TIME TO CELEBRATE MY 200th "Tea In The Garden"

 Back in 2010 I started a little garden in

my Colorado Springs backyard.  It took

me quite a while to dig out my lawn and

plant because I worked full time +. 

 I remember I had already been

participating in Sandy's Tea Time

Tuesday blog party for quite a while

 and then I decided to incorporate the

garden I was developing and have my 

own weekly link party called "Tea

In The Garden". 

(Back then, in the winter,

 I changed 

to (Friends Sharing Tea")

So over the years I have done many

of these photos shoots and I have 

recently designed a magazine 

publication with many past photos

of my gardens.

(click for link)

 We had so little rain here in 

Missouri in July, our lawn is very sad

so I hung up these old antique curtain

 pieces to dispel the dreary lawn.  Please

help yourself to hot tea.  It is only

in the 80's this week which is wonderful

weather compared to the high 90's.

So though I started counting these

photo shoots in years back in

Colorado, now they take place

in our Missouri garden. Of course

these places have very different

climates.

Time does fly just like they

say.  I can hardly believe we

have now lived in Missouri 6 years.

I just started collecting a few pieces

of Green transferware which

will be lots of fun to hunt for

and this pattern (tray) is called

Havana by Johnson Brothers.

And of course for this occasion,

baking is important too so I looked

at my fall muffin folder and found this

recipe I had cut out of the Colorado

Springs Gazette back in 2010.

It is for Fall Harvest Muffins and

includes pumpkin, an apple, some

craisins and pecans.  I have the

recipe at the bottom of this post.

Right now I have some lovely white

with green hyrangeas and on one

side of our house, we have those

strawberry type ones.

Many years ago in Old Colorado

City there was a darling and

elegant little shop called

"The Lace Chest".  It was in

the west side historic district

of Colorado Springs where I had

my business and was owned by

Sharon Dougherty.  Back then, she

 went to England and to Paris

 to buy her inventory. Her shop was

 so tiny but gorgeous!  She sold all English and French vintage and antique lace 

 that was cleaned and ironed 

to perfection.

Also, she sold antique jewelry and

china.

I purchased these old antique

curtain panels from her.

RECIPE FOR FALL

HARVEST MUFFINS:

375 degrees makes 16

reg oven: 20-25 min

convection: 18 min

Use a large muffin tin: grease with butter 

and flour well.  Shake out excess and 

will be filling 3/4 full

 

Mix ingredients in a bowl: 

1 cup of reg flour, 1 cup of whole wheat (I used all regular), 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ground ginger,

1 tsp ground allspice, 1/4 tsp cardamon, 1/4 tsp ground cloves, 1/2 tsp salt, 3/4 Cup of melted butter, 1 cup dark brown sugar, 2 eggs (I used 3), 1 tsp vanilla extract

 1 cup of canned pumpkin, 1 chopped, peeled and grated apple, 1/2 cup pecans chopped and 1/2 cup of dried craisins

Mix all above dry ingredients well and then add fruits and pumpkin  Pour into muffin tins and top with 1-2 tsp topping below:

Topping:  4 Tb melted butter, 1/4 cup flour, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup gran. sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 cup oats

BLUEBERRY MUFFINS for "Tea In The Garden"

 Today with lower temperatures in the 80's

range it was perfect weather for another

"Tea In The Garden" and since I looked

at the extended forecast and saw that 

this weather will be short lived so I

decided  to take advantage of it.

We got some rain this week but 

truly, we could have used another

day's worth!

 

This recipe for Blueberry Muffins 

is here (click) however, I made a

different topping this time by mixing

 2 Tb flour,  3 Tb Sugar, 1 Tb chopped 

butter and 1/4 Tsp ground cinnamon. 

 I just put that on top of the muffins

 before I baked them.

I love old quilts....

These were the muffins when

they came out of the oven:

These particular

 blueberries

were huge.

I found my blue Daintee Ladyee

years ago in West Virginia.

You can see the branches of our giant

pussy willow in our front yard. I think

the size is unusual and it can be a

mess in the spring.

I hope your weekend is lovely.

ORANGE MARMALADE MUFFINS

 This morning I needed to take something

to a meeting and I looked over at a stack

of recipes in file folders on the kitchen

table.  One of the folders was marked 

Lemon, Lime or Orange Muffins.

This recipe is for Orange Marmalade

Muffins and came from Linda Colantino

whose blog "Lady Linda"

is all about her passions for dolls,

 antiques, tea, baking 

and a love

for Tasha Tudor.

