Pork Green Chili

by Ann

The finished product garnished with grated cheese and chopped cilantro.

We do whatever we can to get out of the heat in the summer in the Phoenix area. A quick solution to that problem is to drive about three hours to the mountainous pines of Flagstaff, which is what my husband and I did a couple of months ago with another couple for three days.  While there we ate at MartAnne's cafe, and I ordered the best pork green chili I could remember ever tasting in my life served over eggs and tortillas as huevos rancheros. The hubby had another iteration of the green chili as a key component of their popular posole soup (of which I am not a fan since I don't like hominy, another key component).

Unfortunately I didn't think to take a picture of the dish, but I can guarantee you I'd been thinking OF the chili for the rest of the hot summer, until I decided to make it last week. As has become my routine, I looked up several recipes on the Internet and grabbed ingredients from each that I thought would work.  Can I say that mine was as good as MartAnne's?  Unfortunately, no, but it was close, and next time it will be even closer.

Here's what I used:

pork shoulder roast* - you need at least two pounds of edible chunks of pork to make this worthwhile
4-6 T oil or bacon fat
1 large chopped onion
1 whole head of garlic
6 T flour
2 c diced green chilies (details below)
1 pound tomatillos
4 c chicken broth, stock, or water
2 T cumin
2 T chile powder
salt to taste

Here's what I did:

Prep the meat.
Being a bit handicapped due to my second bunion procedure, I sent the hubby to the store for a bone-in pork roast for two reasons; "half off pork sale" at the store that week, and that my misguided vision thought that if I crock-potted the roast prior to making the chili the bone would impart extra richness in flavor.  Bad idea.  Or maybe the complication came with the male perspective of "bigger is better" because the 8.5 pound roast did not even fit into the crock pot.  So, I monkeyed around with it until I could get the meat cut into bit sized chunks, which would have been a heck of a lot easier if I'd started with a boneless pork loin!
*  The quantities of ingredients other than the pork would work with 2-4 pounds of meat depending upon how spicy you like your food, and how hot the chilies are.  This is a recipe that you add liquid and spice as needed and to taste.

Ooops... Lid won't fit...

Regardless of how you get there, the pork needs to be cut into about 1" cubes and browned in fat or oil.

This was a portion of what I got off of the roast in several stages, but gives the idea about the chunk-size.

Prepare the tomatillos.  
In spite of the fact that I have lived in Arizona since I was a small child, and love to cook I had never cooked with tomatillos before!  They have a papery husk that needs to be removed, and when that's done they have a funky sticky texture, but you'll cook that out of them.  

Tomatillos are interesting - if you try them raw they have a very tart, bitter bite, but cooking them mellows the flavor out tremendously.

Remove husks, rinse, slice in half, and place on foil-lined baking sheet to broil.  Broil for 5-8 minutes until outsides become a bit blistery.  Turn over and broil for another 5 or so minutes.  Tomatillos will cook down quite a bit, so what starts as a tray full ends up being a third of a tray.  Pick any black scorched skins off and toss.  Place in a large bowl.  (In my case, I put them in the crock pot once the meat was removed.)

Broil each side.  Some of the skin will char -- remove the black stuff -- once cooled that's a snap.

Prepare your chilies.  
In the southwest we have lots of options that might not be as readily available in other parts of the country. For the produce-seeking grocery trip I had the hubby cart me around since I still couldn't drive, so we went a few places looking for New Mexican Hatch green chilies, to no avail.  You could use canned, but if prepared are your only option, better yet look in the freezer section for frozen.  I have been very happy with the Bueno brand of chopped, frozen green chilies.  I bought Anaheim chilies at the first store, but then we went to a Hispanic market and bought some that had already been roasted, which is a huge time saver.

If you're using fresh chilies, broil them just like the tomatillos.  Then place them in a sealed bag to loosen the skins.  Toss skins, stems, and seeds.  Dice the  remaining flesh of the peppers into about 1/2 inch pieces. 

