A mini afternoon tea

Blog posts – like buses, you wait around for ages and then two come at once :) sorry for the delay guys

As I alluded to in my last blog post I was considering making an afternoon tea of my own. I thought the Royal Wedding would be the perfect opportunity. I set out with great expectations wanting mine to look as elegant and as wonderful as some of these high teas you can sample all over London at the moment. Or indeed in Devon. But reality sunk in as I didn’t have a tiered do-dad, I didn’t fancy scrimping on the portions, I didn’t have much time to prepare and I quite like crusts.

So the main event was not so high tea as picnic in the living room – it was still pretty good though. We had home made cupcakes (in red, white and blue, courtesy of my partner in crime Gem), scotch eggs, stuffed peppadews, crackers, crisps, dips, crudités (aka chopped up veg) and not forgetting the sandwiches.

This is where I got a little adventurous and where most of the work went in. I opted for two traditional sandwich fillings and tried to pimp them up a bit. After much deliberation I settled on egg and cress and smoked salmon and cream cheese.

My egg and cress recipe was based on one that I had browsed through on the Good Food website. This version was a little healthier using half fat crème fraiche in place of the more traditional mayo option. The egg mix was generously seasoned and I added some chopped chives for an extra dimension. The main winner here though is the cress. Its smell, look and taste seem to transport me right back to childhood. Mainly because it is the first thing I ever learnt to grow at school. So I went a bit wild with my little plastic pot and pretty much snipped the whole lot into the mix – with a few sprigs left to squidge on the top once in my rolls.

 

The smoked salmon option was also quite healthy with the use of half fat cream cheese. I love dill and capers with smoked salmon; The Nordic’s nailed this combo a while back with their traditional Gravlax dish – here they cure the salmon rather than using shop bought smoked. Gravlax is on my list of must try dishes. So I got chopping and combined a few sprigs of dill with the capers, some seasoning and the cream cheese. I then lavishly spread all over a lovely piece of fresh brown bread which I topped with the smoked salmon, sliced cucumber, a good squeeze of lemon juice and a generous cracking of ground black pepper.

We munched down all these yummies while watching the wedding, washing it all done with some big tumblers of Pimms – all in all a great morning

Give my sandwiches a go:


Egg and Cress sandwiches (fills 4 mini rolls generously) – adapted from Good Food recipe

• Eggs – 2 large
• Half fat Crème Fraiche – 1 tablespoon
• Chives – a little bunch chopped
• Salad cress (a little tub from the supermarket)
• Little poppy seed rolls to serve (or whatever you fancy)

Hard boil your eggs then cool in cold water and de-shell. Mash your eggs in a little bowl and combine with the crème fraiche – season generously, add in your chives and cress and mix everything together. Pile into rolls with some extra cress sprinkled on top - serve


Smoked salmon and cream cheese (makes 2 sandwiches)

• Smoked salmon – 2 slices for each sandwich
• Half fat cream cheese – about half a tub
• Dill – a little bunch finely chopped
• Capers – about a tablespoon chopped
• Cucumber - sliced
• Lemon juice and seasoning to serve
• 4 slices of brown bread (or whatever you fancy)

Combine the cream cheese, capers and dill and spread mix over 2 of the slices of bread. Top with smoked salmon, cucumber, a squeeze of lemon and some black pepper. Place the other slice of bread on top, slice into triangles and serve