Gingerbread scones

I'm gearing up for gingerbread people at the end of the week, which will be my Christmas gifts this year (decorated to look like the recipient). In the meantime, a seasonal adaptation of my basic scone recipe.

Gingerbread scones
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup unbleached wheat or whole wheat flour
½ cup oats
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 T maple sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons ground Cinnamon,
2 teaspoons ground Ginger
1/8 teaspoons ground Clove
¾ stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits (or grated frozen butter. Make sure the grater is also frozen)

1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup applesauce
1 large egg
1/2 cup plain yogurt or sour cream

Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment.

Mix dry ingredients; add butter and mix until mixture resembles coarse meal. (I used frozen, grated butter this morning). Mix the wet ingredients and beat lightly with a fork. Using the fork, stir sour cream mixture into dry mixture until dough forms. Dough will be smooth and maleable. Roll out to 11" diameter, about 1" thick and cut into 8 wedges, or use a large ice-cream scoop to make 20 smaller scones. Lay on baking sheet and bake about 20 minutes. Serve warm with butter for best yummies.



Oh yeah. I made an apple pie, too. (First pie I ever made in my life, if you don't count quiche.)

Walnut-raisin sour cream scones

I make almost all my scones using sour cream, but I'll call these sour cream scones anyway. You can substitute the honey with 1/4 cup packed brown sugar for a sweeter scone. This will create more of a dough that can be rolled and cut, as it reduces the liquid.

1 cup all purpose flour + 1 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup plumped raisins, dredged in cinnamon and sugar

2/3 cup sour cream
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment.

Mix dry ingredients; add butter and mix until mixture resembles coarse meal. (I used frozen, grated butter this morning). To plump the raisins, put them in a microwaveable container and zap on medium for 5 minutes, then drain. (If you don't plump them, they dry out during baking.) Add the raisins and walnuts. Using a fork, stir sour cream mixture into dry mixture until dough forms (will be somewhat sticky). Form into 2 1/2 balls and flatten slightly on the parchment.

Bake until golden, about 20 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Based on apricot sour cream scones from Epicurious.

Sweet tooth

I still have scones left over from last week. So I thought I'd try some brownies instead.

1/2 cup butter
1 cup maple syrup
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour an 8 inch square pan.

Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly. While cooling beat eggs, syrup, and vanilla, then add it to the butter and beat until creamy. Beat in the cocoa, then add and beat in the flour and baking powder. Spread batter into prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Brownies are done when a knife inserted comes out clean. Be careful not to overcook.

Never throw anything away

The ice rink where I work has the most wonderful concessionaire. A skating mom herself, she transformed the concession stand from garbage-central to an honest-to-goodness healthy cafe; she makes everything from espresso brownies to salmon burgers with a hot plate, panini grill, and toaster oven.

Like all fast-food stands, she's got "meal deals," but hers are a sandwich, Italian soda (your choice of flavors), a homemade cookie, and a piece of fruit. Last week I grabbed a banana which I never ate. By the time I remembered it, it was, well let's call it "overripe."

Did I mention never throw anything away? I roasted the apple peels (from the home made applesauce), some garlic cloves, and the last of the summer's tomatoes in a 300F oven for 60 minutes, then simmered it all in apple cider for 30 minutes. Run through a food mill, then smooth with an immersible blender. Tomato-apple soup. Recipe on Mahlzeit.

Apple banana scones

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour (for October unprocessed, use all unbleached wheat flour)
1 cup unbleached wheat or whole wheat flour
½ cup oats
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 T cane sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¾ stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits (or grate frozen butter. Make sure the grater is also frozen)
¾ cup walnuts, crushed

3T light corn syrup
1 large egg plus one egg yolk
1 overripe banana, mashed
2/3 cup apple sauce
1/3 cup plain yogurt or sour cream

Preheat oven to 400F (375 if you have a baking stone in your oven) and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Adjust a baking rack to the middle position.

Beat together the liquid ingredients and set aside. You can leave out the corn syrup; your scones will just be a little less sweet. If you leave it out, replace the liquid (more apple sauce or sour cream works fine).

Mix the dry ingredients, then cut in the butter with a pastry cutter, knife or your hands until it resembles a coarse meal. Stir the nuts into the flour mixture. Add the liquid mixture to the flour mixture. Stir until just combined. Dough will be very sticky.

For drop scones, place in tablespoon scoops onto a parchment-covered baking sheet about 1 inch apart on and bake for 15 to 17 minutes, or until pale golden. Transfer the scones to a cooling rack and let them cool slightly before serving.

How have I never made pumpkin scones!

Adapted recipe, from I don't even remember which scone I've made before. Made a double batch even though it was a test recipe. Fortunately they're delicious: texture just shy of crumbly, nice dense mouth feel. Glazed the second batch with maple syrup, for a little extra sweetness.