Prepare your roux.
Add chopped onions and garlic to 4-6 T oil or bacon fat.  If you have any residual fat from the meat prep, use it.  Saute the onion and garlic until translucent; add the flour, and cook until golden brown.  Add the stock or water and cook until thickened.  Stock adds another layer of flavor, so is preferable, but not necessary. 

Cook the onion (and garlic which hasn't been added quite yet) in oil or bacon fat until translucent.

Add flour and cook until the fat is fully absorbed and the flour turns a nice golden brown color.

Create your sauce.
Add about 2/3 of the chilies you plan to use to your bowl with cooked tomatillos (mine included a couple of cups of stock).  With an immersion blender (or you could do this in a regular blender) liquefy the tomatillo/green chilies/broth and spices to have a creamy sauce that isn't too chunky. You will add the remaining chopped green chilies in tact to add a few chunks.

Spices were blended with an immersion blender to the 2/3 of the green chilies, tomatillos, and remaining liquid that I had unsuccessfully tried to cook the too-big roast in the crock-pot in.

Put it all together to simmer until tender.
Put all above mentioned "parts" in a Dutch oven or crock pot.  Add diced tomatoes and remaining diced chilies that were not blended. Cook until meat is very tender (half a day in the crock pot or a couple of hours on the stove).  Serve garnished with cilantro, grated cheese, and whatever else sounds good (sour cream?).

On a farewell for now note:

As you have most likely gathered from my dear friends' past two posts, this is the last regular post that will appear on Friendship, Life, and Style.  For many reasons we've decided to take a break.  It saddens me in lots of ways, but is a bit of a relief as well.  As a former teacher I sometimes compared writing my posts to papers that needed to be graded...  I knew it had to be done, but there was often more pressing (or fun) things to do instead.  The papers were part of a job -- this whole adventure was designed to be fun, which it certainly has been, yet could also feel like one more thing to do.  

Thank you for reading our ramblings.  This is our 202nd post. Had it not been for the blogging adventure I would have never:

• Truly understood what blogging was all about, nor looked to fellow bloggers for recipes, ideas, and inspiration.
• Been motivated to apply for the "Kitchen Assistant" position at Sur la Table; and therefore not had the many fun experiences with the interesting people that I work with at the store.
• Made fresh pasta... or for that matter using tomatillos!
• Connected in a new way to people I will never know personally, but through the virtue of blogging feel like I know.
• Had an audience who chose to read what I had to write (as opposed to the teachers who have to read what I write!)
• Had a grand adventure with my best buds, Sheila and Heather.

Who knows....  We may decide we miss the pressure of deadlines and resurrect the blog at some point.  But for now, I am feeling empowered to continue to post and occasional recipe if I do something fabulous since we will keep our site live if anyone wants to refer back to a previous post.   

Bon Appetite!

With love and thanks, 

Ann

Sangria; A Summertime Specialty

by Sheila

You may have read about our pool float parties.  I'm sure by now you know we like wine.  The natural pairing here is one of our summer favorites; Sangria.  We have been making this since the days we couldn't afford to drink anything else.  I am typically a white wine drinker (might be the heat of the desert), but for Sangria, I definitely prefer red.  This is great to make for  a crowd, and is best if made several hours prior to serving, if not the night before.

 

One of the advantages of a good Sangria, is that you can serve a wine beverage to a large group without breaking the bank.  Because you are adding sugar and fruit, there is no reason to use a high quality expensive wine.  A red that you like in the $5-7 a bottle range should do the trick.  I have been known to use the "leftovers" of a variety of red wines to create my Sangria on weekends that we were doing lots of entertaining, and this works great. This is my favorite all-time Sangria (I like it as well as any I've had in Spain) and this recipe is adapted from Cooks Illustrated.

2 large juice oranges, washed; 1 sliced, 1 juiced

1 large lemon, washed and sliced

1/4 c sugar

1/4 c triple sec

1 750 ml bottle inexpensive, fruity medium bodied red wine chilled (merlot or pinot?)

