Valentine's Day Dairy-free, Sugar-free Tea Party

    We had our first Valentine's Day Tea Party today. I broke out my 100+ year old china  from Germany, a wedding gift from my adopted Grandmother. The girls enjoyed drinking tea for the first time out of their little plastic tea cups and tea pot. I wanted the food to be as traditional English tea as possible, but kept it all vegan and sugar free! Love that. Still, I forgot how rich tea food is! Glad we had early tea so they could get all that sugar high out by nap time.

Note the clean shinny beautiful faces. Soon to be covered with chocolate.

I get a big girl plate. These shortbread cookies were to die for!

The Menu:

*  Raspberry Scones from Babycakes NYC Cookbook (Agave Sweetened)

*  Gluten-Free Lemon Poppy Seed Teacake from Babycakes NYC Cookbook (Agave Sweetened)

*  Chocolate Dipped Shortbread Cookies from The Kind Diet (Sweetened with Maple Syrup)

*  Cucumber Finger Sandwiches with Chive Butter

*  Olive Cream Cheese Spread Watercress Finger Sandwiches

*  Farmers Market Sliced Strawberries

*  Chamomile Tea for the girls

*  Tazo Calm Tea for me

Substitutes: For the cream cheese replacement I used "This is not a tub of cream cheese" from Trader Joe's. Veganise to replace the Mayo and Earth Balance Butter to replace the butter. 

Favorites: I was in love with the cream cheese and watercress sandwich. I just followed the recipe (posted above) and topped with a bunch of watercress. SO GOOD. I think I will make this for myself on a regular basis. The shortbread cookies stole our hearts. I've tired to make these a couple other times and they didn't come out quite right. Today I actually followed the recipe very carefully. I took one bite and was transported. We all fell in love. Now I get what the whole short bread infatuation is about. So delicious. 

Special girl time with my crazy girls. They were excited about life. Monique always has some whack move going on. 

Thérèse was a little liberal in her tea pouring. Monique taking a sip. So cute!

Tea was followed with a dance party. Monique got in this position and danced around the whole room like this. It's what she does. 

Dinner! This was one of the best pizzas I've made. The dough was perfect and the sauce sweet. I've been working to perfect the potato pizza for a while now. Potatoes are a great alternative to cheese and vegan cheese. I paper thinly slice them and let them hang out in olive oil for a while. Once I get this recipe just the way I like it, I will share it. For now, it is still in the works. 

We served this with steamed very dark leafy green veggies called broccoli greens? Never heard of it. Got it at the farmers market and the girls like it! Love it when dinner is easy!

Tea party was fun. We will be having another one Easter Morning! Can't wait! For now, I'm keeping out one of my pretty cups for my quiet time Mama moments. 

Hope you all had a lovely St. Valentine's Day!