Posts filed under 'Tea Party Food'
So you’re convinced. You’ve read “The Top Seven Mistakes Tea Drinkers Make“. You want to begin brewing looseleaf tea and throw a real tea party. The season of cozy gatherings indoors is upon us and you want to be prepared. But where do you start?
My article, “The Secret to the Simple and Quick Tea Party” talks about the first ten items I recommend purchasing in order to have what you need for a simple tea party for four. This article will give you the list of my favorite tea party food items to have on hand. For more specific information on planning a full tea menu, click on my “Tea Party Food” category link on my sidebar. These items are for the impromptu party or those who prefer minimal food preparation on a limited food budget.
- Boxed red pepper soup–easily garnished with a dollop of creme fraiche, some chopped candied nuts, and sprinkled chives.
- Candied nuts–to garnish a soup, salad, or both.
- Bite-sized frozen quiches
- Cream cheese and bread–the staple of tea sandwiches. Add thinly-sliced cucumbers, chopped herbs, sun-dried tomatoes, apple butter, or whatever you have available. Cut off the crusts and into triangles or rectangles and garnish if possible for quick and simple tea sandwiches.
- Frozen scones–My favorite local brand are Fat Cat Scones. Research what might be available in your area. Many scones mixes are available, like Victorian House Scones, as well. The best way is to prepare from scratch and cut scones at your leisure, freeze them, and then pop them straight into the oven when needed.
- Creme Fraiche and Lemon Curd–Trader Joe’s provides both. These are my favorite and quick accompaniments for scones.
- Chocolate Truffles –because I don’t bake and 90% of women I know want something with chocolate. I’ve seen boxes of simple chocolate truffles at Trader Joe’s and Costco. Place them in paper candy cups (I collect them throughout the year based on the season) or on tiny paper doilies.
- Store bought Pound Cake
- Canned berry or cherry pie filling – My preference for garnishing pound cake quickly. If you have creme fraiche left over, whipped cream or vanilla ice cram, add them as well.
- Tea – Remember, this is The Tea Party’s Most Important Ingredient! Learn to brew tea the old-fashioned way and wow yourself and your guests. Here’s a list of some of Tea Party Girl’s favorite teas to serve those new to tea:
These aren’t your only options, of course. Enjoy browsing your local or online gourmet grocery store for more ideas of quick and simple tea party food ideas. Remember, food is only as good as the ingredients you put into it and less is more. Tea parties are the time to provide a few bites that taste fabulous instead of stuffing your guests with food that is just different forms of white sugar and flour. Enjoy imagining your tea party pantry and what you want to have easily available for a little-touch-of-something for yourself or others.
October 25th, 2007
My definition is food that:
- is seasonal.
- smells great.
- warms me in winter and cools me in summer.
- only has one or two ingredients not on my staples list. This way I don’t spend too much and feel too guilty to enjoy it.
This week my five planned dinners are:
My two planned seasonal sides will be:
Comfort food needs to be full of flavor. Don’t you agree? The French certainly do. (I’m not sure about the British.) So, though people often associate tea with England, I hope to visit France for the food someday. Once a weekend, my man and I pretend we’re French. We eat great bread, a great cheese, a special appetizer and open a bottle of wine. This week’s appetizer we will make is Prosciutto Wrapped Apple Slices.
And because I’m a mom who doesn’t always rush out the door each morning, married a man who cooks the dinners, and suffers from her share of 21st century mommy-guilt, I will make these two breakfasts this week:
And because I’m Tea Party Girl, we must have a few special tea treats. This week I plan to make caramel apples (and because I live with children, they WILL be dipped in some kind of sprinkles) and Cran-Applesauce Sundaes.
Now, you might be wondering. Does all this go with tea? Absolutely. Remember, tea is like wine in its intricacies, nuances, and food-pairing possibilities. The children we will host this weekend drink tea daily as do mine, even though five out of the six of them are boys. So all the above will include multiple pots of tea.
