Garden Party

Hey y'all, I'm Paula Deen, and it's such a beautiful day today that I'm going to be taking my kitchen outside

I'm going to be fixing a garden party right here in this beautiful garden at the Isaiah Davenport House in downtown Savannah

We're going to be starting out with an out-of-this-world spinach and bacon quiche, and then we're going to be fixing a cocktail

A crab cocktail, that is. Next up is a chocolate delight that's gonna knock your socks off

And don't forget the drinks, because we're gonna be washing everything down with a yummy fruit punch

That's sure to wet your whistle. In the garden or not, it's gonna be quite a party

On today's show, I'm bringing everybody to the Isaiah Davenport House here in Savannah

It is the first home that got restored here in our city

and it was done by a group of seven ladies that later became known as the Historical Society

A lot of functions are held at this beautiful home. A lot of wedding receptions and bridal showers are held here

and that inspired me for today's menu. So I'm going to be cooking right over there in the garden

and while I'm doing that, y'all go on a tour of this beautiful house

and we'll meet back up in the garden. I'll see y'all in a few minutes. The Davenport house is just a standout gem

even in a city like Savannah, where it's just full of beautiful mansions

The house today looks exactly as it did back in 1820 when the Davenport family first built the home

In fact, the seven women who founded the historic foundation discovered many of the original items still in the home

and they were able to recreate the family furnishings and decor right on down to the wallpaper

But for all its beauty, y'all, I think my favorite place is definitely the garden

There's just no finer setting for making a garden party menu. Isn't it beautiful

It's hard to believe that just in 1955 that this house was due to be torn down

And these seven Savannah ladies just did the town a wonderful service

by saving this beautiful home. And I don't know if you had a chance

to really notice the furniture, but you notice they didn't have a whole lot of furniture

But even though it's sparse, it's still so beautiful. And the wallpaper, the wallpapers were put back

just like the original wallpapers. But anyway, I hope y'all will get to see

some more shots of it. But in the meantime, we gotta cook

So I'm gonna do a quiche for today. And it's just real, real simple

I'm starting out with a frozen pie crust. And we're gonna start by cracking six eggs

And these eggs are at room temperature because they just appear to get fluffier

This garden that I'm standing in has held so many parties. Y'all know Savannah is a very romantic and magical place

And a lot of people choose to come to Savannah and get married here

And they don't have family or anything here. They just purposely choose this location because of all the romance going on

I'm going to beat them up a little bit, and then our liquid that's going in here is heavy cream

No half and half today for this quiche, but the heavy, heavy cream

All right, now I'm going to take our pie crust, and I'm going to line the bottom of it with

some pre-cooked crispy bacon. Just going to cover the bottom of that

Now I'm going to take some fresh spinach that I've just wilted, and I'm going to cover the

bottom with that. I love spinach and eggs together. Now I'm going to top it with cheese

And you can use any kind of cheese that you like. I happen to be using a Swiss cheese

Now I'm going to add a little salt and a little pepper to the eggs

All right, now I'm just going to pour this over our cheese and our spinach and our bacon

The great thing about quiche is you can really do anything that you want to do

You know if you like sausage, you could do sausage, or if you liked ham, you could do ham

But everybody I know loves bacon. And I think that that will do that It may run over a little bit And look at this great little oven Since I in the garden naturally I don have a stove out here

But that's no problem because I've got a little oven. Can you all hear the church bells ringing

Can you hear them? And I hear some children playing right over the fence

All right, so while the quiche is cooking, or while our quickie is cooking, I'm going to make up a simple syrup because when we come back from break, I'm going to be making a nice punch because no bridal party is complete without punch

And to make my simple syrup, I'm going to use equal parts of sugar to water, and we're going to let this boil and make a syrup

And we're going to let it cool down, and then we're going to add it to our punch

I'm gonna have to take a quick break, but when we come back, we're gonna finish the punch

and I'm gonna be making us crab martinis, which is really, really good, and we're gonna taste

those quiche, so y'all don't leave me. I've got lots, lots more to show y'all in this beautiful house

