cover and refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours.

Saute onions, peppers and water chestnuts in butter over medium heat for 5 minutes. Remove the shrimp from the tea marinade and add to the vegetables.

Stir in the cream and chicken broth. Cook over low heat until the shrimp is pink and cooked through. Serve in warm bowls and garnish with cilantro.

For a more pronounced Indian flavor, add 2 extra tea bags to the cream and chicken broth and simmer for 5 minutes before removing the tea bags.

Yield: 4 servings.

Raspberry Zinger Vinaigrette

You could spend $5 for a bottle of raspberry vinegar, but this simple recipe costs pennies.

2 Raspberry Zinger tea bags

1/2 cup white vinegar

3/4 cup olive oil

1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon sugar

Place the tea bags and vinegar in a jar; steep for at least 20 minutes. Remove the bags and squeeze gently before discarding. Add the remaining ingredients and shake. Serve with mixed greens.

Yield: 4-5 servings.

Grilled Tuna with Strawberry Kiwi Salsa

This is a big favorite with kids, even if they don’t usually like fish. Swordfish makes a fine substitute for tuna.

4 tuna steaks

Oil

Salt and pepper

2 Strawberry Kiwi tea bags

1/4 cup white vinegar

4 tablespoons light soy sauce

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1-1/2 teaspoons sugar

3 kiwi, peeled and diced

1/2 cup diced strawberries

1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

Brush tuna steaks with oil, season with salt and pepper and grill to desired doneness.

To prepare the salsa, steep the tea bags in the vinegar for at least 15 minutes. Remove the bags, squeezing out the excess liquid. Add the soy sauce, garlic, sugar, kiwis, cilantro and strawberries and mix. Serve steaks topped with salsa.

Yield: 4 servings.

Wild Cherry Blackberry Rice Pudding

This fragrant dessert is purple!

3 cups water

4 Wild Cherry Blackberry tea bags

1-1/2 cups white rice

1 cup sugar

1 cup heavy cream, whipped

Fresh berries for garnish, optional

Bring water to a boil in a heavy saucepan, add the tea bags and continue to boil for 4 minutes. Remove tea bags, squeezing out the excess.

Add rice and lower to a simmer; cover and cook for 20 minutes, or until rice is tender. Stir in sugar, then whipped cream. Re-cover and simmer for another 5 minutes.

Pour pudding into a bowl and chill for at least an hour. Garnish with berries and serve.

Yield: 6 servings.

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