Two of my favorite resources for my menu inspirations are Everyday with Rachel Ray magazine and Everyday Food: Great Food Fast. If you want to start cooking seasonally more, but aren’t quite ready for Chez Panisse Café cookbooks, I recommend adding these two resources to your menu planning.
What’s your definition of comfort food? Let us know in the comments below.
October 18th, 2007
Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic guest-blogged this recipe at Simply Recipes this week and I didn’t want any of you to miss it. ‘Tis the Season! I love biscotti because it has no fat (unless you dip it in chocolate, of course) and is full of crunch, a fabulous choice for “a little touch of something” to go with your cup of tea.
I enjoyed finding Garrett’s blog especially because he’s a food blogger from Sacramento, my neck of the woods for almost 30 years (!). He’s also a great fan of cupcakes, the perfect Children’s Tea Party Food, and according to Garrett, for adults as well. (I admit to drooling over his cupcake search feature…these are no ORDINARY cupcakes.)
Garrett also smartly pairs his biscotti with a cup of chai with a link to a great article that breaks down the process of making chai and the included spices. You’ll want to be sure to check it out.
In case you don’t yet know, I love the tea party, but don’t like to bake. I find others to do it for me. So, if you want to bake up the biscotti and let us know how it goes on your blog, I would be glad to link my readers to you.
Speaking of baking, as the holidays get closer and closer and winter bears down upon us, I plan to feature guest baking bloggers here at Tea Party Girl. Interested? This blog’s received almost 17,000 views since the beginning of June and I would love to feature your work. Email me at jen at tea party girl dot com and let me know you’d love to bake for me :-).
October 11th, 2007
Since discovering my love for tea, like many new hobbyists, I set out to learn who else loved tea. My exploring led me to discover tea houses, events, retailers, and publications. This included the publication, The Tea House Times.
The Tea House Times and its proprietor, Lady Gayle stood out to me for two reasons. First, if you visit the website and sign-up for the e-newsletter, it is sent consistently. Information often includes tea-related interviews, events, and tour announcements. Wherever one might expect Victorian tea-related information to be found, The Tea House Times shows up. They understand that a viable business model includes strong marketing.
Committed to networking with lovers and owners of Victorian tearooms, Lady Gayle and The Tea House Times also stood out to me because of the business’ use of the Internet. The Internet landscape changes rapidly; its advantages to business constantly evolving. The Tea House Times promotes itself and others through link exchanges, using a blog updated a couple times of month, and announcing tea-related events throughout the nation.
So when I asked Lady Gayle for a complimentary copy of their first cookbook compliation for review, The Tea House Times Best Afternoon Tea Recipes, Vol. 1, she sent me one right away. Having witnessed her work to gather favorite Afternoon Tea recipes, I looked forward to seeing the result. For a number of months, the e-newsletter allowed anyone interested to submit up to three recipes to the cookbook. Again, an advantage to Tea House Times and for those who wanted to take advantage of a publicity opportunity.
A simple spiral-bound format, the book opens with five one-page articles covering the basic and helpful information tea-drinkers need, i.e. about storage, the difference between Afternoon/Low tea and High Tea, Tea and Health facts, etc. The chapters are organized by the usual courses an afternoon tea takes: soups, salads, finger sandwices and bite size treats, scones, and sweets. The last two chapters cover miscellaneous recipes (like a Key Lime Curd by The Main Street Mill Historic Tea Room I look forward to trying) and an Afternoon Tea for Children. The book scatters tea quotes throughout as well, courtesy of Lady Dawnya of Tea Radio.
I found the chapter on Afternoon Tea for Children the most helpful, especially the section on Fast Fancy Finger Food from Victoria’s Traveling Tea Party. I knew my six-year old daughter would find herself in pastel heaven if I provided the suggestions for dipping, sprinkling, and sparkling marshmallows, graham crackers, and pretzels, for example. I found the information on storage, make-ahead options, etc. helpful.
