Wedding shower tea party: Chicken salad cups

My Aunt Barb found this Cooking Light recipe for chicken salad. (We're a Cooking Light family). We made a few tweaks and ours looked something like this:

CREAMY CHICKEN SALAD

2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

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1/2 cup light mayonnaise

1/2 cup plain fat-free Greek yogurt

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon honey

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/3 cup chopped celery

1/3 cup red grapes, halved

7 tablespoons (about 2 ounces) coarsely chopped almonds

One head butter leaf lettuce

Poach the chicken in a dutch oven or large frying pan. Once cooked through, allow chicken to cool completely.

Combine mayonnaise and the next 7 ingredients (through black pepper) in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk until combined.

Add chicken, 1/3 cup celery, grapes, and almonds; toss well to coat. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Serve on leafs of butter leaf lettuce.

Wedding shower tea party: Flower cupcakes

Yet another Pinterest recipe.

The inspiration photo

Actually, it was just a photo - no recipe attached to it, but I thought it was perfect for a party where we were giving out potted flowers as party favors.

I asked Emily what kind of cupcakes she would like and she thought chocolate zucchini would be fitting. We used this recipe from my Aunt Bettsy:



CHOCOLATE ZUCCHINI CAKE

1/2 cup margarine
1/2 cup cooking oil
1 3/4 cup sugar

Cream these together.  Add:

2 eggs, slightly beaten
2 cups grated zucchini
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup sour milk
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
4 Tbsp baking cocoa
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups flour

Fill muffin cups, lined with paper liners, about 2/3 full.

Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

The frosting recipe came from good ol' Betty Crocker:

CHOCOLATE BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup stick margarine or butter, softened
2 tsp vanilla
3 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate, melted and cooled
2-3 Tbsp milk

Mix all ingredients except milk in bowl.  Stir in milk until smooth and spreadable.

The hardest part of the project was finding green candy for the flower's leaves. We ended up buying just about every kind of green candy we could find. I think what worked best though, was Apple O's, cut into quarters.

For the flowers, we did a mixture of lollipops (I wanted Dum-Dums, but could only find Blow-Pops) and salt water taffy inserted on a lollipop stick.

Wedding shower tea party: fruit salad

Cooking Light photo

Doesn't that look good?

I found this recipe on Pinterest also. It had some kind of funky ingredients for a fruit salad (basil and olive oil), but the photo just looked so good. Plus, it was a Cooking Light recipe, and Cooking Light never leads me astray.

PEACH, STRAWBERRY AND BASIL SALAD

1 cup fresh orange juice

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons champagne vinegar or white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

Dash of salt

1 package fresh blueberries 

1 pound fresh strawberries, halved

4  large ripe peaches or nectarines, cut into wedges

1/4 cup small fresh basil leaves, chopped 

Combine the first 3 ingredients in a small saucepan; bring to a boil. Cook, uncovered, until reduced to 1/2 cup (about 25 minutes). Add oil and salt to pan, stirring with a whisk. Let stand 2 minutes.

Combine berries and peach in a large bowl. Add juice mixture, stirring gently. Sprinkle with basil.

Wedding shower tea party: avocado chickpea sandwiches

The sandwiches are in the foreground

For tea sandwiches, we made the traditional cucumber, with cream cheese and dill, but I also wanted to try this Smashed chickpea and avocado salad sandwich (that I also found on Pinterest).

I doubled the recipe, which resulted in way too much filling, so here's the original-sized version:

Smashed Chickpea & Avocado Salad Sandwich

1 (15 ounce) can chickpeas or garbanzo beans
1 large ripe avocado
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped green onion
Juice from 1 lime
Salt and pepper, to taste
Bread of your choice (we used some gluten-free and some sourdough oatmeal)

Rinse and drain the chickpeas.

In a food processor, blend the chickpeas and avocado. Add in cilantro, green onion, and lime juice. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

The filling

Spread salad on bread. Cut off crusts and cut into triangles, squares or rectangles.

Wedding shower tea party: scones

Emily's a scone a fan.

I asked her what her favorite kind is and she said chocolate chip.

I've only made scones a couple times before and never chocolate chip scones, but I found this recipe from King Arthur Flour on Pinterest. We made a gluten-free and regular version. Both were keepers. We also added dried cherries to one batch.

This is the recipe, straight from King Arthur:

CHOCOLATE CHIP SCONE NIBBLES

Scones:

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 cup cold butter, cut in pats

1 cup to 2 cups mini chocolate chips, or finely chopped semisweet or bittersweet chocolate

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup to 2/3 cup half and half or milk

Glaze:

3 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

7 tablespoons water, enough to make a thin glaze

1 teaspoon vanilla

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.

Work in the butter just until the mixture is unevenly crumbly; it's OK for some larger chunks of butter to remain unincorporated.

Stir in the chocolate chips.

In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla and 1/2 cup milk.

Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until all is moistened and holds together. Stir in additional milk if the dough seems dry, and doesn't come together.

Scrape the dough onto a well-floured work surface. Pat/roll it into an 8" to 8 1/2" square, a scant 3/4" thick. Make sure the surface underneath the dough is very well floured. If necessary, use a giant spatula to lift the square, and sprinkle more flour underneath.

Cut the square into 2" squares; you'll have a total of 16 small squares. Now, cut each square in half diagonally, to make 32 small triangles. (We didn't cut ours quite this small. I think we ended up with 16, rather than 32, which was still made for a smaller scone). A pizza wheel works well for this.

Transfer the scones to a parchment-lined or well-greased baking sheet.

For best texture and highest rise, place the pan of scones in the freezer for 30 minutes, uncovered. While the scones are chilling, preheat the oven to 425°F.

Bake the scones for 19 to 20 minutes, or until they're golden brown. Remove the pan from the oven, and allow the scones to cool right on the pan. When they're cool, cut each scone in half once again, to make a total of 64 tiny triangles.

Make the glaze by stirring together the sugar, water, and vanilla. If the sugar seems particularly lumpy, sift it first, for an extra-smooth glaze.

To coat scones, you can dip each one individually, which is quite time-consuming. Or line a baking sheet (with sides) with parchment, and pour about half the glaze atop the parchment. Set the scones atop the glaze, swirling them around a bit to coat their bottoms. Then drizzle the remaining glaze over the top. Use a pastry brush to brush the glaze over each scone, to coat it entirely. The glaze is very thin, so this is easily done. (King Arthur has some nice photos showing how this is done).

Transfer the scones to a rack set over parchment, to catch any drips.

Allow the glaze to set before serving the scones.