Tea at Faulkner Lake Orchard

Welcome indeed!

The group I sing with, Top of the Rock Chorus, hosted our 6th Spring Tea the Saturday before Mother’s Day.

As our event has grown, finding just the right venue has been a challenge for our non-profit checkbook! I think we hit a home run this year though!

Our Spring Tea this year was held at Faulkner Lake Orchard, just outside of North Little Rock, AR.

Faulkner Lake Orchard is a working farm. They have a you-pick-it area. There is also a general store full of freshly picked produce, canned items and local honey.

The farm was just so peaceful and relaxing. I plan to go back sometime when the trees are in full bloom. There are a few pictures on their website showing different events in the orchard. It makes a beautiful setting for a wedding.

The peaches were not quite ready while we were there. Faulkner Lake Orchard hosts a huge peach party in July. They will have food, fun activities for the kids, peach tea and peach ice cream all for FREE! Mrs. Karen said to get there early!!

Speaking of Mrs. Karen…

…she was the sweetest lady! Karen Martin is the owner of Faulkner Lake Orchard.  She was so laid back and happy to help however we needed.

She even provided a shuttle from the parking area to the main event center for our guests.

Stay tuned! I have lots more to share with you from this year’s Tea.

 

Spring Table

My goodness it has been a busy Spring!!!

I’m sad to say this seems to be our new pace of life.  The last time I posted on this blog was December! And here it is May! So, I am going to try to do a little catching up in the next few posts. With school coming to an end for the year, hopefully things will slow down a little. I would really like to get back to testing and blogging about new recipes and such. Fingers crossed!

To be honest, January and February are a bit of a blur. With a child in college and a child in high school they returned to school after Christmas break at different times. My timeline got a little skewed! I know we had ONE day of snow.

In March (Notice I skipped February! Who knows what happened then?!) we were honored to host a sweet missionary family and our pastor and his family for dinner. I didn’t get any pictures of the people that night-ugh. I am really out of practice doing this blog thing! Plus, we were just having too much fun! I did think to take a couple of shots of the pretty Spring Table decorations while I was in the midst of setting the table. I borrowed a few things from my Mom, and a few on-sale spring flowers finished off the look.

Unfortunately, one of the cats thought my little birdie was real! I used it anyway.

This bank was from forever ago! Not sure if it was mine or my sisters.

Here are a few decorations from around the dining room/den and the porch.

I jazzed up a wreath by using twine to tie on a few flower pots. More sale plants filled some pots, others stayed empty.

I have been waiting for just the right occasion to use this garden themed ribbon.

I made two crockpots full of Pork Chops with Field Peas! Using the crockpot is the way to go when company comes! This is a crowd pleasing recipe!

Individual Banana Pudding cups were also a hit at dessert time.

I hope you have been enjoying your Spring, too!

 

Mothers’ Day Tea

My chorus, Top of the Rock, recently had our 4th Spring Tea. Mom and I once again co-chaired the event. This year the Tea was at the historic Albert Pike Masonic Center in downtown Little Rock on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon right before Mothers’ Day.

We had 120 guests–the biggest crowd yet! We will plan for even more next year!

Tables were decorated by members of the chorus. We gave the ladies free-range as far as decorating goes. You’ll see a variety of themes–from Christmas to farm to jewelry. Mine is the one with the yellow tulips!

Click on each gallery below to see the pictures better.

You must have some fancy food to go on those fancy plates!

Here is the menu we served:

I had fabulous help in the kitchen, as always!

Some of the men from Accapella Rising, the Little Rock men’s barbershop chorus, helped us with the serving.

We had a FABULOUS vintage fashion show. A friend of Mom’s from high school, Wanda Cook (aka The Coca Cola Lady, be sure to check out this article from a few years ago) provided the fashions. Top of the Rock provided the models! Wanda has displayed her collection at Red Hat conventions, women’s luncheons and other events. She was so generous to loan her collection to us for the day! The fashion show was a HUGE hit! The models really got into character and made the clothing come alive.