In the spirit of October Unprocessed, I grated and/or ground my own pumpkin pie spice-- nutmegs, cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, dried ginger, all processed in a simple coffee grinder. To clean between each grinding, run a couple tablespoons of white rice through it, then wipe with a dry rag. You needed to use that white rice for something anyway!)

I left all ingredients except the yogurt and butter out so they were room temp.

Definite winner.

Pumpkin maple scones

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour (for October unprocessed, use all unbleached wheat flour)
1 cup unbleached wheat or whole wheat flour
½ cup oats
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 T maple sugar*
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (mix your own, lots of recipes on the web)
¾ stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits (or grate frozen butter. Make sure the grater is also frozen)
¾ cup raisins, plumped

1/4 cup maple syrup
1 large egg
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/3 cup plain yogurt or sour cream

* Yes, I know that maple sugar is $16 a pound and hard to find. If you don't have any, or want to spend the money, substitute 1 T dark corn syrup, and cut back the maple syrup by that amount. You can get maple sugar from The Spice House.

Preheat oven to 400F (375 if you have a baking stone in your oven) and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Adjust a baking rack to the middle position. Beat together the liquid ingredients and set aside.
Mix the dry ingredients, then cut in the butter with a pastry cutter, knife or your hands until it resembles a coarse meal. Stir the plumped raisins into the flour mixture. (If you don't plump them, they'll dry out when baking. To plump raisins, just cover them with water in a small glass mixing bowl and microwave on high for 3 minutes. Drain.) Add the liquid mixture to the flour mixture. Stir until just combined. Dough will be sticky and slightly elastic.
Roll dough out until it's about 1/2 thick, then cut into wedges. Dough rolled out to about 10" disc. Place onto a parchment-covered baking sheet about 1 inch apart on and bake for 17 minutes, or until pale golden. Transfer the scones to a cooling rack and let them cool slightly before serving.

Sconeday friends

Lindsay Shepard, Leah Ray, Lamanda Joy, and Maribeth Brewer enjoying peach scones and figuring out the next steps for the Peterson Garden Project.

Since I had to clean the house, too, I didn't try to come up with a new scone; this is the recipe I used, substituting peaches for rhubarb.

I heart scones

Best of the web: traditional scones with cucumber goat cheese spread.

Sometimes it's best just to open up a cookbook. Heart shaped just because.

Bloom Day scones

An unexpected tropical visitor; I "stage" the amaryllis bulbs in the garden. They never bloomed outdoors before! More Bloom Day pictures on Folia and Flickr.

Peach cornmeal scones

1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup stone ground cornmeal
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold butter
3/4 cup dried cranberries
1 large or 2 small peaches, peeled and diced
1/3 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup peach syrup

To make peach syrup, put the peach skins plus 1/2 cup sugar in 1 cup of water. Bring to a full boil, boil for 10 minutes. Strain through a food mill. You can use the leftover over pancakes, ice cream, or in sparking water.

Heat oven to 400°.

Mix the liquid ingredients and set aside.

Combine the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, soda, and salt. Cut butter into pieces and add to the dry ingredients, mixing with a pastry blender until the texture resembles corn meal. Stir in dried cranberries and diced peaches. Mix thorougly, then add the liquids and combine until thoroughly mixed. The dough will be quite wet. Spoon onto a baking sheet lined with parchment, at least 2 inches apart. Makes 9 large or 12 small scones. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

By the way, when you accidentally turn off the oven, they don't rise very well. What can I say.


Bloom Day bouquet: Cosmos Rose Bon-Bon from Renee's Garden, Black Eyed Susan, Tagetes, and Russian Sage.

Haiku and rosemary

On a drizzly day
Mosquitos in the garden
Warm scones in the house

Rosemary Honey Scones
adapted from Savoury Honey Scones

2¼ teaspoons rosemary, finely chopped and divided
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/3 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon coarse salt
6 tablespoons cold butter

1/2 cup sour cream,
1/2 cup milk
¼ cup honey
1 egg

Preheat oven to 425°. In a large bowl, mix 2 teaspoons rosemary with all other dry ingredients. Cut in the butter, mixing until it has the consistency of coarse meal.

Whisk together honey, milk, sour cream, and egg. Stir this mixture into the dry ingredients until a soft dough forms. Form dough into a ball. Turn out onto a floured surface and separate the dough into 2 equal portions, pat each portion into a circle about ¾-inch thick. Cut into 8 wedges.

Separate and arrange wedges on waxed paper or baking sheet. Brush tops with a little heavy cream or melted butter and sprinkle with remaining rosemary. Place in oven and bake 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown.

Muffins

Well, I missed sconeday again, with no good excuse this week. Monday just slipped by; don't think I wasn't thinking about scones, I just didn't quite get it together to actually make them. Plus I still had the molasses scones from last week left over.

