teagal

For a recent tea party I made sandwiches with a filling of butter, coconut and apricot jam mixed together and mini cornbread muffins with some deli sliced ham and a dab of honey mustard. They went over well, also made mini panna cottas (lime flavored) in tiny cups and they were ok after sitting awhile too. I've been seeing serving peices in different catalogs that can keep you food stay cold for a while. Might be a worthwhile investment. Good luck!

I added lemon thyme and mint to my morning oatmeal with sliced strawberries, plain yogurt and honey. Fabulous!!

In a recent issue of Wine Spectator, they described 12 different wineries in Sonoma and of the 12, 8 of them charged for tasting. The cheapest of these 8 were $5.00 and that was the cost for 5 of them.

One Valentine's Day that happened to my husband and I. They couldn't find our reservation so we were seated us in an overflow room that clearly wasn't going to be used for dining that nite - there was even a woman in there ironing tablecloths. It was awful and we've never gone back- there was no apology either, just we'll still let you eat here. And we had the same 'deer in the headlights' look!! Later, of course we realized how bad we've been treated. Takes a while to sink in sometimes!

To answer the ? above-- salt was sprinkled on before baking and it was a superfine salt. It was from my local natural food store and was pinkish and told it was organic and had lots of minerals in it --they don't get too specific there.

Loved the brownies with salt!!! Had to use the Baker's one bowl recipe since I had run low on butter from the pepper brownies, but added some salt to the batter and then sprinkled about 1/2 of a teaspoon salt on top. MMM! They were a favorite with everyone else too. Will definitely make them again-even if I use a different brownie recipe I'll still do the salt.

I am making the WP brownies and the pepper ones today- wanted a decadent food to take to a nearby winery where I will whittle away an afternoon and I think these fit the bill. I'm imagining the addition of salt and pepper will enhance a Norton and if not a sweet white should work. Plus, if I take them with me I'll have to share-brownies are the one thing that I can not stop eating!!

Most of the time I will buy a bottle or if I don't like the wines something else--some food item or whatnot. If I pay for the tasting, then I don't feel I have to do that. A time or two I didn't buy anything and just felt so guilty, I make sure its something I do now. I think anything around $5.00 is fine to charge. Any more and I'd like it to be taken off my bill if I purchase anything-lunch,wine etc. A winery I frequent has just started putting out tip glasses for the people pouring the wines. They don't charge for the tasting and I'm wondering what's the norm for a tip of that sort?

Waldorf salad Fools Jello salads Apple dumplings Cupcakes ~these are the it thing now! Bran Muffins Fondue Souffles

Growing up in Hawaii, I had no inkling that there was a white gravy. Brown gravy was everywhere. Now that I've been in Missouri for many years, white gravy is definitely more prevalent and THE staple for breakfasts or any type of fried cutlets. I enjoy it on scrambled eggs more so than biscuits.

Ok, I converted everything correctly, even went to two sites for tables just to double check if the first one was right and then I end up putting in only half of the butter it called for. Even though it was a little on the hard and heavy side, its still a wonderful cake. Never knew homemade marzipan actually had a taste --mmm. I had some currants-they are hard to find, but recently spotted them in a local feed store/health food store and was wanting to use them in something. Question -my recipe called for a teaspoon of mixed spices; I used a quarter t. each of nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and cloves, was this correct? Will definitely try this again-

I'll be making one for the first time too today so we'll have to post results. Just bought a book on festivals, holidays and the recipes for the foods associated with them and decided to try the cake recipe- although from here I'll have to get conversions from the metric to our measurements. The recipe I have has port in it too-a plus for me, I have a half of a bottle I want to use up before summer is here. Part of the appeal of this recipe to me is the marzipan filling- never have tried making it before.

I just rearranged my freezer a few days ago and was pleasantly surprised to see what I had forgotten was in there:half a loaf of pannetonne bread (there's breakfast for the next week!), a bag of cherries, a bag of cranberries (just read a recipe for apple crisp that stated one can substitute canned cran sauce for the apples, a fresh sauce should be so much better), some wild rice and really good cornmeal. I agree that stuff in the freezer is more personal, I think because you take an extra step or more to get it there, and it has to be good or why else would you be saving it.

Thanks a lot - I should have never opened this thread! Very addictive!Read about the warmed chips last nite and already have had them twice- only had Lay's regular chips in the house, but it worked and was WONDERFUL! Esp. with the weather being kinda cool and having something to munch on that's warm.