Of course there had to be some singing!!

It looked like everyone had a good time!

A big thanks to my husband, Chip, for taking all the photos! He took over 500 pictures and walked over 11,000 steps that day!

 

 

Pumpkin Pie Bars

Are you cooking for a crowd this holiday season?

These Pumpkin Pie Bars will surely be helpful. Rather than baking two or three pumpkin pies, just whip up a pan of Pumpkin Pie Bars! You will get about 24 servings from this recipe. The crust is so yummy you might want to account for 2 servings per person though!

First, mix up the crust–flour, oats, brown sugar pecans and butter–I told you the crust was yummy!

Press into a 10×15 jelly roll pan.

Bake for 15 minutes at 350˚.

While the crust is in the oven, mix up the filling–pumpkin, sweetened condensed milk, spices and eggs.

Pour over baked crust and bake an additional 30-35 minutes.

Pumpkin Pie for a crowd! Whipped Cream is optional but let’s get real…you want it!

 

Pumpkin Pie Bars

Crust:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup oats (quick or old-fashioned)

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup chopped pecans

2/3 cup melted butter

Filling:

4 eggs

2 cans (15 ounce each) pumpkin

2 cans (14 ounce each) sweetened condensed milk

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp salt

*Preheat oven to 350˚F

*Combine crust ingredients. I mixed the dry ingredients together first, then added the butter.

*Press into a 10×15 jelly roll pan.

*Bake for 15 minutes.

*Meanwhile, whisk the filling ingredients together. Be sure your bowl is big enough. I used a 2 qt. bowl and it barely fit!

*Bake 30-35 minutes–until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the middle. Mine took 35 minutes.

*Cool at room temperature. Cut into squares. Top with whipped topping and, if you are feeling fancy, a pecan half!

 

 

Back to School Cookie Exchange

I finally had a cookie exchange!!!

I have wanted to go to one or have one for a long time now. Read this.

Since this summer and back-to-school was so carefree–haahahahahahaha!–I decided this was the year to have a cookie exchange.

Had I lost my mind? Possibly.

I invited all the ladies from church because I knew they would love me even if there was dust on my end-tables.

Not everyone could come, but we had a pretty good turn-out. Some of them had never been to a cookie exchange either!

I had fun getting ready for the party.

I even wore my “teacher” vest I made when I was an elementary school teacher in the ’90s.

Old school books and a pencil “vase”

Don’t you love these vintage flip cards?! More below.

I found these adorable notebook paper napkins in the $1 bin at Target several years ago with the intent of having a back-to-school cookie exchange! Can you believe it?!

I provided some recycled Sister Shubert aluminum pans for the ladies to haul their cookies home.

Gab–we did LOTS of this!

We filled up this giant chalkboard with our kids’ names and schools. Some shared verses of encouragement. At the end of the night we spent time praying for the students as they were starting school.

For some reason my colored chalk only showed up white. I guess it was the cheap kind.

I asked the ladies to bring an appetizer as well as cookies.

I made these spinach balls. It was a recipe from  library cookbook. Sorry, I don’t remember the name of the book. Really, I’m not sorry. These looked cute but didn’t taste all that good. And the cute part was MY idea.  The spinach balls had Stove Top stuffing in them. Guess they just tasted a little too processed.  I thought the pretzels were a cute idea and made the spinach balls finger-friendly. As time went on, however, the pretzels got soggy. Points for cuteness. Negative points for flavor and sogginess. I’m not making THAT recipe again!

Thank goodness Nicole brought her yummy Spinach Dip!

Jami made yummy guacamole. She brought it in a Tupperware bowl, so she tried to fancy it up with the napkins. We all laughed pretty hard at her!

Tammy brought these amazing ham and cheese sliders. I’ve made these sliders before but not like Tammy’s. She put soy sauce and brown sugar on the top. OH MY WORD! So yummy!

Now for the cookies…

Someone already had labels on these cookies.

The little cookie name plates were left-over materials from a project similar to this one.

Some of the cookies were store-bought, which was just fine. All of the cookies were delicious!