So, since it isn't sconeday, I decided this week not to make scones, and go a little apostate here and try muffins. I used a recipe from my favorite cook book, inherited from my mother. The Woman's Home Companion cookbook is one of those teaching cookbooks so common in the 40s and 50s-- (I have stacks of them from my mother). It tells you all the things you need to know about each type of food-- what it should look like at each step of the way, what will happen if you do it wrong, and how to fix it.

Here's the muffin recipe, verbatim, in hideous violation of copyright. Seriously, if you can get your hands on this book, buy it.

Muffin Technique (edited)
"Good muffins are symmetrical in shape, with straight sides and a slightly rounded top. The crust is a rich golden brown and rough pebbly texture, slightly glazed in appearance. The grian is uniform and slightly coarse, with medium-sized air cells and a moist tender crumb.

"The first and foremost secret of success is in the mixing. The batter must be stirred never beaten, only until the dry ingredients are thoroughly moistened. At this stage the mixutre will appear rough and lumpy, and will break easily when lifted with the spoon. The small lumps which remain will take care of themselves during baking.

"Immediately after mixing the batter should be transferred to the pans in order to avoid the loss of leavening gas. Muffin pans should be well reased on the bottom but just lightly greased or not at all ont he sides. This allows the batter to cling more tenaciously to the sides of the pan during rising and makes for better volume.

Whole Wheat Muffins
1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar (I used maple sugar)

Plumped raisins

1 cup whole milk
1 egg lightly beaten
3 T melted shortening (I used butter, but this is a post war book so they probably used lard, or eek, Crisco)

Sift white flour (not necessary with most modern flours); add baking powder, salt and sugar, sift or whisk together, add wheat flour, mix. Mix in raisins. Combine egg, milk and melted shortening and add to flour mixture. Mix until just moistened. Batter will be thick.

Fill greased muffin pans about 2/3 full and bake in a hot oven 20 to 25 minutes. Makes 12 to 15 medium sized muffins. That's a little homemade blueberry preserves on there, by the by.

Sick in bed

I almost missed sconeday for a second week in a row, as I was sick in bed yesterday and Sunday, my usual baking days. But it just gave me time to think about what to make today. These might be more suited to a cold autumn day than late July's 90 degree humidity, but why not start early, testing the Thanksgiving recipes!

Molasses scones

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
½ cup oats
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 T cane sugar
¾ stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
¾ cup raisins, plumped

1/4 cup molasses
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup yogurt

Preheat oven to 400F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Adjust a baking rack to the middle position. Beat together the molasses, eggs, and sour cream.

Mix the dry ingredients, then cut in the butter with a pastry cutter, knife or your hands until it resembles a coarse meal. Stir the plumped raisins into the flour mixture. (If you don't plump them, they'll dry out when baking. To plump raisins, just cover them with water in a small glass mixing bowl and microwave on high for 3 minutes. Drain.) Add the liquid mixture to the flour mixture. Stir until just combined. Dough will be sticky and slightly elastic.

Roll dough out until it's about 1/2 thick, then cut into 3" circles using a glass or donut cutter. Place onto a parchment-covered baking sheet about 1 inch apart on and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until pale golden. Transfer the scones to a cooling rack and let them cool slightly before serving.

Cousin Chrissie Scones

I sat down this morning to come up with a scone recipe, as I always do, by opening the computer to one of the basic recipes, which I then adapt. Of course, I had to open up Facebook as well, and in a couple of minutes, had "Chris" chatting.

At first I thought it was my friend and co-worker Chris, but then I realized it was my cousin Chrissie, whom I last saw when we were 14, 40 years ago. We were able to catch up over a nearly hour-long chat. A couple of times, I was close to tears knowing that this person, with whom I share both so much and so little, also wanted to reawaken the connection.

I've found many of my literally long-lost cousins on Facebook; when people complain about how stupid and lame Facebook is, I just think how off-base they are. Facebook is an amazing resource. Because of Facebook you never need to be estranged, or cut off, or lost to your far-flung family or friends ever again. I know that there are people we'd all just as soon never heard of us, let alone found us again. But there are lots of people that just slip away, through neglect or inattention. They're out there, just waiting to be found.

I made these while chatting:

Blueberry Scones

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
½ cup oats
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¾ stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits

½ cup fresh blueberries
½ cup honey
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup sour cream

1 cup blueberries (works best if they're frozen first)

Preheat oven to 400F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Adjust a baking rack to the middle position. In a food processor, mix the fresh blueberries, honey, eggs, and sour cream.

Mix the dry ingredients, then cut in the butter with a pastry cutter, knife or your hands until it resembles a coarse meal. Stir the frozen blueberries into the flour mixture. Add the liquid mixture to the flour mixture. Stir until just combined. Dough will be quite sticky (these are drop scones).

Using a soup spoon, drop scones onto a parchment-covered baking sheet about 1 inch apart on and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until pale golden. Transfer the scones to a cooling rack and let them cool slightly before serving.

I hoped they'd be blue, but no such luck.

