Tag: tea party

A Boozy Bridgerton Tea
Party Posts

A Boozy Bridgerton Tea

LSiehLeave a comment

Why hello! Are you ready for tea? Perhaps with a spot of something stronger? Or maybe some genteel gossip? Then do come in! No boys allowed though! This was ladies’ only. We kicked the Husband out to K2’s house, where he had a perfectly manly time blowing things up in video games.

One of my favorite historical romance series, the Bridgerton Family, by Julia Quinn was made into a Netflix show and I was super excited by it. I did like the first season better and did not enjoy the second season as much, although I think I understand why they changed the story so much from the book. The costumes are gorgeous and I really enjoy the modern music played by string quartets. It’s a nice mix of fantast and more modern sensibilities without losing the core elements of romance. However, you didn’t read this post for my thoughts on the series, you want to see the boozy tea! Say no more! on to the pictures!

Here you can see grandma’s singing teapot, which charmed everyone! My friend K3 made soda bread from a family recipe and it was lovely. Another friend brought fancy chocolates. Those are strawberry marshmallows in the fancy bowl, which was my grandma in law’s. In the very corner of the picture, you can just see our pickles for the evening! The last time I went to the plant store, I found a pickle plant! It’s a type of trailing succulent and it has little bristles like cucs do before they turn into pickles! Also, look Mom! One of the spider plant babies I stole at Christmas!

My friend K3 made cucumber sandwiches as well and they were lovely! I have a cucumber in my fridge that I really need to use probably pretty quickly and I think I might make myself a tea lunch with it soon. K2 made egg salad and we had a couple of kinds of crackers for it. Also, a better view of the pickle plant and a spider plant I didn’t steal from my mother.

K3 also made cherry orange biscuits at my house for the party, K2 brought the macaroons and made the Cosmo cupcakes! My friend L made the brownies. We had strawberries and cream as well, and gluten free scones.

These are store bought eclairs. I have no desire to make them, as they are fiddly. These are the perfect size for my tray too. Which I bought day of the party because I had to get supplies and Aldi has the weirdest selection of non-grocery items ever. Had I gotten myself a cart, I probably would have also bought the mini buffet server for parties.

We also had these amazingly delicious Italian almond cookies- I think they were amaretti cookies. I’m going to have to get some more from the store or learn to make them. My friend C who brought the chocolates, also brought a delicious gluten free strawberry cake, but I didn’t get a few things in a picture, unfortunately.

Now, you absolutely cannot have a Regency era tea party without lemonade, but since this was a boozy night, we spiked it. Naughty of us, I know, but it was delicious! K2 brought homemade strawberry simple syrup and I had a really smooth gin that my younger brother brought as payment for a sewing job. So we had spiked strawberry lemonade, as well as regular spiked lemonade- in the corner of the picture. The strawberry version is below.

It was hard to pick a favorite! I also made two tea based cocktails, served in a teacup of course! To simplify recipes, we just used two and both used gin. There was a spiked lemonade in the book made with strawberry green tea, but I just added gin and simple syrup to the regular lemonade. The tea based cocktails were both Mar-Tea-nis. We had a hibiscus roobios one and an Earl Grey one. I made both the teas ahead and chilled them. My kitchen counter looked like a mad scientist’s workshop for a while with all sorts of teas steeping. K2 had Red Berries Iced Tea which I happily drank the rest of all weekend.

I made the drinks light and followed the recipe from my Tea Cocktails book (Tea Cocktails: Unique and Delicious Tea- Infused Cocktails by Abigail Gehring.)

The picture below is the hibiscus roobios mar-tea-ni. This felt a little bland for me. I think I needed more simple syrup in it, but didn’t want to cover the taste of the tea. I don’t know if I would make it again.

The Earl Grey mar-tea-ni was much more to my taste. My brother sent me a recipe that included infusing the gin and I may still try that one, but didn’t have time before the party. I had some lemon with it and used a regular simple syrup instead of a honey simple syrup, but I think it worked either way.

I would definitely drink this again! I’m excited to try some more of the tea cocktails from the book, but need to track down some ginger tea, if I don’t already have any. Also, I may need a bigger booze cupboard shortly. Or need to make drinks with the tiny bottles of flavored vodka I have taking up space. Hmm. Maybe that will be a future party experiment and blog post.