1.  Add sliced orange and lemon and sugar to bottom of pitcher.  Mash gently with wooden spoon until fruit releases some juice but is not totally crushed, and sugar dissolves.  Stir in orange juice, Triple Sec and wine.  Refrigerate for at least a few hours, and up to 12 hours.  

2.  Add ice to serve and stir briskly to mix up fruit and pulp. 

I have a large beverage dispenser that I like to serve this in, but be careful because the fruit can clog up the spout. I also like to garnish glasses with a slice of fruit as well.  And needless to say, I often double this recipe! 

If you read Heather's post on Monday, you know that we are signing off on our blog, at least for the time being.  It has been a great adventure, but adds one more thing to do in an already busy schedule. Blogging on a regular basis is not without its issues.  Like the time I was in a rental car down at Cranky Al's Donut Shop in Milwaukee using their free wifi at 11 pm at night the night before my post was to be published, trying to get everything done.  Crazy!  We appreciate your interest and loyalty and will be leaving all of our posts up, so if you want to double check one of Ann's recipes, or need some design inspiration from Heather, it will be there.  We have learned a lot along the way, and had fun sharing ideas and solving problems together.  We will continue our friendship "behind the scenes" and if we decide to start up again in the future, we'll post here.  Thanks for reading...

Salute!

Sheila

 

Cassoulet for Book Club

by Ann

No, this isn't cassoulet.
We always start out with snacks and I wanted to show my dear friend Teri that I am enjoying the cheese board slate that she gave me as a gift.  It comes with chalk to identify what is being served.  Cute!

Most of the novels I read discuss food at some point or another.  Maybe that says something about the books I choose, which was certainly the case for Hotel Pastis, my pick for our August book club read. Figuring out the food for the book club meeting is the responsibility of the person hosting that month.  When possible, we try to match the theme of the food to the book, which was very "doable" for this book considering a description on the back cover reads that the book is "Slyly funny and overflowing with sensuous descriptions of the good life. Hotel Pastis is the literary equivalent of a four-star restaurant."

It was a fun read that allowed us to extend the summer vacation concept just a little bit further before the school year started back up.  The "good life" described in the book included lots of drinking, eating, and smoking.  I guess I'll forgive them the smoking -- it's set in Paris and was written in 1993 -- hard to believe that's twenty years ago now!  I digress -- back to the eating and drinking, and this post.

First, the drinking -- The fictional hotel was named Pastis, after a popular French anise flavored liquor that gets its strong flavor from licorice root.  It is part of the family of Mediterranean anise liquors including the more well known Sambuca and ouzo.  It is typically served with still mineral water, 4 or 5 parts water to 1 part liquor.  Naturally, we had to try it!  I love black licorice, so found in tasty, as did all but one of the book club friends.  The characters also drank lots of wine, which gave me a great excuse to go to the largest wine store in our area and get a great rose, white, and red from Provence for us all to try.  

Only using one ounce for each glass left me with a lot of Pastis.  Perhaps I'll come up with a recipe to use more of it up for a future post...

Now for the eating -- What to make for dinner?  At Hotel Pastis there was a wonderful French chef whipping up dishes beyond my level of expertise, and many of which sounded too fancy for my tastes.  The love-interest in the book prepared a French cassoulet for dinner towards the beginning of the story, so I decided to figure out how to make cassoulet.

As I always do now, my first source of information is the Internet.  From my research I was not surprised to find that cassoulet is a French casserole that always has multiple pork ingredients, white beans, herbs, garlic, and onions.  The authentic recipes called for duck confit, duck leg meat, lamb, and/or mutton.  Yikes!  When I went to our high-end grocery store looking for duck products, there was no confit, and a small package of frozen duck legs was $10, so my thrifty alter-ego took over and I bought some boneless skinless chicken thighs instead. I am still learning about confit, and so far have gathered that it refers to a a preparation method for a very rich (read lots of fat) poultry cooking technique.