Happy Fourth of July

Sconeday lands on the holiday this week, with special red-white-and-blue scones. I'm having a great holiday weekend-- the Peterson Garden Re-dedication yesterday was a fantastic party with kids and dogs (and chickens) in costume (you heard me). We had garden tours, singalongs, family, friends and great food.

I'm sitting here waiting for my good friend and her rabbit-scaring dog. They drop by periodically to convince my resident evil furface that my perennial bed is NOT a good place to set up housekeeping (or for forays into the bean patch, where said furface has decimated the crop).

Later today I'm marching in the Evanston Fourth of July Parade with our skating camp, and tomorrow Peterson Garden powwow with these fantastic scones:


Red-White-and-Blue scones
Recipe: Cooks Illustrated scones recipe (gonna make you sign up for the site)

After rolling out the scones in about a 12" square, lay blueberries on one-third, then raspberries or cut-up strawberries and the next third, finally, break up a frozen white chocolate bar or use white chocolate chips (mine was a Divine Chocolates white chocolate with strawberries from Ten Thousand Villages) and lay that on the final third.

Continue recipe as directed.

What spice?

I put out a call on Twitter for a spice or herb to use with raspberries. Here are all the suggestions:

From gardenfaerie- cinnamon
From annmjenson- jalapeno or curry
from xitomal- mint or anise
NoraChin likes they idea of mint as well
impstrump wants Raspberry-cannabis, which I think has definite possibilities. She also suggested Echinacea, which has the advantage of also preventing colds, I guess.
DaggerBytesBack wants cayenne
Icemom says cardamom and also white chocolate (which isn't technically a spice...) and also sent me the Cooks Illustrated recipe, which I used (see below).
OpenlyBalanced suggests ginger

Clearly, I have a lot of scones to make. I ended up making plain Raspberry scones with jalapeno jelly (from Trader Joe's, but here's a nice recipe).

And here I am going to depart from the recipes. I used Diane's suggestion and made the recipe from America's Test Kitchen/Cooks Illustrated, which is probably the best, if the most annoyingly complex, scone recipe I ever made (frozen, grated butter. Ever grate butter? Yeah, butter EVERYwhere.) But the scones are indescribable- flaky and sweet without being crumbly or cloying. (Okay, I guess not indescribable, since I just described them.)

Because America's Test Kitchen is probably my favorite show and I want to marry (and eat with) everyone on it, I'm putting here, in lieu of the recipe, the link to sign up for the site. Yes, recipes on the web that you have to pay for. But if you like to cook, you should susbcribe to this site anyway. (My kickback check will be in the mail, soon, yes?)

Last March I committed my self (and my long-suffering family) to slow food- seasonal, local, organic, whole. Once we got past the early difficulties-- finding local sources, how to stock a larder when you can't just run to the store, etc.-- we've found it a revelation.

I was famous when my kids were growing up for never having food in the house. I refused to stock up on junk food. Junk food, when we purchased it, was purchased for immediate consumption only; I never had bags of chips just lying around.

The problem was, because I wasn't thinking past "no junk food," there wasn't anything else lying around either.

What we've found since committing to this way of eating is that there is ALWAYS food. Because I don't mind them chowing down on real popcorn, or homemade crackers, cookies or scones, because the homemade bread is so delicious, there always seems to be something to eat now.

One of the things we've given up along the way is cold cereal. I never liked it at all, and no one is that crazy about granola, so I've replaced cereal with weekly scones. I've made some delicious ones, and in nearly 4 months of scone baking have yet to repeat one. They were taking over my other recipe blog.

This seasonal scone can be made with any fruit (last week I made them with rhubarb; next week the raspberries should be ripe), and you can substitute oats or whole wheat flour for the cornmeal (play with the texture when substituting). This is a drop scone; leave out the egg yolk and increase the grain for a denser, cut scone.

Strawberry Cornbread Scones

2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup cornmeal
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
1 1/2 cups diced strawberries (¼-inch cubes), macerated in sugar (abt 3 T)

1/4 cup honey
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 400F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Adjust a baking rack to the middle position. In a small bowl, mix the strawberries with 3 tablespoons sugar.

Mix the dry ingredients, then cut in the butter with a pastry cutter, knife or your hands until it resembles a coarse meal. Stir the fruit into the flour mixture. Lightly beat the honey, egg, yolk, milk and sourcream together in a bowl (use the same one you used for the strawberries ), then add this mixture to the flour mixture. Stir until just combined. Dough will be very sticky.

Using soup spoons (for large scones) or teaspoons (for small scones) spoon out 1 1/2" or 2" mounds onto the cookie sheet, about 1 inch apart. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until pale golden. Transfer the scones to a cooling rack and let them cool slightly before serving.

Apple maple scones

3/4 cup all-purpose flour plus 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup corn meal
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons orange zest
1/2 cup cold butter, cut into small pieces

1 large egg
1/3 cup sourcream
1-2 tablespoon milk
1/4 c maple syrup
1 teaspoon maple extract (or vanilla; maple is hard to find)

1 1/2 cups diced apples
½ cup golden raisins, plumped

Preheat oven to 425°.