Welcome back, y'all, and I think our quiche is ready. Oh, it smells delicious

I'm going to sit the quiche up here and let it cool for a few minutes, and then we're going to come back and cut and taste that, and it looks grumptious

Now, the next thing I want to show y'all, it's called a crab martini

Now, I'm starting with just lump crab meat, and it's been picked free of its shell

and it's so good. Now the first thing I'm going to do is zest two lemons. This lemon is really

going to bring out the flavor of that crab. Okay, we're just going to gather that up

and that probably made about a tablespoon, so that's pretty good. All right, so I'm going to

So I'm going to soften our lemons up now and I'm going to squeeze that lemon juice over our crab

That lemon juice just...oh it's so good with that crab. Alright, so I've got our lemon juice in there. I've got our zest

I'm going to sprinkle it with a little seasoning salt, and I'm going to toss just a little bit

of mayonnaise in here to bind this. You want to keep your flavors very, very simple, because

you just want to enhance the fresh crab, because the crab is so good and sweet, and you want

that flavor to be the headliner of this dish. And because it's called a crab martini, I'm

going to be serving in a martini glass. And I'm going to come over here and cut us a piece

of lemon. And I'm just going to rim that glass with some lemon juice. And then I'm going

to put some seasoning salt in my bowl. And then I'm just going to run that martini glass

martini glass around in that bowl so when I'm eating my crab I can just

accidentally let my fork brush against the rim of that glass and get that good

old salt out of it. I'm going to take some asparagus and just cut some of these

tender ends off. Just like that and I'm going to toss them over into my crab

And that will give us a pretty little bit of green color

All right, so let's bring our glass back. I'm going to come in here with our chard

And then I'm going to tuck some crab in it, just a little bit

And then I'm gonna come in here with some asparagus. And no martini is complete without an olive

And just in case somebody wants a little bit more lemon, look how beautiful that is

And it's not like you're having to balance a plate on your lap

And it's magnificently simple, beautiful, and tasty. And I don't have the heart to eat out of that dish

It's so pretty, but I think I am gonna come in here and just make sure it's just like

it should be. Mmm. It's just yummy. Our quiche is cooling down, so I really wanna put this punch together before that gets totally

cold on me In my pitcher I put a large can of pineapple juice and to that we going to add frozen lemonade a frozen concentrated orange juice and remember that simple syrup that I was making

Well, I have it right here, and it's chilled now, and I'm just going to pour that in with our juices

and this is really, really going to sweeten up. Now, I have a bowl of fresh strawberries, and I'm using a little stainless steel bowl

as my mold today, and all I've done is pull the green stems off of the strawberries, and

I'm gonna cover our berries with our punch, and then I'm gonna stick this in the freezer

because this is gonna be our ice mold that's gonna keep our punch nice and chilled for us

In fact, I have one that's been in the freezer and normally you would just dip this in a little hot water

and lift it out and it would come out of the bowl, but we don't have hot running water out here

in the garden at the Davenport house. So I'm gonna just try to gently persuade this to come out

There it is. See how pretty that is? So I'm going to take a Sprite 7-Up ginger ale, whatever your favorite clear drink is

Now we're just going to take this and we're going to pour it over our berries

Aren't those berries just beautiful the way they're in a great big clump

All right, now I think I'm going to stick just a few lemon rings in there

Now you could do orange rings or lime rings, anything you wanted to, or you didn't have

to do a thing at all, but I think that's how I'm gonna dress mine

And I'm just gonna throw some fresh mint in there. Oh, great time of day

It looks so good. I wish one of those berries would come loose

Ooh, look how good that looks. All right, now I want to come over here

and I want to cut us a piece of quiche. Oh, yum

All the bacon rose to the top. You know, why do girls like quiche so much

I don't know why we do, but I know you've heard of that joke

real men don't eat quiche. I don't know why men think that it's just not a dish meant for them

but I know Michael loves them. So I've got my crab salad ready, and I've got my punch

and this beautiful quiche. Ooh, so everything looks so good. I got to leave and clean up, and when we come back