A year ago I took some candied ginger, chopped it pretty fine and added it to some vodka. I let it sit for a month and then strained it. It turned to a pretty golden color and tasted lovely. Just remembered, I added sugar syrup to it too. No one else liked it, but I enjoyed sipping on it. Hmmm- part of a bottle is still in my freezer, maybe a little nip will be nice now!

Mary B's- oh yeah they're really good. A lot of times we'll have them with mock devonshire cream (Cool Whip, unsalted butter and cream cheese mixed together) and lemon curd for impromptu tea parties instead of scones. Yummy!! Not too long ago, the food section of the St. Louis paper had 2 recipes to make these!

I think there are some really good wines in Missouri and not just from the Hermann area. Around the Ste.Genevieve area ('bout an hour south of St. Louis) there are approx. 6 wineries. Some have wonderful wines. Great idea to be able to also buy ones wines locally. If I try to be seasonal/fresh/local with everything else it only makes sense to do this with my wines too.

I can vouch that toast dope is fabulous-was inspired to make some a while back after reading about it. I used some Cinnamon Plus from Pampered Chef and it was great. Avocado mashed with sugar Plain buttered toast dunked into a cup of hot chocolate

Okay, here's a great tea party sandwich spread-green olives, chopped but not too fine, cutting them in half is good; chopped walnuts, same amount as olives also not too finely chopped, about 1 to 2 cups of each; mix with softened cream cheese, 1 to 2 blocks (8 oz.each); and a couple grinds of black pepper. Mix together, spread on any bread or crackers, if using regular sandwich slices, cut crusts off and cut into quarters. Every time I make these sandwiches I get lots of compliments. Got on a tea party jag a while back and did them all the time: just for friends, for little girls, as yearly fundraisers, etc. For inspiration I take my neices out for afternoon tea at nice hotels whenever I visit them-love seeing the creative touches and trying to replicate them at home.

I can not tell you how many times the items on a restaurants menu seem like they could just be pulled out of a box from the freezer. Absolutely no originality, much less any seasonality. And this is from restaurants that are in my town and neighboring small towns. (I am closer to St. Louis than KC.) Try Chaumette.com --look up their menu on the Grapevine Grill. After the menu, they list the local farmers and local suppliers they deal with. For this area, its a much needed start and that alone makes me want to support them, food is good too though!

Also underwhelmed by the Hershey's extra dark with the fruit in it, better than nothing--but not something I'll ever crave. However, the Lindt 70% is another story. Can't believe how wonderous that is esp. with such a pronounced taste of blackberries. The price of it is astonishing- so reasonable. I am introducing and raving about it to everyone and at the price they sell it for , I can!

After 15 years of marriage my husband who hunts every year is finally "letting" me do other things with the meat besides the usual flour and fry. Have had great results searing the steaks quickly and most recently with a recipe for Rudolph Pie from one of Nigella's shows on Food TV (a shepard's pie laced with sherry and lots of mushrooms-MMM) and a loin cooked on The F Word (hate the title of that show!) that had a red wine and dark chocolate sauce served over it. My version of the sauce was rushed and thrown together but still fantastic.

Many thanks for all the recipes and ideas on this thread. I ended up soaking fruit in amaretto and rum for three weeks, then made a golden fruitcake with some of it & basted it 3 times every few days; made the chocolate alcohol fruitcake with more of my fruit--(fantastic taste), am letting this sit also after basting it just a couple of times; and lastly I chopped pretty fine the rest of my fruit and made a Carribbean fruitcake(this is heavenly-I'm thinking due to the fruit being chopped, a bite thus gives a taste of all the wonderous fruits). I baked the cakes in small pans so one of each I can nibble on every few days to sample--waiting for Christmas to serve them and am seeing how the cake changes as time goes by. Great info on this topic -learned a lot. Thanks!

Sorry-not very good at posting yet! Question - does the fruit have to be dried? I have some fresh peaches I sliced, added rum to in the summer and stuck them in the freezer. Could I add this when the other fruit I have soaked is ready to be added to the recipe?

Definitely mix it up. If you have a large jar with a good lid, just turn it upside down every couple of days. I never refrigerate my mixture, it just stays in the back of a cupboard. One year I made a batch early, forgot about it, made a second batch, and then used the first batch the following year. ←