Many tearooms I visit provide their own spiral-bound cookbooks. I like this one better because
- It brings the perspectives of a number of tea business owners and lovers instead of only one (and some of the recipes are remarkedly easy, chosen by hard-working tearoom owners, no doubt).
- It’s written with vision for networking. Each entry connects the reader with the recipe-submitter, including a website where applicable and plenty of information about Tea House Times. Again, Lady Gayle’s goals seem to include helping others while promoting her business, too.
On the downside, I find the Tea House Times website very cluttered and difficult to sort out the info I’m interested in. And you all remember how I feel about clutter! For example, I can’t send you to a specific link to purchase the cookbook, just their gift shoppe and encourage you to scroll. But I recommend this collection (if you can find it on the site!) for easy tea-related food options. Interested?
P.S. I receive no commission if you purchase this book, just my freebie ;-).
September 11th, 2007
I recently wrote an exhaustive article on the Steps to Creating a Tea Party Menu and confessed that despite loving Tea Parties, I don’t relish time in the kitchen. Currently, I am sharing the process of planning for my August Tea Party Event. The day to plan the menu is upon me. With high standards and a limited budget, I am determined to find The Lazy Baker’s Way to Plan a Tea Party Menu.
Using my own suggestions, here’s my plan:
- Serve a cold summer fruit-based soup. A local deli makes wonderful cold soup in the summer. I will call them to find out how much a family-sized soup costs and what they will offer during that weekend.
- Serve a corn, tomato, pepper and basil-based salad. I will make this myself. Summer produce abounds and is relatively inexpensive. Almost everyone loves these flavors and it will be colorful. I can make it ahead of time and dress it at the last minute.
- Omit the quiche. The party is at 2:3o so it’s not a mealtime, decent quiche is expensive, and I don’t relish making it or eating it.
- Put my energy into the sandwiches. These are difficult to delegate. My husband can help me. One of the sandwiches will be on the square, thin, bread I can buy at the grocery store deli. I can roll it up and cut it into pinwheels. My three sandwiches will be:
- Open-face traditional cucumber (they’re in season!) and butter on white bread cut with my teapot cookie cutter and garnished with edible violet flowers.
- Turkey Salad with Dried Blueberries on whole-grain bread
- Dijon Pesto Tea Pinwheel Sandwiches-a recipe from a nationally famous local tearoom
- Ask a local bakery (a new Safeway Lifestyles store) to make the scones, some bite-sized fruit tarts, and either petit fours or mini cupcakes. This is where I am willing to spend some money and compromise my love of all-natural food. It will save me so much time and emotional energy, it will be worth it. I will also serve jarred lemon curd and creme fraiche from Trader Joe’s.
- Buy some semi-decent chocolates at Trader Joe’s (I love Trader Joe’s-do you have one where you live?) to fill out the dessert-tier. Not the best season (the best time to buy chocolate at TJ’s is around the holidays), but my choco-holic friends won’t care and the price is right.
- Garnish with in-season green purple grapes. They’re heavy on the neighbor’s vines and the children will enjoy picking them.
- Pre-make Grasshopper ice cream sundaes~a recipe from a recent issue of Every Day with Rachel Ray. I will serve it as the last course on a day that will most likely be warm. But I will need to find an alternate serving vessel as much as I love the stainless steel martini glass in the mag pic.
- Make peach-iced tea and a Ceylon hot tea. I would rather serve Darjeeling because it goes with more of what I’m serving, but I don’t currently have one in stock. I might as well use one of the many others I do to avoid another way to spend money.
- Save enough money for a decent bottle of wine. This group of girls don’t drink, but Plays with Fire and I will enjoy sharing a bottle of Riesling on the back deck when it’s all over.
So what does this mean for this lazy baker exactly?
- Make the salad
- Make the sandwiches
- Make the sundaes
- Buy and Assemble the resst
Tomorrow I will post my shopping list to make sure it is reasonable and within the budget. What do you all think? Am I on the right track?
July 18th, 2007
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