Mix together first 5 ingredients. Cut in cold butter until mixture resembles coarse meal, then mix in fruit until blended until blended. Whisk together egg and liquid ingredients in a separate bowl; add to flour mixture, and mix just until blended. Dough will be sticky.

Spoon in large tablespoonsful onto a lightly greased baking sheet (or line a sheet with parchment paper). Bake at 425° for 15 minutes or until golden.

Sconeday: the art of gardening

I approach my garden as much for art, as for plants or food.

I started life as an artist, actually making a living at it all through my 20s and even into my children’s toddlerhood. It’s hard to paint with little kids around, however; you cannot pick up a baby when your hands are covered in cadmium yellow. It is poison. You can switch to pastels, but then the baby is always Technicolor and anyway, who knows what’s in those as well? So you switch to charcoal, but now the baby looks like you let him crawl around on the cellar floor, which in fact you do, and oh my god what is he putting in his mouth.

So I switched to gardening. This became my canvas, and it is a living one that changes and grows, literally, year after year. I’ve just spent the morning looking at old photo CDs and seeing how the garden has changed over the years— it is a work that is never done, the god’s canvas. The Painter’s Palette dies and is replaced by Baby's Breath, which dies and is replaced by Pineapple Sage. A “water” garden made from pebbles and rocks gives way to an actual pond; a vegetable garden becomes a mulch patio becomes a vegetable garden; the lilies move from the shade to the sun and take off. The coleus really doesn’t like the sun, but pansies and marigolds make a beautiful statement in the same place.

How can you make your garden into art?
Put other people's art in it: A little bronze frog, a clay Medusa, ceramic luminaries.
Put in your own art: A painted gate, a hand-built trellis made of sticks, plant markers.
Make the layout a canvas: Lead the eye through the garden by laying paths, and interrupting the movement of the eye, or letting the wanderer pause with architectural elements like a special plant, or a bench, a luminary or a sculpture.
Paint with flowers: frame a lupine with a green shrub, or create a themed garden (Shakespearian plants, or a color theme)

The words are interchangeable— I am an artist. I am a gardener.

How have you made your garden into art?

Goat cheese scones
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
>1/4 cup white sugar if you like sweet scones
1/8 teaspoon salt

5 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 T goat cheese ( a crumbly one works best)
3/4 cup sour cream (thin with milk) plain or vanilla yogurt
1/4 cup honey

½ cup sugared, plumped raisins

Sift the flour, baking powder, sugar, cinnamon, and salt into a large bowl. Cut in butter using a pastry blender or rubbing between your fingers until it has the consistency of corn meal. Cut in the goat cheese. Mix liquids together in a measuring cup. Pour all at once into the dry ingredients, and stir gently until well blended. (Overworking the dough results in terrible scones!)

To prepare raisins, plump raisins. Place in a microwaveable container, just cover with water and heat them in the microwave on medium for about 3 minutes. Drain and pat dry, then coat with about 1 teaspoon of cinnamon suger. Mix these into the scone batter.

Glaze with yogurt mixed with cinnamon

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and drop batter by generous spoonfuls. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until the tops are golden brown, not deep brown.

Stop buying appliances!

Last winter I attended the Family Farmed Expo at the UIC Forum. Inspired by the Eat Real Food Challenge, this was the event that got me rolling SLOW*ly into eating real. I attended several of the seminars/lectures on tips for seasonal and local shopping.

They had great ideas for where and what to buy, and recipes, and their enthusiasm was motivating, even inspirational. But they stopped their thinking at the food. One lecturer brought up no fewer than 7 appliances that she used: vacuum packer, pressure canner, dehydrater, extra freezer, food processor, juicer, pasta roller. I assume in addition she also had the typical kitchen appliances of fridge, mixer, oven, stovetop, microwave. Others mentioned bread and pasta "machines," and seemed not to understand the irony of statements that these things were pretty affordable at Target, or that you could buy them on line from this great sustainable merchant in British Columbia. Or the Outer Hebrides for all I know.

There was lots of talk about "food miles" and supporting local farmers, but not a twinkle of consideration about "appliance miles." Local is not just food. Local is buying from the last merchant-owned Rexal drugstore in your neighborhood instead of Osco, or the Centrella Market instead of Safeway, or True Value instead of Lowe's. Sustainable is not just riding a bike instead of a car. It's also using your hands instead of a machine, to do those things that the machine doesn't do any better.

You don't need all those specialized appliances to make canned goods, juice, syrup, jams and preserves, bread or anything else, and you won't lose time or quality just doing it by hand. (You'll save time just because you won't be constantly hauling out appliances. Unless you live at America's Test Kitchen, where they hell are you keeping all that stuff?)