I’ll have to check back with the ladies about the recipes. I’ll be sharing the recipe for my cookies, the Flu Fighter Cookies, soon.

What a fun time! We may have to do it again sometime.

 

 

 

Tea Food

Hosting a Tea for the 3rd year in a row was a little tricky. We had guests who had attended the Tea the previous two years. We also had first time guests.  I wanted the food to be special. However, there were favorites from the past that we just had to include: the Chicken Salad, the Scones with Clotted Cream and Jam, and the Melt-Away Mints.

(You can see our plates from years past here, here, here, here, and here.)

Below is our Tea Party Menu for 2015.

I am sorry to say that I don’t have many “in progress” pictures. Quite frankly, with my poison ivy, I was a little behind schedule in my prep work. There wasn’t a lot of time for photography. Luckily, my husband took great pictures at the Tea!

The Chicken Salad was very easy–ha! Someone else made it! Since we have had it every year, I have tried to present it differently each year–in a puff pastry, on an apple slice and now on a croissant. I’m open to suggestions for next year!

That lovely little triangle Ribbon Sandwich was a HUGE hit! I was surprised. The Grits Crostini had people begging for more!

Of course, the Scones plate is the overall favorite.

It wouldn’t be a Tea without sensational desserts!

You may have seen my Teapot Cookies when I posted them on Facebook. I dream of being able to decorate fancy cookies. This was my first public attempt. Is that brave or stupid?! They turned out pretty cute, I think.

One of our members made all the Melt-Away Mints. I LOVE those things!!!

The Tiramisu was donated by the Olive Garden-THANK YOU! I cut a regular sized portion into fourths for the perfect sized sample.

Carrot Cupcakes with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting were made a little fancier with the addition of a candied carrot curl. I had seen a how-to for the carrot curls on Pinterest. Not quite as easy as you might think!

The Salted Chocolate Tart with Kettle Chip Crust (of all things!)  was originally supposed to be a salted caramel and chocolate tart. When testing the caramel, I burned it. I don’t mean that it got a little scorched. I mean it was BLACK-all of it! I thought I was going to have to throw away my pan! Oh, the house stank! I figured I didn’t want to have the stress of trying to make it successfully for 100 little caramel tarts. The chocolate was a great alternative. I used flaked salt as a garnish. That was pretty exciting, well, to me. I felt all fancy and chef-y.

The Blackberry Lime Bars were a twist on Lemon Bars we have had in the past. I almost went with Lemon Bars again because I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!!! I decided to branch out a little. The extra expense of the blackberry and lime wedge on top made for a little more tea party glamor!

I was able to make most of the goodies in advance and freeze them-even the teapot cookie! Of course, nothing else would fit in my freezer for weeks.

Of course we had tea!

I would have never made it without my kitchen helpers.

Danielle and Kaye did a great job with the making and distributing of the tea. (I don’t know about that crazy person in the background!)

Oh, wait, she’s mine! My girls were a huge help in the kitchen. They are used to the way I boss them around already, so we worked well together. ; )

My friend, Cathy, was my right-hand-gal! She is used to telling people what to do on her farm. She is a get-it-done type of gal, and I love working with her!

Of course, Mom was there to do whatever needed to be done! ( I can tell this picture was taken at the end of the day. I have that “is it over yet” look on my face!)

Have you ever hosted a tea party? What did you serve? I mean besides when you were 6 years old and served air!

 

Another Tea Party

Mom and I both sing with Top of the Rock Chorus, the Little Rock Chapter of Sweet Adelines International.

This Spring, we were co-chairmen of our third-annual fundraiser Tea. Mom does all the scouting around for donations, recruiting members to volunteer and securing the venue. I’m in charge of the food.

This year, the Tea was at the historic E.O. Manees House, home of the North Little Rock Junior League. It was a picture-perfect Spring day.

Our Tea Party has been at the Harper Alexander House for the past two years.  The caretaker there, D’Arlyn Ball, has all the rooms furnished and decorated beautifully. You can see pictures here.