I also found cassoulet recipes in my cookbook collection including Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and one of my Frugal Gourmet cookbooks.  Bottom line -- the recipe I put together is a combination from about five or six sources.  As I did my research I kept coming across a reference to cassoulet being the predecessor to "pork and beans," but believe me -- this has no connection to the U.S. version of sweet, syrupy pork and beans that come out of a can.

Soak the beans overnight.  Drain off the water and replace with enough fresh water to cover the beans. In a dutch oven, saute half of the onions, bell pepper, garlic, and carrots until the onions are translucent (5-10 minutes).  Add the beans and two of smoked ham hocks to simmer covered until beans become tender (about an hour and a half).

Lots of meat goes into this dish -- most of it pork.  

Pork products include sweet sausage, pork chops, ham hocks, and pancetta (not pictured).  Additionally, I added 3 boneless skinless chicken thighs in lieu of the duck.

Browning the sausage with the pancetta will render fat which imparts lots of flavor (and calories...)

Yikes!  That's a lot of meat!  Once the pancetta renders its fat, add the pork cubes and chicken to brown.

Create a bouquet garni of herbs - I used oregano, thyme and bay leaves.  I could have just tied them together with the kitchen string, but went a step further to put them in cheesecloth, which probably wasn't necessary.  You just need to be able to fish them out before serving.

After the beans have cooked, remove the ham hocks and separate the usable meat from the bones and gristle.  There won't be much meat - the smokey flavor has imparted to the beans, which is the purpose for the hocks.

The remaining half of the chopped vegetables need to be sauteed until tender.  I had to remove the browned meat to make room in the pan to get them tender enough to add to the crock pot.

Add the beans, meats, and remaining ingredients and simmer until flavors are developed. I did mine in the crock pot because of timing and the fact that I did not want the oven on in the middle of the summer for an extended period of time. Most of the recipes that I looked at suggested cooking in the oven for a couple of hours at a relatively low temperature (325 degrees).  

If you use the crock-pot method, don't cook the beans until they are tender the when simmering with the ham hocks, or the remaining cooking time in the crock pot will result in bean mush.

To finish off, pour mixture into a casserole dish and top with bread crumbs drizzled with a bit of butter.  Cook at a high temperature (400 degrees) until a golden crust has formed (about 15-20 minutes).

How perfect is this casserole dish that my sister brought back from France as a gift?  Thanks, Linda!

Cassoulet

Ingredients:

1 ½ c dry great northern beans
¼ c olive oil
10 cloves of garlic, smashed
2 onions, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 large ham hocks
5 oz. pancetta, chopped

2 medium-large pork chops, cut into 1” cubes
3 links Italian sausage
3 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1” cubes

4 sprigs of oregano
4 sprigs of thyme
3 bay leaves
1 c whole peeled canned tomatoes
1 c white wine
1 6 oz can tomato paste
2 c chicken or beef broth
2 c bread crumbs
1/3 c chopped parsley
¼ c melted butter

Directions:

• Soak beans in a four quart bowl overnight.Next day: 
• Heat 2 T olive oil in large Dutch oven over medium high heat.  Add half of the garlic, bell pepper, onions, and carrots and cook until lightly browned, about 10 minutes.  Add ham hocks along with beans and their water and boil.  Reduce heat and simmer until beans begin to get tender, about 1 ½ hours.
• Once beans are beginning to become tender, transfer ham hocks to plate, let cool.  Pull off the meat, discard the skin, bone and gristle.  Chop meat, add to beans, set aside.
• Heat 2 T of oil in another large pot with the pancetta over medium-high heat until fat is rendered.  Add pork, sausage and chicken thighs to brown for 8 minutes.  Add remaining garlic, bell pepper, onions, and carrots; cook until lightly browned, another 10 minutes.  Tie the oregano, thyme, and bay leaves in cheesecloth to create a bouquet garni; add to the tomatoes.  Cook until tomato liquid begins to thicken, 8-10 minutes. Add wine, reduce by half.  Add broth; boil. 
• In crock pot combine beans, broth, and meat mixture.  Cook on medium for 4-5 hours.
• Transfer to baking casserole.  Top with bread crumbs, drizzled with butter.  Cook uncovered at 400° until crust is golden.

