I know that Mother's Day was a couple of weeks ago but I wanted to share my special Mother's Day Tea and Luncheon menu with you. I love hosting tea parties because it's a chance to get together with my female friends and family members, dress fancy, and have some really juicy girl talk. I especially love when I can do themed tea parties, but more on those later.
I have the most beautiful tea set and it was purchased by my grandfather for my grandmother while he was a sailor stationed in Europe in the 1960s. The tea set stayed with my grandfather when my grandparents were divorced and when he passed away a few years ago, it was given to me. I had always admired this beautiful set with it's gold trim and floral pattern and it's one of my favorite possessions. It's simply gorgeous.
My guest list included my stepmother Marlene, mother-in-law Peg, and my Aunt Theresa. The only person missing was my mother, who lives in Maryland. My aunt enjoyed using the antique tea set and eating on the family china, which my grandfather (her father) also purchased for my grandmother (her mother) overseas (but my grandmother did keep that in the divorce). This was also given to me in the last few years.
For this Mother's Day tea, I chose a menu that is featured in my vintage Betty Crocker cookbook (which I LOVE and was also passed down to me by my step-grandmother). The book was published in 1961 and is seriously old-school. I cannot tell you how much I've learned from cooking out of this book. I've even thought of doing my own "Julie & Julia" project!. The book gives wonderful little tidbits for meal prep and other chores, which I will make an entire blog post about. And most of the photos are hand drawn! It's seriously so cute. But on to the menu!
There is a section of the book entitled: Meal Planning/Table Service. There are menu suggestions for several occasions such as holidays and even Election Night. Here is the suggested menu and the one that I laid out for my guests:
Chicken Salad in Miniature Cream Puffs
Sweetheart Cake
Red and White Mint Wafers
Salted Nuts
Coffee
Tea
(The book also suggests a corsage bouquet for each mother.)
The Chicken Salad, Miniature Cream Puffs, and Sweetheart Cake were recipes in the book, which required me to BAKE from scratch both the puffs and cake. I love baking though so this was a fun menu for me to prepare. I did not serve coffee though, because I figured that tea was enough. I set the table with three potted flowers, which I then gave to each of the mothers as a gift instead of the corsage bouquets. And here is the finished product:
As a bonus I've included the super easy recipe for Chicken Salad from my vintage Betty Crocker cookbook. Enjoy!
Chicken Salad
2 cups cubed cold cooked chicken (large chunks)
1 cup diced celery (1/4" pieces)
1 tbsp. lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 or 3 hard-cooked eggs, cut up
Toss together chicken, celery, lemon juice and seasonings. Mix in mayonnaise. Carefully fold in eggs. Chill thoroughly. Arrange a mound of each in lettuce cups* and garnish with olives or little sweet pickles and parsley. 6 servings.
*I served my chicken salad in cream puffs (without the cream filling of course!).
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