sweetened tea eggs

This is my deviated version of the traditional salty tea eggs. I wanted to experiment making it a sweet dessert since I figured tea can go very well with palm sugar and would make a nice blend of flavor to the eggs.
I used black tea leaves, but you can use any type of tea. In fact, next time I probably would use either red tea or green tea since I wanted a golden or slightly red color. The palm sugar naturally adds some tint to the end result already, especially after simmering it for some time. This time around the color of my eggs is a bit too dark, IMO.

Ingredients:
+ 1 tsp tea, keet in a pouch (or +/- to your taste -if you want more tea flavor)
Alternatively, you can use the ready-made tea bags
+ 6-10 eggs
+ 3 whole bar of palm sugar (or +/- to your taste)
+ a dab of salt
+ (Optional) 1 star anise

Here's the palm sugar bar I'm refering to


Instructions:
+ Boil the eggs in a separate pot. Once done, drain, crack (but not remove) the shells of the eggs. This will give your eggs the effect of dragon-eye once finish.
+ In another pot, boil 4 cups of water.
+ Add to dissolve the palm sugar. Add the tea. Also add the star anise if you want. This should now give you a slightly browned base.
+ Add a dab of salt to deepen the sweetness.
+ Test taste your broth, add more sugar/tea, etc. if needed, to your taste. Be free and creative, add more tea if you want deeper flavor, add sugar if you want it sweet - it is YOUR dessert :-)
+ Add the eggs and simmer for at least 1/2 hr. Once the broth reduce, you can add more water and other ingredients - goal is to maintain the water level such that it about to cover all your eggs, we don't want the broth to become syrup-like.

Serving hot, this makes a healthy and nutritious dessert.

My sweet tea-egg dessert (um...i forgot to crack the egg shell so no dragon eye effect)

Here's the dragon eye I'm talking about

Quick movie night snack - fudgy chocolate chip cookie

I can be a pretty cheap date...LOL... We were staying in for a Sunday night movie, and then I remembered that I've had a couple of the Betty Crocker instant desserts. I made the fudgy chocolate chip cookie, not the best cookie but its something to satisfy my sweet craving at the moment, without me having to interrupt our moving watching. These instant desserts can be bought at any Target. I'm not going to post the instructions here because it is very straight forward and you can find the instruction on the back of the package.



I enjoy browsing the Target's grocery section, by the way. I usually don't end up buying much from there, typically just pick up a pack of Activia yogurt, but its just fun browsing the different ailses. The frozen lunches look so tempting too (especially with the unpredictable work schedule, skipping lunch or late lunches seem like the norm for my project group nowadays). But so far, I still cook for both of us, and eat dinner left-overs for next day's lunch. We live close enough to work that I am able to go home at lunch time, eat and let my 2 dogs out and sometimes able to squeeze in some simple house chore like dropping the laundry into the washer so that it'll be ready for drying after I get home from work, etc. My 2009's resolution is to strive for work life balance, that means to maintain a work schedule that is non-interfering with my regular everyday life and activities. In even simpler words that means "screw work" ...LOL...