Here are the appliances/utensils you need to preserve an entire year's harvest for your family, and to make all your baked goods at home. Most don't use any electricity, and all are available from locally owned merchants:

Pastry mixer
Egg beater
Several different sizes of whisk
A dinner fork
Potato peeler
Several size knives
Mortar and Pestle
Rolling pin
Oven
Stove top
extremely large pot (for heat canning)
Hand held mixer, (if you make baked goods that use a batter, or lots of whipped cream. Otherwise, not so much. I almost never take mine out)
Okay, extra freezer

Useful, but not necessary (I don't have these, or any of the appliances named in the text):
Stand mixer
Large food processor (I actually need one of these, because I mash a lot of veggies for preserving, like squash, eggplant, and garbanzos.)

Everything on this blog was made with these Xan-powered utensils. Not a pasta roller in sight.

Chocolate-Pear Scones


2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 1/2 T cocoa powder
½ teaspoon salt
¾ stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
2 to 2 1/2 cups diced pears (¼-inch cubes; cut just before you use them)

½ cup honey
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup sour cream + 1/2 cup milk, whisked

Preheat oven to 400F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Adjust a baking rack to the middle position.

Mix the dry ingredients with a whisk, then cut in the butter with a pastry mixer, knife or your hands until it resembles a coarse meal. Peel (with a potato peeler), dice (with a knife), and then stir the pears into the flour mixture. Lightly beat the honey, egg, yolk, and milk/sourcream together in a bowl (with a fork) , then add this mixture to the flour mixture. Stir until just combined (it will be thick and sticky).

On a well-floured surface with floured hands, pat the dough into a 1-inch-thick round (about 8 inches in diameter). Using a 2-inch round cutter or rim of a glass dipped in flour, cut out as many rounds as possible, rerolling scraps as necessary. Arrange rounds about 1 inch apart on baking sheet and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until pale golden. Transfer the scones to a cooling rack and let them cool slightly before serving.

*SLOW=Seasonal Local Organic Whole, in case you hadn't figured that out (took me a while)

One day a week

I've been getting on my soapbox a lot lately, because I lost a lot of weight recently, and people are noticing. They ask me how I did it, and my response is "by eating."

You heard that right, I lost weight by eating. I never set out to lose weight, and didn't care that much, as I wasn't terribly overweight for someone of my age (BMI 29, now down to 25). But in March, I started eating SLOW- seasonal, local, organic, whole. I actually increased the percentage of animal fat in my diet, without increasing the amount of animal products I eat. So- whole milk and whole milk products, grass-fed beef, sustainably farmed chicken, with !gasp! the skin on. I stopped buying food with ingredients, and have been making my own everything: crackers, salad dressing, bread, jam, mayonnaise, you name it.

I have not been eating any less. By eating SLOW and other efforts (walking a lot more, expanding my garden) I reduced my family's carbon footprint by an entire planet.

And when I tell people this story, the responses are predictable-- too expensive, don't have time, don't know how to cook, my kids won't eat like that (why, do they have an independent income for their own food?) and on and on.

So here is MY challenge-- change your eating one day a week.

Just one day.

Do you eat out all the time? Start cooking from scratch one day. I'll let you buy pasta, but make your own tomato sauce, and buy your lettuce in a head instead of a bag. Use oil and vinegar instead of additive-rich purchased dressing. Just for one day a week.

Do you already cook from scratch one day a week? Pick another day, and eat only seasonal, whole foods that day. I'll let you go to Whole Foods (if you must) or another aware market, and buy strawberry preserves in March, as long as they're organic. I'll let you buy pasta, but read the label and make sure it says "semolina flour, water" and nothing else.

Already doing that too? Make bread. Or jam. Or crackers (they're ridiculously easy, look for my recipe on this blog). Roast a chicken. Don't worry how it turns out the first couple of times, you're only doing this once a week, remember? Do you bake a lot? One day, don't use the mixer-save the electricity and do it by hand.

How often do you go to the grocery store? One day a week, right? Go to the local, organic market instead, or the nearest farmers' market, or Whole Foods if you must. Too expensive? It's only one day a week!

Are you like me, and way into this already? You can change yourself, and your family, and your planet one day a week as well. Eat vegetarian one day a week. Already doing that? Eat vegan one day a week (that's where I've gotten). Already doing that? Eat raw one day a week.

If you've taken your food as far as you're comfortable, then take your one day a week and walk everywhere. Use it to donate time to a community or school garden, or a political action group. Grow a tomato plant- that's way less effort than one day a week, and then use your day at harvest time to preserve the bounty. Use your day to write your elected officials and demand recycling, the end of Big Ag subsidies and work arounds, and fair rules for small family farms.

I believe it. I lost 25 pounds with literally no effort toward that goal. We can save the planet, folks. What will you do one day a week?

