Tea for 12 and 12 for Tea

I had one of my teas on Sunday.

I love hosting my teas.  I started doing them a long time ago as an excuse to make a recipe I'm going to share below.  I think one of the first ones I did was to announce my second pregnancy, and I held it on Grandparents' Day.  It was fun.  I held those with my family for a while, but then they sort of fell by the wayside, so I decided to invite members of my mom's group to come and attend a tea.

And attend they did. 

They're a fantastic excuse to break out (bad term, probably, but oh well) the good china and silver and pretend you're all lady-like when in reality the house is bordering on absolute chaos.

Plus... DESSERT!

I always make different foods for the teas, with the exception of one.  There's usually a cake, some sort of cookie or bar, and sometimes a pie.

Yes, it's smiling at you...

This time I made my Pear Pie.

Now, usually when I have these teas, Oz gets annoyed because I stress out.  I've gotten better with time, though I usually just barely have things ready when people arrive and so I've never had time to take photos.  This time, I was way ahead of schedule.

So I took pictures!

This is what the table looked like at 1 p.m.  I schedule the teas from 2-4 on Sundays so everyone can avoid lunch and dinner and just eat *my* food that day. 

OK, not really.  Mostly I just need time to get it all done, and if I held it earlier I'd have to fix sandwiches.  And I prefer just desserts.

This is what the table looked like just before everyone arrived.  I'm still missing two of my dishes, but they were in the fridge and I didn't want to put them out till people started showing up.

What are those things in the middle, you ask?

They're pavlovas.

They are why everyone really comes to my teas.  It's not the tea or the cake or the cookies or even the pear pie; it's the pavlova.  It does the hard sell for me.

Pavlovas are something I'd never heard of till I met Oz.  They are baked meringues topped with whipped topping and fruit.  The strawberry/chocolate one is very popular, so I've started making it every time and then vary the second one.  For my spring tea this year I made a peach/blueberry pavlova.

Nom nom nom.

People are always asking for the recipe, too, so I've decided to post it.  I love to make it more complicated than it really is, but if you have a stand mixer, it's the simplest recipe in the world (provided you can control the humidity in your kitchen and keep it below Oklahoma levels).

Make one for your family and/or friends; they'll love you for it!

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Pavlova


3 egg whites
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. vinegar
4 T. boiling water
1 T. cornstarch
3/4 pint whipping cream
1/4 c. sugar

Put all room-temperature ingredients into mixer.  Start at medium speed and drizzle in boiling water.  Turn to high and mix for 15 minutes. Turn off mixer and fold in cornstarch until thoroughly mixed. Pile mixture into a high dome on a flat tray covered with parchment. Make a depression in the center of the meringue for the filling. Bake at 275 degrees until meringue is crisp and has a hard shell, about one hour. Let it cool in the oven!!!! Beat whipping cream and sugar until stiff peaks form; spread over meringue. Decorate with fruit of choice.

Note:  I usually throw the cornstarch into the mixer during the last 1-2 minutes of mixing.  I also sprinkle some cornstarch onto the parchment paper to keep it from sticking.

The Indian Feast (and other matters)

So I logged on today and realized it'd been almost three weeks since I've posted! I do apologize, but you really don't want to know THAT much about my life, do you? It's been horribly boring. Except for my friend's 40th birthday that involved a trip to Dave & Buster's and a cake that I made with a bottle of wine on the top also made out of cake. She loved it, and that was really cool, because she had had a really rough week that involved enough meds to make a druggie blink, so she needed the outing and the cake... and the gift certificate to Williams-Sonoma and the dozen or so mini-bottles of liquor that we also got her. And the pasties, but that's a whole other story.

However!

M1's been happy with school again, and this week we've been studying India, and so, in the tradition that we have around here, that means...

FEAST TIME!!!!!

Because I am the ultimate over-achiever with a horrid Type A personality, the menu read like that of a small Indian restaurant:

1. Tandoori chicken
2. Saag paneer
3. Indian fried rice
4. Gulab jamun
5. Chai

And because I really *AM* the ultimate over-achiever with a horrid Type A personality (no, really...), and I am also incredibly lazy and didn't feel like getting out of my holey gray sweatpants to make a trip to Whole Foods to find paneer and didn't decide till today that we were even having saag paneer...

I went to the small grocery store near my house where my happy holey sweatpants are socially acceptable and bought whole milk and...

Made my own paneer.

'Twas quite simple, actually.

You start with 3 quarts of whole milk and 1-1/2 tablespoons of salt...

Bring that to a happy little boil (and watch it like a hawk so it doesn't completely boil over, kill your stove and stink to high heaven like burned milk tends to do), turn the heat down, add 5 tablespoons of vinegar or lemon juice, give it a quick stir till all the curds rise to the top, and then drain it all in a cloth draped in a colander.

After you drain it for 10 minutes, then you wrap it all up tight, squash it between two plates and stick something heavy on the top to press it all together (I happened to have a case of silverware handy, but shhhh... that's just between you and me).

And that's how you make paneer.

Having finished the paneer, it was time to make the marinade for the tandoori chicken. Lots of spices and some plain yogurt were involved with that.

It came out absolutely delicious and, better yet, wasn't dyed red!

M1 helped make the dessert. Gulab jamun, it's called - fried milkballs in simple syrup. The local Indian restaurant serves them, and I've always loved them, but I've never made them. They are also incredibly easy to make.

Mix 1 cup of powdered milk with 1/2 c. Bisquick (of all things!) and enough whole milk to make a dough. Make balls out of the dough, and fry it on as low a heat as possible. They sink when they're raw but float when they're completely cooked, and you have to turn them constantly.

M1 did the turning and cooked all of them! It was the first time he'd ever worked with hot oil, and I was a bit nervous, but he did great!

Here they are resting on the plate. After you get them cooked, you mix up 1 c. water with 2 c. sugar and a bit of cardamom, heat that till everything's all melted, and let the milkballs soak in the syrup all day. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Saag paneer, all finished.

Gulab jamun, after they've been soaking all day. Most delicious.

And because I can't resist, here's an extremely belated Valentine's Day wish for all of you.

Pavlova.

I'll be back soon! I promise!