Congratulations if you have gotten through all of the text in this post!  I know that my blogging partners would say this was WAY too wordy, and I agree.  With that said, there is an awful lot of detail to preparing this dish.  Is it worth it?  I'm not 100% convinced that I would make it again, but it was the perfect dish to match up with the book.  If you want a printable version of the recipe, hopefully this link with get you to it.  Print recipe!

Biscuits and Gravy

by Ann

I like my hot foods hot.  I mean burn-your-lips-hot.  After pouring myself a cup of fresh coffee I put it in the microwave for 20 seconds because the little bit of creamer I've added cools it down too much.  With that said, even though I'd love to have some biscuits and gravy to go with my coffee, I won't be happy if I order them in a restaurant, because they won't be hot enough to suit my tastes.  

The solution?  Make my own, and with some prepared helpers it is amazingly simple, and truly delicious. We don't have this too often because of the fat gram count, but heck, if you can't have treats every now and then (ok.... I'll admit, I have regular treats...) life is no fun!

The short-cuts?  I use McCormick's "Original Country Gravy" mix, and typically Pillsbury "Grands" Buttermilk Biscuits. Since I had a quart of buttermilk on hand from a cake recipe I'd made a week before I looked online and found the recipe that I am sharing on the Southern Food.com website.  It was easy to prepare since a food processor was involved, and had lots of rave reviews.

First, make the biscuits (or open the can and put them on the lined baking sheet).

The ingredients are simple -- With the exception of buttermilk you would most likely have everything on hand.  A key to good pastry is to have the fat very cold.

Add the buttermilk slowly while the food processor is running.  It is surprisingly "wet,"  but with a bit of flour on the counter comes together to a beautiful tender consistency.

Pat into a 1/2" thick round without overworking the dough.
You don't want to develop the gluten in the flour  too much.

Cut and bake.  It really does make a difference to use a good cutter rather than a glass jar or a cheap plastic cutter because of the thin, sharp edge of the metal cutter.

Bake to "goldenly delicious"!

Buttermilk Biscuits using a Food Processor

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the counter
1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon kosher salt or 1 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, very cold

1 cup buttermilk (approx)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450°F.

1. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl, or in the bowl of a food processor.
2. Cut the butter into chunks and cut into the flour until it resembles course meal.
3. If using a food processor, just pulse a few times until this consistency is achieved.
4. Add the buttermilk and mix JUST until combined.
5. If it appears on the dry side, add a bit more buttermilk. It should be very wet.
6. Turn the dough out onto a floured counter.
7. Gently, gently PAT (do NOT roll with a rolling pin) the dough out until it's about 1/2" thick. Fold the dough about 5 times, gently press the dough down to a 1 inch thick.
8. Use a round cutter to cut into rounds.
9. You can gently knead the scraps together and make a few more, but they will not be anywhere near as good as the first ones.
10. Place the biscuits on a cookie sheet- if you like soft sides, put them touching each other.
11. If you like crusty sides, put them about 1 inch apart- these will not rise as high as the biscuits put close together.
12. Bake for about 10-12 minutes- the biscuits will be a beautiful light golden brown on top and bottom.
13. Do not overbake.

Note: The key to good biscuits is not in the ingredients, but in the handling of the dough.

The dough must be handled as little as possible or you will have tough biscuits.

Ok -- biscuits are done -- While they are baking get the sausage gravy going!  Since I typically prepare this "for two" (healthy) servings, I start with half of a 12 oz package of sausage.  I often buy the hot and spicy variety, which works well for this recipe.

Brown the sausage in pan.

Once again, ingredients are simple -- Mix, water, milk and hot sauce.