And yes, I know it's sconeday, one day a week. Here you go:

Rhubarb Cream Scones
(adapted from The Way the Cookie Crumbles, who adapted it from Gourmet via Smitten Kitchen)

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
½ cup oats
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¾ stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
2 cups diced rhubarb (¼-inch cubes), about 3 stalks, macerated in sugar (abt 3 T)
½ cup honey
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup sour cream + 1/2 cup milk, whisked

Preheat oven to 400F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Adjust a baking rack to the middle position. In a small bowl, mix the rhubarb with 3 tablespoons sugar.

Mix the dry ingredients, then cut in the butter with a pastry cutter, knife or your hands until it resembles a coarse meal. Stir the rhubarb into the flour mixture. Lightly beat the honey, egg, yolk, and milk/sourcream together in a bowl (use the same one you used for the rhubarb), then add this mixture to the flour mixture. Stir until just combined.

On a well-floured surface with floured hands, pat the dough into a 1-inch-thick round (about 8 inches in diameter). Using a 2-inch round cutter or rim of a glass dipped in flour, cut out as many rounds as possible, rerolling scraps as necessary. Arrange rounds about 1 inch apart on baking sheet and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until pale golden. Transfer the scones to a cooling rack and let them cool slightly before serving.

Sconeday: apple scones

Apple maple scones

3/4 cup all-purpose flour plus 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup corn meal
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons orange zest
1/2 cup cold butter, cut into small pieces

1 large egg
1/3 cup sourcream
1-2 tablespoon milk
1/4 c maple syrup
1 teaspoon maple extract (or vanilla; maple is hard to find)

1 1/2 cups diced apples
½ cup golden raisins, plumped

Preheat oven to 425°.

Mix together first 5 ingredients. Cut in cold butter until mixture resembles coarse meal, then mix in fruit until blended until blended. Whisk together egg and liquid ingredients in a separate bowl; add to flour mixture, and mix just until blended. Dough will be sticky.

Spoon in large tablespoonsful onto a lightly greased baking sheet (or line a sheet with parchment paper). Bake at 425° for 15 minutes or until golden.

Sconeday: Where are you from?

View on flickr

According to my astrological chart, I should have lived in a large town in a rural setting. I’ve suggested to my husband that I would love to retire to such a setting, in rural Wisconsin or Michigan; he just looks at me like I’ve grown another head.

I read with such envy my rural and small town friends on the web; I would love a life that allowed me to do something as simple as walk to a farmer’s market, or to know my neighbors. I spent my high school years in a small city, but at the very edge, where there was a farm across the street, and full blown country an easy bike ride away. My parents hated it, but I still get a thrill when I manage to get out under the sky, where you see what we city folk call “nothing” from horizon to horizon.

My family, and my husband’s, have no farmers in our backgrounds for at least 5 generations. The first farmer we’ve been able to possibly identify are my Irish triple greats who came here in the 1850s or 60s, although that’s a guess; they may have been urban victims of the Irish troubles; we’re not really sure why they came. Other than that, we know that they all emigrated from cities to cities-St. Louis, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, LA. I have an uncle who was an engineer that moved his family from NYC to a Christmas tree farm in upstate NY, because he invented the machine that allows pine farmers to plant them mechanically (if you know a Christmas tree farmer, he probably uses my uncle’s invention). But he’s the outlier.

My yearnings for dirt come out of nowhere. No one else in my family shares it. They support it, and love the food, but the desire to grow things and be part of the cycle of life has been bred out of their genes for the last 150 years or more.

Coconut lemon scones
Adapted from: Group Recipes

4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1/4 cup oats
8 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp kosher salt
>1/4 cup cane sugar

1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup thin yogurt
5 tbls butter
4 tbls shortening
1 cup Coconut Milk
Zest and juice from 2 lemons
1 tsp vanilla or lemon extract

1/2 cup diced dried pineapple (NOT the sugar coated kind)

Pre-heat oven to 425 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Stir together dry ingredients (including zest) in a large bowl. In a separate bowl (or measuring cup) mix together coconut milk, lemon juice and vanilla and set aside for the moment. Take butter, shortening, and lemon zest and cut in to dry ingredients until you have a crumb-like texture. Mix the wet ingredients in to the dry ones until a sticky dough forms.

Turn dough out on to a floured surface and using floured hands, gently pat out the dough to 1" thickness. Cut out scones using a round cutter (a juice glass works fine) and place with sides touching on parchment lined baking sheet.

Bake for approximately 10 minutes, or until lightly golden.

Sconeday experiment

Or, Trust Your Instincts, But Read The Recipe

On the last day that my daughter was home, I decided to have warm scones ready for her when she got up. I had the idea in the back of my head to try the apricot compote-for-honey substitution with scones, so I was pretty excited about these. I'm really a novice baker. I'm a complete ease around a stove top and a frying pan, and I can make a stew with my eyes closed. But baking scares me, and I tend to stick to the recipe closely.

Except of course, that's hard to do when you don't read the recipe.

"I can do these without looking up the recipe," sez I to myself sez I. "I've been making scones once a week for months now."

