Tea Cups – cookieandacuppa

Oh my sweet summer salad!

It’s the last day of summer before the school year starts – I have a bustling house with both a freshman and a senior!

Where did the time go?

On a small scale – the summer itself – and on a larger scale – the time that the boys have gone from wee babes to young school age children to full-size high school students?

Given the chance, these boys will eat me out of house and home now! But I try to occasionally offer healthy food that can compete with the artificial neon colors of boxed fruit snacks.

Enter the tomato…

A long dry spell this August is starting to prematurely kill off the grass, the tree leaves, and so the late summer harvest has a bit more urgency to it. My little herb garden has done as well this summer. It is over grown with rosemary, sage, two types of thyme, oregano, and the perennial robust chives.

One of my neighbors offered to me a part of her harvest of small pear tomatoes which have an intense yellow color and sweet bite. I couldn’t let these tomatoes sit around the house, so I pulled together what was left of some store-bought cherry tomatoes, along with some cucumber and mozzarella balls, to prepare a light side dish for tonight’s dinner.

Fresh herbs from the garden, chopped and torn, along with a splash of EVOO and white vinegar created a wonderful marinade. The tomatoes soaked up the dressing that only proved to enhance the flavor of those wonderful, colorful, savory fruits.

A big scoop of the salad in a cameo rose green depression glass sherbet dish looks perfect enough to eat! No cookies with this delicate piece but still a lovely snack in a lovely vessel!!

I have already eaten a mammoth scoop of this late summer salad. I hope I have enough discipline to leave some of the salad to accompany dinner.

There is a sweet way to enjoy a healthy snack in style before you eat our favorite dessert – which is, of course, a cookie and a cuppa.

Old Toffee, New Pan

My husband and I recently hosted Thanksgiving. Of course prior to the Thanksgiving meal we had to go out and buy all new pots and pans. My pans were over a decade old, scratched up, and gross looking to the point that my husband was concerned we would be serving our guests more metal than meal.

Today, on a sunny Saturday morning, I am antsy. I need something to do.

I’m not very crafty, well I’m not successfully crafty. I have all of these wonderful intentions to needle felt and paint ceramics and decoupage a chair, but I just end up playing Angry Birds on my phone. So I have decided that, since we are approaching Christmas, I need to pull out my old cookbook and make one of the quick recipes that I know to be a favorite of the family.

Toffee. Not just some new toffee recipe I found on Pinterest, but old school toffee.

When I got married my mother gave me a Betty Crocker cookbook copyrighted 1974. It was the same cookbook given to my mother, my sister, and all three of my mom’s sisters. My grandmother used to work at a book binding company nearby and she came home one day with a box of cookbooks. So we all (eventually) got one. On page 165 is a toffee recipe that doesn’t even specify the final sugar temperature, just “stir for 7 minutes”.

In 15 minutes I had a container of toffee bars cooling on the counter. The Toffee recipe is listed below and I took a few pictures of the process. It really was easy – except for 7 minutes of stirring- and now the whole house smells caramelized and chocolatey! I used dry roasted peanuts instead of pecans – this candy is tasty without nuts if you so desire!! I recommend you give this recipe a try.

Enjoy it with a cup of snowflake tea!

Toffee

1 cup pecans, chopped (I prefer peanuts)
3/4 cup brown sugar (packed)
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/2 package (6 ounce size) semi sweet chocolate pieces (about 1/2 cup)

Directions

Butter a square pan 9 x 9 x 2 inches.
Spread pecans in pan.
Heat sugar and butter to boiling.
Boil over medium heat stirring constantly about seven minutes (using a candy thermometer, I gauged a temperature of 280 degrees, soft crack stage).
Immediately spread mixture evenly over nuts in pan.
Sprinkle chocolate pieces over hot mixture.
Place baking sheet or inverted plate over pan so contained heat will melt the chocolate.
Spread melted chocolate over candy.
While hot, cut into 1 1/2 inch squares (I waited until it was cool and then broke it into various pieces).
Chill until firm.

Give me a Little Sugar

I’m an addict. I’m a huge fan of sugar. In all it’s forms. When people ask me if I like chocolate or sweet and sour candy, I have to admit I enjoy both!

Sugar belongs in my morning coffee, my afternoon tea, and my favorite chocolate chip cookies.

Once Thanksgiving dinner was put away and thoughts turned to Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday shopping, I suddenly became very tired. A sugar low, you could say. I was sick with the thought of fighting the crowds or looking for my ATM card. I went Black Friday shopping once, just one time. It broke me. Now my husband and I pick a day in the middle of December and use vacation time to shop for our children, grab a nice day to lunch, and wrap like crazy fools before the kids get home from school.

So instead of shopping for Christmas gifts I did the one thing that was a complete misuse of my time. I went antique shopping!

I realized that I did not have nearly enough green depression glass to adorn my Christmas table. Not that I collected green depression glass before, but I needed it now. So I went to a nearby antique shop and purchased the most beautiful sugar bowl!

I added it to the two parfait glasses I had purchased in the Spring, because green!!

I’m sure these two glasses will look adorable filled with scoops of vanilla ice cream and beautiful holiday cookies.

Oh my goodness! I need to go make cookies. Anything to avoid going shopping.

Cookie and a Cuppa

This is the post excerpt.

I have an obsession. An odd obsession. Friends and co-workers don’t understand this peculiar obsession. I’m a grown woman who absolutely loves vintage china. Tea cups, specifically. But I gush over sugar bowls and creamers, mustard pots, egg coddlers, and small porcelain lace figurines made in Occupied Japan.

Since I was young, my family would spend the weekends antique shopping in some of the dirtiest, ramshackle locations. My parents enjoyed early 20th century farm house relics, like wooden boxes and crocks and homemade candles and printer trays. However, I looked for pretty things in the dirt and dust. The shiny items took the form of children’s miniature tea sets and porcelain vases. Beautiful treasures hiding amongst old carpentry equipment and plastic toys of the 1950s and 60s.

Now that I’m older and have children of my own, I still find the occasional trip to an antique store an adventure for the whole family. I discovered Wade Whimsies after finding a drawer full of the little creatures at my in-laws house. Now I have my boys search for them when we antique. My husband – who loves golf – likes to search for old golf clubs for his man cave. I still antique shop with my sister and parents every now and then.

But I always look for porcelain tea cups. They are a tool- like a hammer or a pencil. But they are also a piece of art- hand painted, gold-embossed, elaborately flowered. They have origins around the globe – Limoges or Dresden or Nippon.

Every time I discover another tea cup, I take it home, thoroughly wash it, and then I drink a nice cup of tea from it. I often indulge in a cookie, biscuit, scone, macaron, or welsh cake, too – because Yum! I have dozens of cups, tea pots, biscuit jars (like the one above), mustard pots, sugar bowls, creamers, and plates of all sizes and shapes.

This past weekend, after Mom, Sister, and I went to high tea, we discovered an antique co-op in a red barn near Brickerville. I found this tea cup on a shelf below a bunch of different salt and pepper shakers.

Isn’t it beautiful! It is paired with a lovely strawberry/raspberry black tea and a heart shaped strawberry shortbread cookie. A great way to end the day.

Well, that’s my first blog entry. It was easier than I thought it would be. I’m looking forward to sharing my next cookie and a cuppa with you.