So here is the recipe for Orange

Marmalade Muffins and I do think

they would be lovely with a cup of tea

or at breakfast time:

1 3/4 cup flour, 3 tsp baking power, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 2 Tb sugar, 2 Tb brown sugar,

1/2 tsp salt, 1 large egg (I used 2 small), 1 cup milk, 4 Tb melted butter, 1 Tb grated orange zest and 7 Tb orange marmalade

Makes 1 dozen at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes - I did 15 min in a convection oven

Mix sifted flour, baking powder, baking soda,

sugar, brown sugar and salt

Beat egg slightly, then beat in milk.  Mix

butter and zest into the egg/milk mixture.

Make a well in dry ingredients - add all the liquid mixture at once.

Stir mixture with wooden spoon - 10-15 strokes.  do not over mix!  Batter will be lumpy.  Spoon 2 Tb batter into bottom of 12 pre-greased muffin tin - add 1 1/2 tsp marmalade and top off with batter to

fill 3/4 full.

Bake in center oven rack

PUMPKIN MUFFINS ON A FALL DAY

 This morning I made these muffins to 

take to a seniors church meeting.

You could make them for dinner tonight

or for a tea time.  There are lots of possibilities.  I guarantee they will be eaten!

This is a very simplified version of the

Pumpkin Muffins from the Sept/Oct 2012 issue of TeaTime: makes 12 muffins

Ingredients: 1 cup reg flour, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 tsp bak powder, 1 tsp bak soda, 1 tsp grd cinnamon, 1/2 tsp grd ginger, 1/4 tsp grd cloves, 1/2 tsp salt

**1/2 cup dried cranberries or even raisins, 1 cup canned pumpkin, 2 large eggs 2/3 cup buttermilk and 1/4 cup veg oil  (If I don't have buttermilk I just put a little lemon juice in milk)

Mix all the dried items and add moist items.

Fill the wells of large muffin tin tray 2/3 full and bake 18-20 min or 15 min in a convection oven.  I used some fun fallish muffins papers.

I hope you have been stocking up on some non perishable groceries at home.  Who knows where things are headed with all the decisions they are making.

**I used 1/3 cup craisins, 1/3 cup raisins and 1/2 cup walnuts  The recipe made 12+

MORNING GLORY MUFFINS FOR TEATIME

Have you ever made Morning Glory Muffins

or Hummingbird Muffins?  I love them and

with a number of recipes I noticed that

a banana and mashed pineapple are the 2

distinctive ingredients.  Chopped pecans 
seem to be another popular ingredient.

For this post I am calling these
Morning Glory Muffins because I
have found the same recipe by
both names.  In the past I shared
this recipe and you can
 find Jean's recipe here
(as Hummingbird Muffins)

I have shared this tea cozy before too.  It
is made from embroidered napkins that my
Grandmother made for me over 51 years ago.
I use this for my Saint Patrick's Day cozy.

So here at my window I have set up a little teatime time for us.  I am using a couple of spoons and one of my little silver sugar nips as they are called.  Also, these spoons came 
from England and I was thrilled to get them.

These are commemorative spoons of
Queen Victoria's reign and Diamond
Jubilee in 1897.

It was hard to get reflections off those spoons.

Of course, we are drinking 

Irish Breakfast Tea! 

Outside things are changing.  We just
had 2 days of rain and everything
turned suddenly green.  Bulbs are coming
up and as you can see, I found a couple
of tiny daffodils in the front garden today.

I am playing this week with some crafting
and card making for Saint Patrick's Day so
here are some of the pictures I have clipped:

If you do make the muffins - I
know you will enjoy them!

JEAN'S HUMMINGBIRD MUFFINS for "Tea In The Garden"

Hello dear blogging friends and

welcome to another "Tea In

the Garden"!

I just noticed that the first official

day of summer is well into June

but we can tell our spring like

weather is being short lived

here in Missouri.

I am so happy to share the muffins

I made with Jean's recipe that

she shared last week!

Her muffins were delicious with

pineapple and banana in them.

It's a lovely day to be outdoors

enjoying the birds and flowers....

Please pour yourself a cup

of tea and let me tell you

a garden secret.  Mostly,

I need to say,  I make lots

of mistakes in gardening but

sometimes I get things right

too!  Ha!  I just figured out

that I could use an umbrella

to shield a transplanted plant

from the sun until it takes hold.
I leaned a shovel across the back
so that it wouldn't blow away.

It worked too!

Like many of you,  I love

these older Victoria issues!

If you do decide to bake Jean's

 muffins,  I

know you will love them!
I made a Hummingbird Cake years
ago and here is that recipe.