The dough looked lovely-- a gentle orange color-- and smelled divine. It was kinda stiff, I almost rolled it, but thought, no I like the rough "drop" scones. Just before sticking them in the oven, I glanced at the recipe and realized, oops.

Forgot the butter.

Yes folks, I forgot to put the butter in the scones. Too late to do it right now, the dough was all mixed. So how do I get butter evenly mixed through a dense dough filled with nuts.

I melted it folks. Kneaded it in, and reformed the scones. They're going in the oven now; I'll be back in 15 minutes to tell you how they are. In the meantime, here's a lovely picture from my garden.
Well, they're a little gummy, but they taste delicious! So the conclusion is, you can screw up a baking recipe, but I don't recommend it.

Apricot-walnut scones
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 Tbs cane sugar (or 1 Tbs packed brown sugar)
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 Tbs dried or fresh orange zest

5 tablespoons unsalted butter

2/3 cup fresh orange juice, with zest
1/4 cup apricot compote
1/4 cup sour cream, or plain or vanilla yogurt

1/2 cup dried apricots, diced and plumped or 1/4 cup crushed walnuts

Heat oven to 425F/218C

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl. Cut in butter (NOTE: DO NOT FORGET THIS STEP) using a pastry blender or by rubbing between your fingers until it has the consistency of corn meal. Whisk together honey, apricots, and sour cream in a measuring cup. Pour all at once into the dry ingredients, and stir gently until well blended. (Overworking the dough results in terrible scones!)

To prepare the dried apricots, plump them by boiling them for about a minute on stove top or microwave. Drain and pat dry, mix into the scone batter.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and drop batter by generous spoonfuls. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until the tops are golden brown, not deep brown.

Sconeday

Since I make scones once a week for breakfasts and snacks, I decided that "Monday" is now "Sconeday" Watch for a new scones recipe on most Mondays! This is the only recipe idea I ever had that I could not find that someone else had already come up with it.

Beet scones
a Mahlzeit original recipe

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons orange zest
1/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup cold butter, cut into small pieces
about 1 cup grated cooked beet (1 medium beet)

1 large egg
1/4 c honey
1/3 cup buttermilk or sour cream
1/2 teaspoon orange extract

Preheat oven to 425°.

Boil beet(s) until just al dente (don't overcook, because it needs to be firm enough to be grated). Allow to cool enough to handle, then grate it.

Mix together first 6 ingredients. Cut in cold butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add beets and mix until just blended. Whisk together egg, buttermilk, and orange extract in a separate bowl until blended. Add to flour mixture, and mix just until blended and slightly moist. Dough will be sticky, and pink.

Spoon large tablespoonsful onto a lightly greased baking sheet (or line a sheet with parchment paper). Bake at 425° for 12 to 15 minutes (shorter time for smaller scones). Makes 9 large or 12 medium scones.

Bonding over the compost

There's a new blogger project on gardening with your kids called "Kinder Gardens- Let's Get'em Dirty!" that makes me wish I still had some child victims of my own around to dig in the dirt with me. (The one in the picture turned 21 on Wednesday.)

I've spoken a lot recently with my kids about what they remember about the garden growing up. Surprisingly, they don't remember how much they loved sticking seeds in the dirt, or picking up worms, although my daughter did recall that she liked planting out potted plants. Mostly what they remember, as I wrote about in a prior post is the "forced labor." Although, to be fair, they also both remembered and miss the delicious fresh veggies.

They also have all bonded with their peers over their hatred of feeding the compost, which I find absolutely hilarious, and charming.

Gardening with kids is lots of fun-- you have to let go a little bit, because things get trampled, and planted wrong, and picked early, but that's part of the entertainment.

In this stage of my life, between generations as it were, I pretty much garden alone, but it's made me think about how to get my young adults involved in the garden again. I'd love for them to see it as bonding with the goddess, and with me, and bring them back in for the joy of it.

I could try bribing them with food I suppose, but here's the question: How do you get apartment-dwelling, time-crunched young adults back into the garden?

Ginger carrot scones
from myrecipes.com more or less

3/4 cup all-purpose flour plus 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup old-fashioned oats
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons orange zest
>1/3 cup sugar or substitute 1/4 c honey
1/2 cup cold butter, cut into small pieces
1 cup finely grated carrot (about 1 1/2 carrots)
2 tablespoons diced crystallized ginger or 1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 large egg
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon buttermilk (if using honey, reduce to 1/3 cup buttermilk or sour cream)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 425°.

Mix together first 5 ingredients and 1/3 cup sugar. Cut in cold butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add carrot and ginger and mix until just blended. Whisk together egg, buttermilk, and vanilla in a separate bowl until blended. Add to flour mixture, and mix just until blended and slightly moist. (Dough will be sticky.)

Spoon in large tablespoonsful onto a lightly greased baking sheet (or line a sheet with parchment paper). Bake at 425° for 15 minutes or until golden.