The Manees House, however, has just a small amount of furniture. That is where some of our volunteers really helped out this year. Mom recruited ladies from the chorus  to decorate tables with their own china, flatware, etc. The result was wonderful! No two tables were alike. From fresh flowers to Wedgewood-everything was lovely! I think the ladies enjoyed getting to “show off” a little as well.

Take a look:

Stay tuned…there will be details about the FOOD coming soon.

 

 

Game Night and Specialty Pizzas

When I was a kid, my grandmother gave me a set of Rook cards for my birthday. I never played. The cards looked weird. They were different from standard cards. I could never get anyone to play with me, probably because they didn’t know how. The instructions were long and confusing.

Last weekend, we were invited to our friends’ house for dinner and a Rook tournament. Yikes!

Dinner I was excited about-but Rook?!

It did help to learn that none of the other folks attending knew how to play either. (At least that’s what they said! I think John and Leta had played a time or two!)

We knew, of course, that we would have fun regardless of the game.

I asked what I could bring (I took Carrot Cake) and didn’t bother to ask what we were having for dinner.

Boy, was I excited to find John in the kitchen making Petitzas! Leta has mentioned John’s Petitzas several times. Always saying “Oh, we’ll have to make them for you!” Finally that day had come!

If I had known it was a Petitza Party, I would have brought the good camera! Thank goodness for smartphones!

John has been making Petitzas for YEARS! He learned from his brother when he was seeing this Italian girl.

The Petitzas don’t seem too hard, just a little time-consuming.

I’m sure you have to get a feel for exactly how long to leave the dough in the pan before flipping it.

Don’t those pizza shells look yummy?!

Leta and John have the serving of Petitzas down pat!

Check out those crock pots! Homemade pizza sauce-Italian Sausage-Hamburger

Leta also had a sectioned Tupperware dish for all the other toppings–ham, cheese, pineapple, olives, peppers, mushrooms-whatever you like!

This was how Leta showed us to assemble a Petitza. Sauce-Meat-Toppings-more sauce

John goes a little more extreme with his toppings!

Mine was rather conservative.

Nice air pockets!

John said the record Petitzas anyone had eaten at one of their Petitza Parties was seven. Ugh! I ate two.

We had a great time eating Petitzas AND playing Rook. Thanks, John and Leta!

By the way, the girls won!

Petitzas
1 pkg. active dry yeast
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. oil
3 ½ cups flour
1 cup water (warm)

Dissolve yeast in very warm water.  Stir in sugar, salt and oil and 2 cups flour.  Beat until smooth.  Stir in remaining flour to make a soft dough.  Turn out on lightly floured board.  Knead until smooth and elastic.  Place in a greased bowl; brush top with oil.

Cover and let rise until doubled in bulk. When doubled, punch down; divide in half.

Shape into hand-size shells and deep-fry.

Toppings include:

Your favorite marinara sauce
Cheeses
Onion
Sausage
Ground beef
Bell pepper
Pineapple
Mushrooms
Jalapeños

John’s Pizza Sauce
1 8 oz. can tomato paste for every 16 oz. can tomato sauce
Oregano, basil, garlic salt, onion flakes, salt, pepper, honey, Parmesan and Romano cheese.

 

 

Bananas Foster

Mention the city of New Orleans and you will conjure up a plethora of images in folks’ minds.

• Iron-work balconies with ferns
• Mardi Gras
• Saints Football
• Po Boy Sandwiches
• Jackson Square
• The French Quarter
• Bourbon Street
• Crawfish
• Jazz Music
• Gumbo
• Hurricane Katrina
• Beigniets at Café du Monde
• maybe even Arlo Guthrie’s “City of New Orleans”

There is yet another dish that is identified with The Big Easy–Bananas Foster.

Here is a little history I found on a New Orleans visitor’s guide.