I always divide the package of gravy mix in half, one tablespoon at a time until I have two equal portions -- One to use now, and one later.  (Each half had 5 T of dry mix)

Once the liquid of half-milk, half-water has been added to browned sausage, dump in one of the containers of gravy mix.  Be sure to add a splash of hot sauce to perk up the gravy!
(Put the other half of the mix back in the envelope and seal it with a clip for next time.) 

Split a couple of biscuits in half and spoon gravy mix on.  Yum...

And because of you, our dear and faithful readers, my lips did not burn eating this due to needing to take some pics, but regardless, they were still a great treat -- and the coffee was scalding!

Fruit Cake/Tart

 by Ann

I was in a quandary as to the title of this recipe.  When I first learned how to prepare it many, many years ago in a cooking class at our local community college the instructor called it a fruit tart.  I have since grown to love tarts because of their rich, dense, almost cookie-like crust, which this recipe does not have.  Yet I hate to call it a fruit cake, lest you have visions of a nearly inedible holiday loaf with dried fruit.  Instead the base is a basic jelly roll cake prepared in a Mary Ann cake pan (one with fluted edges and an indentation for filling).  Regardless of what to call it, the dessert is fabulous!  

It had been years since I'd prepared it, and when reflecting upon why I hadn't made it for so long, it comes down to the fact that it's a lot of work and really needs to be eaten up the day it is prepared, so it is something that is reserved for special occasions.  My turn to host book club gave me an excuse to bust out the Mary Ann pan!

After preparing it, another reason that I don't get in gear to make this recipe often came to mind -- Lots of dishes to wash.  The cake needs to be prepared with two different mixing bowls, as does the pudding.  (That's four bowls, multiple beaters, and everything else involved to wash!) Whine... whine.... whine... Back to the good stuff...

Here's the prepared pan that has been very generously greased and floured -- If you don't have one, Google Mary Ann cake pan and you'll have lots of options.

The first of the two-mixers at once adventure... Egg whites in the Kitchen Aide and yolks, sugar, oil, water, and vanilla in with the portable.

The yolk mixture (with flour and oil) must be carefully folded into the yolks.  

When the baked cake comes out of the oven it's a bit puffy.  Because the pan is so shallow the cake only cooks for 12-15 minutes.

Whew!! It released from the pan.  Not sure if the variation in color is due to parts sticking on the pan, or not folding well enough.  Regardless, it was delicious.

The second round of the two-mixer requirement. Whipping cream in the Kitchen Aide, instant vanilla pudding and half of the called for on the package milk using the portable mixer.

Ok -- Let's make that pudding worth eating!  Add 3 tablespoons of Grand Mariner.  Simply amazing...

Now the fun begins.  Pile the whipped topping in the center of the cake and lightly place a decorative arrangement of colorful fruit.

Be sure the fruit is as dry as possible.  After rinsing the berries I dried them on paper towel, and if you look close you can see that the sections of Mandarin orange are also having extra moisture absorbed.

Once all of the arranging is done, it's time to glaze for a beautiful golden finish.  I have never seen apricot jelly, but can easily find the jam.  If that's all you can find just strain it through a fine mesh sieve.  Keep the bits for toast later!

With a silicone brush carefully dab and brush the glaze over the fruit, being careful not to pull the pudding up with the brush.  Mmmmm.....

Click for printable recipe

(I have heard back from some people that my links don't work on their machines.  Sorry!  I'm doing the best I know how!!  You can always copy/paste the below recipe into a document if it won't work for you.)

Fruit Cake/Tart

Cake ingredients:

3 large eggs

1 c flour

1 c sugar

1 t baking powder

¼ t salt

1/3 c water

1 T oil

1 t vanilla

Directions:

Grease and flour a 10” MaryAnn pan (fluted with a depression for filling).
Separate the eggs and allow to temper to room temperature.  
Beat 1/3 c sugar into the yolks until they are thick and lemon colored.
Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.  Add to the egg yolk mixture along with the water, oil, and vanilla, beat well.
In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.  Very slowly add the remaining 2/3 c sugar until a thick meringue is formed.
Gently fold egg white and egg yolk mixtures together until well blended.
Spread evenly into prepared pan and bake at 375° for about 12-15 minutes.  Cool for five minutes and then invert onto serving plate.

