SF Swappers Event 10/15

Fall's a swappin'! It's been a while since Tea Time has adventured to a Swap together. SF Swappers slipped this event in just before the craziness of the Holidays begins. Everyone was happy to stand, chat and sample the evening away at the Sports Basement. Let's mosey among the offerings, whaddaya say?

J.K.'s gingerbread cookies–Halloween themed of course! Two big cookies for swapping and mini shapes for tasting.

Also on the offer from J.K. Chocolate cake in super cute shapes.

Homemade chocolates hit the spot, Bon Bons and Bars in several different flavors.

A little spice is nice... there always turns out to be a semi-theme among the goodies on offer and this October we're all ready for our food to feel the burn.

Two flavors of hot sauce–fruit gives the bottles on the left their lovely color.

Do you know about Togorashi? This spice can have a little kick. This version is perfect for onigiri (the food, not the game) and the samples of it sprinkled on rice showed that off to a T.

Perfect homemade tortillas are always a most popular item. Especially if you feature them in a homemade taco as your sample/potluck contribution. Delish.

Hostess Aimée offered up a savory treat of crumbly sesame bars. Tea Time suggests that if you were lucky enough to swap for some that you let them crumble onto your ice cream and then drizzle a little caramel on top. Or you could simply stir them into Aimée's other swappable treat–homemade yogurt!

Angela came back to the swap with big ammunition. Four options!
Left to Right, cashew butter, medium spice salsa, drunken cherries, fresh raw almonds
Sample Sample Sample, plenty of crackers to try them all.

Pickled grape tomatoes? Don't mind if we do... Or if you're feeling cheesy, check out the parmesan dip.

Here comes our theme again, featuring Hot Pepper Jelly. (Feeling smelly? try some homemade soap) Samples of hot pepper jelly were on the potluck table, poured over cream cheese with bread on the side.

So many spreads at this swap, good that there's a bit of bread to take home too.

Who could resist homemade crackers and pimento cheese spread? This was a popular and tasty item which turned into the perfect snack instead of dinner for Angela one night.

A last minute swapper showed up with a big bag of these North Bay Heirloom Apples. Scavenged from his Mom's tree just for SF Swappers.

That's quite a hunk of cheesecake! Or if you're in the mood for savory there's Jalapeno Cheddar Bread, tomatillo salsa or even a fruity nectarine salsa.

Somehow we misplaced our photo of Co-hostess Stephanie's Walnut inspired goodness, but rest assured our resident Chef had an inspired recipe to share. Have you ever attended a Food Swap? The Holidays are coming and this is the perfect time of year for a cookie or dessert swap. Everyone brings a few dozen cookies in bags and everyone gets to take home some of each kind. A perfect mix and match.

Blackberry Pie Murder House Party

Welcome to our House Party! Honorary Tea Time Adventurer Stephanie was picked to be a Hostess with the Mostess and promote a new Joanne Fluke Mystery novel. The title is Blackberry Pie Murder and so, of course, we got to make lots of pies, cocktails and mocktails, talk about books and play some Simpsons Clue.

If you read culinary mysteries, you've heard of Joanne Fluke. She has written 18 books in the Hannah Swensen series, and Blackberry Pie Murder is her latest recipe packed who-dun-it. Stephanie and Angela got inspired by the party pack loot that House Party sent us! In fact, Angela decided this would be the perfect opportunity for her business Tipsy Tea to create a Gift Bag for the event.

Without further ado, we give you the Blackberry Pie Murder Party in pictures. Presented by House Party, Tipsy Tea and Hostess Stephanie!

The Joanne Fluke box is here! House Party has sent a gang of goodies to inspire us.

 Tipsy Tea was inspired to create a gift bag for the event! It included Blackberry Surprise Tea and Joanne's Rimming Sugar for cocktails and mocktails along with recipe cards, a tea cup and tea ball in addition to a personal sized homemade Blackberry Pie to go.

Recipes created by Joanne Fluke and a Blackberry Pie booklet.

Tea cups are great for cocktails! Tipsy Tea Blackberry Surprise Tea and Joanne's Rimming Sugar.