I'm going to be making a chocolate delight. But in the meantime, before I clean up, I'm going to taste all this stuff

Mmm. Oh my God, it's so good. You know, it just wouldn't be a garden party for us girls without something chocolate

So I'm going to be making a very, very easy chocolate delight

I'm going to start with a devil's food cake and I have to tell you it's just a

box cake mix nothing fancy smancy about it now all I'm going to do is cut our

cake into bite-sized squares just like this

And this doesn't have to be cut perfect because it's going to get all mixed in with all our

other ingredients. So we're just going to take our devil's food cake and put us a layer in the bottom of our

trifle dish, just like that. And I'm going to come over here and I'm going to nestle us down a couple of cubes of cake

in that. And now we're going to take a chocolate pudding. Now your chocolate pudding, it really doesn't matter

You can use an instant pudding or you can make one from scratch

So whatever you feel comfortable with on your pudding is quite all right, but I'll have

to tell you this, the cooked pudding that you can buy in the box is very, very good

All right, now I'm going to come over here and give it a layer of pudding

The reason that I like to do it in individual glass is when I'm having this type of party

that I want it kind of clean and not a lot of mess. The girls can just walk up and get their glass

There no dipping and worrying about getting it on their clothes and making it ugly I can make sure that everybody serving is nice and pretty and clean where if you dip you don always have that guarantee Now I going to step over here I started

beating some whipping cream, and this is just fresh, heavy cream, and I'm going to add a little

powdered sugar to it. All right, now we're going to take our whipped cream and we're going to just put a layer

of that over that cake and that chocolate pudding. Looks delicious. Now I'm going to come over here and I'm going to do the same thing in our little individual serving

All right, now I'm going to drizzle it with a little chocolate syrup

Just going to drizzle that around. Yum, I love this chocolate syrup

I love it on vanilla ice cream. Now I've got some toasted pecans that I'm going to just sprinkle around on there

And then we're going to do it one more time with the chocolate cake

Just tuck it in there like that. Going to tuck this in here

And another tuck. And then we're going to come back in here with that chocolate pudding

We'll do the same thing over here

Alright, and then we're going to go back with our whipped cream

And you can see the pretty white layer down there that our whipped cream has made

All right. Mmm. And some more toasted pecans

And I think I'm going to finish this off with just a few cherries and do the same thing

with our glass. How good does that look? And I think it worked out well that I made an individual glass, don't y'all

That'll give me something to eat out of. And when we come back, I'm going to be making table centerpieces

For today's tip, I've got the neatest little thing in the whole world

It's a fruit tree form. Now you can see right here I've got some lemon trees

I've got some orange trees, and some lime trees. And we've filled them in with pitosporum, or you can use boxwood

And we've tucked some grapes in these, so they make just beautiful centerpieces

And these things work so easily. All you have to do is select the fruit that you want to use, and you just stick them onto the nails just like this

You can put these together just in a matter of minutes. And like I said, this pitosporum looks just beautiful tucked in there, and that fills in all of your spaces

and the pineapple, you just sit on top, give it a push, and it's attached into those nails

So I'm going to take this beautiful arrangement, and I'm going to sit it next to the bowl of punch

and it's going to be spectacular. I really hope that y'all like what I've done today

This is just a perfect menu for a girlie's garden party. The chocolate delight and the bacon and spinach quiche is so yummy

And the crab salad is just perfect for the young girls that want to maintain that girlish figure

And before we leave today, I'd like to just give a special thanks to all the wonderful people here at the Davenport House

that opened up their arms to you and to me. And until next time, I send y'all love and best dishes from one of our national treasures to yours