Join Me for a Spring Luncheon in the Garden Shed

March weather is giving me all the spring feels, dear friends! So today, I thought we’d celebrate the coming of spring with a light luncheon out in our garden shed…

I have been noodling this luncheon idea around in my head for a few days. On Sunday afternoon, I spent a few hours filling seed trays with veggies and flower seeds for the garden. I swept out cobwebs and tons of dirt and leaves from winter’s winds and just walking in and out everyday.

I am so happy that the background roses and bushes are doing well and are established. It’s time to go crazy with annual flowers!

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But first, we bake!

I pulled out a two-tiered cake plate with spring vibes and hung up this new bunny kitchen towel. Let Hubby know this one was NOT for wiping hands on it ~ just for display ~ and thought about what we should bake…

I think you can enlarge this recipe enough to read it, so I won’t bore you with typing it out. It’s a tea cake recipe I’ve made for tea lunches in the past for my former tea groups when I held teas. I swapped regular flour for gluten free brands.

Alterations to the recipe:

The recipe calls for 2 cups all-purpose flour so I used:

• 1 cup Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-free flour plus
• 1/2 cup rice flour
• 1/2 cup King Arthur Gluten-free flour

The recipe calls for 2 sticks of butter, but I thought I’d use up some of the vegetable butter I had. I substituted 1 stick with Miyoko’s Creamery plant-based “butter.”

In hindsight, I don’t recommend this as the cookies want to crumble easily. I think they need the binding that comes with real butter. It could have something to do with the mix of flours, too.

The recipe does give instructions for drizzling chocolate over each cookie ball, but my melted chocolate didn’t turn out right and it wouldn’t pipe through a bag. But they turned out tasty anyway!!!

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Back to our tea

Mr. Ethereal came behind me and moved things up into the rafters. He moved one rack for me and reconfigured shelves on the other one. Now I had a nice area to set out little seedlings!

It is nice and roomy inside the shed now, which is what gave me the idea to hold a tea luncheon. 🙂

Even with utilitarian toolboxes and plastic pots and tools all around, we can forget all those things and just enjoy lunch with its Easter theme…

Our menu includes:

• Bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches on toast
• mandarin orange slices mixed with red grapes
• and our Chocolate Chip Tea Cakes!

I hoped to add in some fresh strawberries to our menu; however, there aren’t any ripe right now. More little blooms, though!

All in all, a lovely luncheon even if it was just me. 😉 Hubby had to work today, but his sandwich will get eaten tomorrow at work.

And Mr. Ethereal knows about the chocolate chip tea cakes as I sent pics this morning. I received a “Yum!” emoji back. 😀

Thank you for joining me today and I hope you have enjoyed our little tea luncheon in the garden shed. As always, I love sharing these days with you. 💜 

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***p.s. Since this post is getting out late today, Share Your Style will push off until tomorrow, dear friends. Do join us then! 💜 🙂

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Happy teatime,