I’ll leave you with a picture of the absolute perfect tins that I bought right before the party. Behold my cake tins! When I tell you I have a desire to replicate the cakes and store them in their tins, I’m sure you’ll understand why.

Don’t they look delicious?! Anyway, I hope your night is as sweet as this party was and if you’re into Regency era romance, definitely check out the Bridgerton books and show.

A Ladies’ Tea
Party Posts

A Ladies’ Tea

LSiehLeave a comment

The Husband doesn’t go on trips by himself often, so when he does, I try to do something fun and girly. This weekend, I had a few friends over to make our own tea blends.

We had green and black teas as a base and I went crazy on the mix ins, so we had a ton of things to try. I have a lot left over, so I think my tea drinker friends will be getting some homemade tea blends in Christmas boxes.

Oddly, I found a lot of the fancy mixers at Marshalls. I had gone in on a whim and came out with dried hibiscus flowers, dried apricots, cacao nibs, and organic unsweetened shredded coconut.

I also found more dog treats than Fancy could ever eat, but was restrained and only came out with two bags. I have a problem wanting to spoil her to make her forget about her life as a rescue dog. I tend to open all of her treats at once. Drives the Husband nuts, but I just can’t resist her little face. Can you really blame me?

Anyway, back to tea… I had the privilege to use a teapot and tea cups that were from my Grandma Shirley, my Dad’s mom. The teapot plays music when you lift it up to pour and it charmed my friends. I have fantastic memories of having tea parties with my Grandma and feeling so grown up.

My lovely friend, Kim sent me the cute tea mat, it has a pink teapot on it as well and matches perfectly with my teapot and my tablecloth.

It looks quite intimidating to piece, but we may have to try to figure it out. I also used adorable napkins that I got from my brother and sister-in-law for Christmas. They have tea mugs and cups on them. I have been saving them for just the right occasion!

I have never made my own teas before. I intended on drying some herbs from my containers, but they weren’t quite what I needed them to be yet, so I think the Christmas blends will have them instead.

I used a few different recipes for the basis for the blends, but really, we just picked our own things to try and then put them in an infuser. I have quite a collection of silly tea infusers and had to narrow it down to the ones that would fit in the tea cups. I also had bag filters, as one of the black tea blends was a little small.

This is the “deep T diver” infuser. He is one of my favorites.

Not pictured are the “T-tanic” ship, the T-rex, the Tardis from Dr. Who, and the rubber ducky.

Here are two of the sites I used for tea blend ideas. I looked at a bunch more, which are saved to the blog’s Pinterest page under Not So 50’s Housewife.

Make Your Own Looseleaf Tea – all natural!

http://snip.ly/uq4tr?utm_content=buffer8de02&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer#http://adelightfulhome.com/diy-tea-recipes/

I tried some new food recipes too.

We had cucumber sandwiches, deviled eggs- made by Crystal, lemon bars, strawberries and cream, baba gannouj with carrots, and rosemary shortbread cookies. We also had an orange and fennel salad.

The full mix in list was dried strawberries, apricots, and apples, cacao nibs, coconut, and hibiscus flowers. Spices/herbs were lavender, cloves, allspice, orange peel, cinnamon sticks, and star anise. My house smelled amazing!

Here are the recipes I used.

1- Sunshine Bars from Retro Beach Bash by Linda Everett. 

These were very good. Perfectly gooey and delicious. I will keep these in mind when I want something lemony.

2- Rosemary Shortbread Cookies from Celtic Teas With Friends by Elizabeth Knight. Section: November/Housewarming Tea

Although delicate in terms of handling, these were in no way delicate in flavor. The rosemary is a surprising touch, but one that worked out very well. I want to try them with a little bit of lemon too. My rosemary is growing really well, so it’s fun to go out and snip a few sprigs of it when I need it.

3- Orange and Fennel Picnic Jars from The Vintage Tea Party Year by Angel Adoree. Section: Picnic Tea Party

I liked it. I don’t know if the Husband would, so I may not make it again. It’s nice and refreshing though.

I am trying to make myself realize that smaller parties are fun too and that I don’t have to go crazy with the food. It may take a while, but I think I’ll get there eventually. This party was lovely and I’m glad I was able to have it.

Now, sadly, it’s off to the real world for me, but I am going to try to have a cup of tea at the office and remember to relax. I hope your week goes smoothly!