In the early 1950s New Orleans was the major port of entry for bananas shipped from Central and South America. Owen Brennan, owner of Brennan’s Restaurant, challenged his chef, Paul Blange, to include bananas in a new dessert. It was Owen’s way of promoting the imported fruit. At the same time, Holiday Magazine asked Owen to provide a new and different recipe to include in an article on the restaurant.

And so was born Bananas Foster, a decadent dessert named for Owen’s friend, Richard Foster, a local civic and business leader. Today, Bananas Foster is served at Brennan’s and other fine New Orleans restaurants. Each year, Brennan’s flames 35,000 pounds of bananas for the famous dessert.

I recently had a wonderful dinner with my quartet and our spouses. (You can check out our Hyper Octave Facebook page here.)

Donna and Jim really put on a spread for us–complete with fresh flowers and candlelight.

Jim made Gumbo with delicious andouille sausage and shrimp. Our salad was mixed greens with avocado and orange slices. That’s Jim’s homemade Orange Vinaigrette you see on the table.

We all enjoyed the dinner and felt like we needed a crane to move from the table. Then, Donna announced dessert!

Could I stuff in any more food?!

Bananas Foster?

Why,YES! Some room suddenly became available!

We all moved to the kitchen for the dessert “show”. I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to feature another guest chef!

Jim started by melting a stick of butter with 1/2 cup banana liqueur.

While Jim took care of the pan, Donna feverishly peeled and quartered 8 bananas.

Into the pan with the bananas!

Add a dash of cinnamon and the brown sugar–TWO cups!

Oops! Wait! The brown sugar was supposed to go in BEFORE the bananas! Donna moved fast to remove the bananas. The brown sugar needed to caramelize a little before adding the bananas.

Let that cook up in order to thicken a little.

Add about 1/4 cup of rum…

and light on fire!

Jim did move his pan out from under the cabinets–just in case.

Unfortunately, none of us thought to turn off the lights until the flames had disappeared. You can kind of see some blue flames in the picture above.

As if all the sugar and butter were not enough, a scoop of vanilla ice cream finished off the dish!

Oh! It was so good! I wanted to lick the plate!

I enjoyed every bite–all 490 calories, not including the ice cream!

Yeah–I went walking the next day!

Thanks so much, Donna and Jim. You treated us like royalty!

serves 8

• 1 stick of butter (could probably get by with 1/2 )
• 1/2 cup banana liqueur
• 2 cups brown sugar
• dash of cinnamon
• 8 bananas, sliced into 4 quarters
• 1/4 cup rum
• Vanilla ice cream

Melt butter in pan with banana liqueur.

Add brown sugar and cinnamon. Allow to caramelize a bit.

Stir in bananas until warmed. (Not too long, you don’t want mushy bananas.)

Warm the rum for a few seconds in the microwave.

This is the time to turn off the lights for added drama!

Add rum to the bananas–immediately light on fire.

After alcohol burns off, serve with vanilla ice cream. Drizzle some of the sauce on top.

 

Game Day Treats

Hooray! Time for college football!

I love fall–the back to school and eventual changing of the leaves. Nothing says fall in the South like a good college football game.

Last year I bought these fancy Jell-O molds.

The shaped jello was a huge hit.

Today, while awaiting the start of the Razorback game, I decided to conduct a little experiment: how would candy melts do in my jello mold?

The result: GREAT!

I had just a few red candy melts in my pantry-12 to be exact.

After heating the melts in a baggie in the microwave, I was able to cover 9 razorback wells.

I put the red candy in the pan then whacked in on the counter several times to get it to settle into all the cracks and eliminate bubbles.

You can see that the red part is not very thick. I used vanilla almond bark to fill in the rest of the mold. Since red and white are the Razorbacks colors, this worked great!

Remember to whack the mold on the counter again for the second color, if you use a second color.

I was a little scared to try to get the candy OUT of the mold.

When I first tried to pop them out nothing happened. So, I stuck the pan in the freezer for a couple of minutes. They came out without any problems. I did not grease the mold.

These would be ADORABLE on top of cupcakes!

You can get other college molds here.

Have fun with these adorably delicious treats!

Wooo, Pig, Sooiee!