Tea Treats

I made my "new recipe" meal a couple days ago after being inspired by a delicious tea treat from Lavender Tea House this past Saturday.  One of the items they served us were chicken salad tea sandwiches.  I'm not usually a chicken salad fan because most of what I've had is canned chicken with lots of mayo, but this one was the perfect combination of ingredients.

I've never made any sort of chicken salad, so I started out by browsing some websites for ideas.  The recipe I used as the base for my creation is the Basil Chicken Salad Recipe from Betty.  Instead of basil I used fresh dill, and instead of red bell peppers, I used red grapes.  I even kept to the onion powder, which was fine, but I think next time I'll do garlic instead.

Since we were eating the chicken salad as a meal instead of snack to complement tea, we used pita pockets for our sandwiches.

Yesterday a friend came over with her son for a play date.  I thought as a tasty treat we could have some tea and scones.  It was 85 degrees, so I made sun tea the day before for the occasion.  Instead of the traditional iced tea, I used a tea called Dream of Fruits, which is a fruit infused black tea.  I bought it from my favorite tea salon/store which sadly closed a couple years ago.

I often make my own scones, but I was in a rush come yesterday morning, so I used my favorite scone mix.  The brand is called Sticky Fingers Bakeries, and can be found at World Market (also known as Cost Plus).  I usually use the plain scone mix, but this time I tried the wild blueberry.

Since my favorite tea salon closed, Brent and I have been on a mission to find the same delicious clotted cream to put on our scones.  True clotted cream takes lots of work and time to prepare, but we learned a short cut.  By blending near equal parts of whipped cream cheese and whipping cream, I was able to mimic the delicious scone topping.  I use a little more whipping cream then whipped cream, and add bakers sugar to sweeten.

Someday I hope to open my own tea salon :)