Oolong Dead Tea (and Book Review)

Oolong Dead Tea
Originally uploaded by watchjennybake.

I'm a huge fan of the Tea Shop Mysteries by Laura Childs, and was happy to read Oolong Dead recently. Theodosia Browning, owner of the Indigo Tea Shop in Charleston, comes across a dead body while riding her horse, and has a mystery to solve. Incorporated throughout the book are mentions of dishes that are often found in the back of the book that you can make yourself.

I declared tonight Oolong Dead Tea night, and made two recipes from the back of the book. With the Vegetable Egg Strata and Chocolate Sour Cream Scones, I prepared Oolong #8 tea from Adagio.


I followed the recipe for the Vegetable Egg Strata except I left out the red peppers, and put the mixture in 6 ramekins instead of one square pan. I wanted the look of the individual servings, so I 1.5x the egg portion of the recipe, and ended up only baking them for 25 minutes. The eggs were just done, but not tough.

I had been given garden-fresh zucchini earlier today, so it was the star of the strata, as was the roasted garlic bread that I cubed up to put in it. This is a great recipe for using up leftovers, and could be adapted to practically any veggie/meat/cheese/bread combo.


The chocolate sour cream scones were interesting. I have made scones with tofu, cream, and buttermilk before, but never sour cream! Against my usual scone method, I actually had to stir and knead them quite a bit to get the dough to come together, but it did not seem to have a negative impact on the final result. In her newest series, of which Eggs in Purgatory is the first, there was a recipe for sour cream biscuits with three ingredients. I made those as well, and they were a similar texture. I liked that they were easy and I always seem to have sour cream on hand!

I'm a sucker for a novel that comes with recipes. What is your favorite?

Categories: Book Review, Chocolate, Eggs, Tea