The Love of Tea

From Tea at Trianon - follow this link to plan your own afternoon tea.

The girls and I have always made time for a "cuppa" after school, sometimes with, and sometimes without a treat or two to go along...I confess I love my teatime with the girls. It's great for what I call "the daily download" of school day stories, gossip, atrocities, and even tears. Nothing like a little tea and sympathy!


A quick and easy tea sandwich recipe:

Ingredients:

*1 small, peeled cucumber, sliced very thin

*wholegrain bread ("Health Nut" or 12-grain is nice), crust removed, of course!

* Philly (or similar) spreadable cream cheese - vegetable variety

Preparation:

Easy! Spread a thin layer of flavored cream cheese on each slice of bread, add a layer of cucumber to every other slice, cover with an "un-cucumbered" slice, and cut into fingers, or quarters (triangular or square).

Serve with a variety of other 2-3 othe tea sandwiches - you can go as fancy(salmon and cream cheese on cocktail rye toast) or as simple (PBJ on white!) as you'd like. I've also been known to whip together some shredded cheddar cheese and Miracle Whip with dash of white pepper - even a little pimiento if I happen to have it on hand. Egg and tuna salad, too. The key is to mix up the sweet and the savory.

When we make our tea a fill-in for dinner, I will break out my tea and snack plate service, and serve hot soup in teacups with the sanwiches on the snack plates.

(This may horrify the tea purists out there, but hey - we're colonists!)

Basic cookbooks with great results

For my dear soon to be married Clam...

Another good one for starters, in addition to your Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook

http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Kitchen-Family-Cookbook-Revised/dp/193361501X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216680896&sr=1-1

This one is good and gets better over time, especially with kids and leftovers to contend with. You will go back to this one again and again - read it gradually, then when you are at a loss for ideas, suddenly an idea you learned from it will pop into your head. (Ok, maybe that's just me...) You can get a gently used version of this one for next to nothing on Amazon. She has several other titles (for entertaining and dieting, among other things) which I don't own, but I'd imagine are also good stuff!

http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Without-Book-Techniques/dp/0767902793/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216729748&sr=8-1

And then there's this one - it's out of print but still available on Amazon for less than $5 (used) to $25 (new). I'm surprised a new edition hasn't been done, frankly. All those interesting-sounding recipes you find on product labels? Here they are! (Love this one!)

http://www.amazon.com/Great-American-Favorite-Cookbook-Collectors/dp/0785361804/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216730586&sr=8-3