Herbed Vidalia Onion Tea Sandwiches (Page 178)

RECIPE #1185
Date: Wednesday, July 7, 2010 -- 6pmLocation: East Lansing, MIKitchen: Our New House!Dining Companion: MattyRecipe Rating: B+

I put off making this recipe for all this time because I didn't want to serve raw onion tea sandwiches at a party, and I also didn't want to make a whole batch of tea sandwiches for just me and my special gentleman. In the end, I made the recipe for just the two of us and wished that I had made it for a party! These sandwiches were surprisingly tasty. To make them I started by stirring together mayonnaise, minced parsley, minced tarragon, lemon juice, Tabasco, salt, and pepper. Using a cookie cutter I cut out little circles from some thinly sliced white bread. I spread one side of the bread slices with the mayonnaise. Then, using the same cookie cutter I cut rounds of onion from slices of Vidalia onions. I put an onion round on half of the bread circles, then topped the rounds with another bread circle to form a sandwich. I coated the edge of each sandwich with a light layer of mayonnaise, then rolled it in parsley. That was it! I was more than a little skeptical about raw onion tea sandwiches. Typically tea party food is quite delicate and raw onions just don't scream delicate to me. I will happily admit, though, that I was wrong. The Vidalia onions were sweet enough that the raw onion slice was not biting at all. And paired with the mayonnaise and bread it was very tasty. My only complaint was that with all the parsley on the outsides of the sandwiches there was a bit too much parsley. Other than that I liked these sandwiches and I would indeed serve them with some tea.

The recipe in The Book is similar to this one.

Hello from Connecticut! My special gentleman is speaking at a conference at Wesleyan University this week, so we are out east. We drove out here from Michigan rather than flying, which actually made the logistics of the trip much easier. On Saturday we drove 8 hours from East Lansing to State College, Pennsylvania, where our friends Melanie and Daniel live. Daniel is an Assistant Professor at Penn State. He just started last fall and we hadn't had a chance to visit them yet since they moved to Pennsylvania. We had a great time hanging out with them Saturday night. Mel and I have been friends since we were 11. She is in the process of starting a green sewing business. The first product she is launching is a collection of mittens made out of old wool sweaters headed for the landfill. She shrinks the sweaters by washing them, then cuts pieces from the sweaters and mixes and matches the different sweaters to create the fabric for some awesome mittens. She will soon be selling in stores and online, but in the meantime, she gave me a pair! It was really fun to hear about her business in the early stages and see her workspace and all the work she has been doing. It was super impressive! Starting a small business sounds daunting to me but she is totally on top of it, and I can't wait for her business to officially launch so I can buy things from her!

We stayed at Mel and Daniel's place Saturday night, then Sunday we drove the remaining six and a half hours from State College to Middletown, Connecticut. I have been working from the hotel and coffee shops the last couple days while my special gentleman attends his conference. Conveniently my good friend Cornelia is in my special gentleman's field of mathematics, so tonight I had dinner with her, which was lovely. Tomorrow I will head to Boston for a couple days to visit more friends.

It has been a fun trip so far!