Game, stir stick/glow stick (house party) Soap, Navitas Naturals Cocoa Balm (Tipsy Tea)

 You saw that Joanne prepared us with some great recipes in the House Party pack, but we also ransacked some of her other books to round out our potluck.
Here is The Food:

Pate and "Christmas Cheese Round"  before

After (with bread and crackers)

The pate inspired several proposals of marriage due to its deliciousness.

J. K. made Blackberry Surprise Cookies and Heavenly Teacakes. We also noshed on Pepperidge Farm raspberry cookies from the House Party goodie box.

Personal sized Blackberry Pies for all the guests to take home (before baking).

Blackberry Pie Martini and unbaked pie

Tito's Vodka infused with blackberries

The spread

Beautifully baked Blackberry Pie

Individual crumble topped Blackberry Pies. Recipe from Blackberry Pie Murder by Joanne Fluke.

Lastly we made Popovers! Angela and J. K. have been talking about them for a while now and this was the perfect time to do it ourselves, using a Joanne Fluke recipe. They got a bit brown, but still tasted great.

Book lover with popover recipe

Popover Popped Open

Popovers In Muffin Pan

Everyone had a bunch of fun at the house party event, drinking cocktails and mocktails, talking about the book, and playing Simpsons Clue. Here's the candid shots (plus some portraits!).

who will win???!

If you'd like to get a bit of the action, we have two Joanne Fluke Blackberry Pie Murder Party Gift Bags (created by Tipsy Tea). Just post to us in the comments if you have read Joanne Fluke and tell us about your favorite recipe from her Hannah Swensen series. Two commenters will be picked at random to win! You'll be just as excited as the guest who attended the party in our triptych below.

House Party has a wide variety of events available and if you'd like to host one, just sign up(and invite your friends)! Tea Time applied to host Joanne Fluke too, but we were happy Stephanie won the honor. Joanne Fluke writes other novels as well, so if culinary mysteries aren't your thing, maybe another of her books will thrill you. Happy Spring parties with a side of books!

April Cook the Book / Mile End Hamantaschen / Posted by J.K.

I chose Hamantaschen from The Mile End Cookbook because I love Hamentaschen and I had lekvar (prune) and mohn (poppy seed) filling left over from Purim. That left the apricot filling to make with Mile End's recipe.

This is an easy recipe. Apricots, sugar and water. 

First, I chopped my apricots. This makes it easier to mash them after they're cooked.

 Add the water. 

 And simmer for five minutes.  

 The recipe calls for a food processor, but I used my trusty immersion blender. Much easier. I have a Vitamix, too, but scraping sticky substances out of the bottom is too much work. Cleaning the Vitamix isn't work, though. Pour in some hot water, add a couple of drops of dish detergent, turn it on, and it cleans itself.

 Now for the dough. Mile End's recipe is almost identical to my usual recipe, which was given to me by my childhood friend. (Mile End uses 1/3 the baking powder.) Before that, I used a recipe from the Presto flour company that used their self-rising cake flour, which I had to carry back from New York, because self-rising cake flour isn't sold in California.

Not too many ingredients here, either

Beat the eggs, sugar and oil until thick. Add the blended dry ingredients and beat until mixed. The cookbook says to use your hands, but I used my silicone paddle, which scrapes the bowl as it works, and is gentle enough to fold egg whites.

You will probably need to add more flour. I added an extra cup, until the dough looked like this.

 Form the dough into a disk and refrigerate.

 Wrap it well. Again, the book said in aluminum foil, but plastic wrap is much easier to work with.

 When the dough is chilled, break off pieces and roll between your hands to the approximate size of ping pong balls.

 Then flatten, with a tortilla press or rolling pin.

 This dough is very sticky, so keep the bulk of it in the fridge, and coat the bottom of each disk with sugar so it won't stick. The prune and poppy seed filling are both very dark, so I like to use a crinkled edge on one to let everyone easily tell the difference.

  

Place your filling in the center of the disk, fold up into a triangle and pinch points together. You won't have any trouble getting the edges to stick together.

  

Baked Hamantaschen

This process was way too slow for me, so I rolled the rest of the dough.

Assembly, of course, is the same.

 

More Baked Hamantaschen