Pudding and finishing ingredients:

½ pint whipping cream

1 large box instant vanilla pudding

1 ½ c milk (½ of milk called for on package)

3 T Grand Mariner

Variety of small colorful fruits (berries, kiwi, grapes, mandarin oranges)

apricot jelly (if available, if not, use jam pressed through a strainer)

Directions:  

To make the pudding, chill bowl and beaters.  Whip ½ pint of whipped cream until stiff.  In separate chilled bowl mix a large package of instant vanilla pudding with ½ of the milk that the instructions call for.  Mix on high speed for only one minute.  Combine the two bowls of ingredients and Grand Mariner slowly running the beaters through just enough to gently combine.

Mound the pudding in the center of the cake.  Decoratively arrange a colorful combination of fresh and well drained canned fruits on top of the pudding.  Lightly brush a layer of apricot glaze over the fruit, pudding mixture being sure to avoid getting pudding on top of the fruit.

Note:  This cake is best eaten the day it is put together.

Summer Tea Time

by Heather

Home Goods plates; vintage teacups from another china set; Home Goods place mats; tea towels (which I use as napkins) from a little shop in Minneapolis 

I like tea parties. Give me any excuse to have one and I will. This time the tea started out to be for one party but segued into another instead. Oh well...any excuse will do. I always have loose tea leaves on hand -- I start each day with a pot of tea -- and I usually have scone mix in the cupboard. I know how to make scones from scratch but why would anyone bother to do so when, with this mix, all you do is add water and they're great every time. 

With the scones, I like to serve several types of jams -- usually strawberry and lemon curd -- and clotted cream (aka Devonshire cream).

Lemon curd and strawberry with champagne jam are held in glass bowls with glass serving spoons from local shop, Bungalow; clotted cream is in vintage Waterford; butter dish from Home Goods

Cost Plus is the place where I can find all of these items at good prices. I'll also pick up Cadbury milk chocolate fingers and Walkers shortbread if I know that I'm doing a tea in the near future.  Can you tell that I'm not the baker in our blogging trio?

Scones, shortbread and chocolate fingers are placed on Home Goods two-tiered plate stand.

For this tea, I made two types of tea sandwiches: egg salad on wheat and chive butter/cucumber on white. I used a mandolin slicer for the first time to get the cucumber slices thin enough -- why haven't I used this before?? It's been sitting in the cupboard for years!

Sandwiches are placed on a tiered glass stand from Home Decor. Note the sweet birds perched at the top; they fit right in with the bird motif on the plates.

 If I'm going all out, I will generally add at least one more type of sandwich as well as cheese straws and sausage rolls and if I'm really on a roll, jam tarts and sandwich cake.

One of the best parts of having a tea is setting the table. I love the green bird and flower patterned china that I picked up at Home Goods this spring so I started with those plates.

I wanted to offer both de-caf and regular tea so I needed two teapots. Home Goods again to the rescue with two pots I had picked up this spring -- one to match the green plates; one in cream with a bird motif.

The only new items on the table: two candelabras from Home Goods (where else?)

I couldn't resist these candelabras. I'll probably put them into storage after the tea and bring them out again at Christmas. I can picture them during that season surrounded by silver and sparkle.

A green linen runner down the middle of the table and two preserved boxwoods in their own wire basket, both from Home Goods, added to the off-center centerpiece.

Butter knives and additional tea spoons are corralled in silver cups

Maybe for my next tea, I'll do a coastal theme. The tea pot below with a matching sugar and creamer is needing some action.

Home Goods tea pot, sugar, creamer, and tray

Home Goods jar; Nordstrom's candleholders

Come on over for a cuppa, okay?

Love,
Heather