Tag Archives: Food

Scones

 I found this easy one in the New York Times:

Ingredients: 2 cups of flour, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon sugar (increase to 1/4 cup if you want a sweet scone), 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt, 1 1/4 cups of heavy whipping cream

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and position a rack in the top third of the oven. Thoroughly combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center of this mixture, add 1 1/4 cups of cream and stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients with a fork. Work quickly, stirring as little as possible, until a soft, shaggy dough forms. Add more cream, a tablespoon at a time, if the dough seems too dry.
  2. Use a large serving spoon or cup measure to drop the batter onto an ungreased baking sheet, allowing at least 2 inches between each scone. Brush the top of each with heavy cream and bake until golden, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

And from NPR, a note to be sure to eat your scones properly:

“The grocery store Sainsbury’s showed a photo with a fruit scone smothered in cream and jam. The problem: the photo showed jam on top of the cream. Customers in Cornwall argued the jam must go first…Some Brits take their afternoon tea very seriously. That’s landed the grocery store Sainsbury’s in trouble. They put up a picture with a fruit scone smothered in cream and jam. That is normal. The problem is the photo showed the jam on top of the cream. In the county of Cornwall where the picture went up, customers were outraged. They argued that jam must go first. Sainsbury’s admitted its mistake, saying it has all scone wrong.”

Watermelon Salad

watermelon-salad-with-feta-and-cucumber-5      A small restaurant no longer in business had a luncheon offering I’ve often thought of replicating.  When I saw this recipe in a local newspaper, I decided to try it.  As good as the dish I remembered, the taste has the sweetness of watermelon and the tartness of cheese, with the complement of cucumber and mint.

Watermelon Salad with Cucumber, Feta, and Mint

  • 3 1/2 cups chilled, seedless watermelon cubes (cut into bite-size pieces)
  • 1 medium English cucumber, peeled and diced into 1/2 inch pieces
  • 2 tablespoons fresh mint leaves, thinly sliced
  • 3 tablespoons crumbles feta cheese
  • 2 tablespoons balsamic glaze (found in the vinegar aisle of the grocery store)

Scatter watermelon on a medium platter.  Top with cucumber and mint.  Sprinkle with cheese.  Drizzle with glaze and serve immediately.

Chef Jacques Pépin adds kalamata olives – maybe next time I will too.

 

Blueberries

The boat came in and the local Whole Foods offered a quart of blueberries for the price of 1/2 a pint.  Now I have blueberries stocked in my frig.  I’ve made Blythe Danner’s wonderful blueberry muffins with more blueberries than she has in the recipe, and blueberry scones – a combination of two recipes found in the local newspaper.  My friend tells me I will be so healthy from eating all these blueberries, but I’m wondering if I will turn blue – like Violet in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  The thought has not stopped me from gorging on beautiful blueberries.  Do you have a favorite recipe?

Blueberry Scones

  • 3 cups of flour (I used 2 cups of whole wheat pastry flour and 1 cup white)
  • 4 teaspoons baking powder (be sure it’s fresh – not been in your cupboard forever)
  • a pinch of salt (about 1/2 teaspoon)
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup of butter (I used Earth Balance but Julia would approve of the butter)
  • 1 cup cold buttermilk (mine was  low-fat)
  • blueberries (anywhere from a cup to 2 1/2 cups)

Some recipes include an egg, but my scones were fine without.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Combine the dry ingredients and cut in the butter as though you were making a pie crust – until crumbly.  Stir in the blueberries.  Add the buttermilk to bind it all together into a soft dough.  Knead a few times and shape into a rectangle (or round – depending on the shape of your cookie sheet).  The dough should be about one inch thick (I used a ruler to check).  Cut the dough into wedges (about 8) and bake on center rack until golden – 25 to 30 minutes.

Serve warm.

I did experiment with refrigerating and freezing some.  As long as you warm them before eating, they are as good as out of the oven.

Related ArticleBlythe’s Blueberry Muffins

Hawaii Chocolate Festival

Macadamia nut fudge sauce, sharks chocolate, lavender fudge, even healthy chocolate with agave  – along with over twenty types of Hawaiian chocolate – what’s not to like –   sweet – but, after tasting 10 different kinds of chocolate, I needed a pickle.

chocolate strawberry cheesecakes

The Hawaiian chocolate festival yesterday in Honolulu was a taste of sweet paradise.

Chocolate Craving

Which is worse?  Licking your fingers from a dip into a jar of Nutella or from a container of chocolate icing?

130 Calories  

 

200 calories
Total Fat    5.0g 11 g
Cholesterol  0.0mg 0.0
Sodium 95.0mg 15.0
Total Carbohydrates 21.0g 23.0
Protein   0.0g 2.0
Calories from Fat 45.0calories 99.0
Saturated Fat  1.5g 2.0
Trans Fat 2.0g 0
Dietary Fiber 1.0g 2.0
Sugars  17.0g 20.

Ingredients for Betty Crocker Chocolate Icing: Sugar , Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oil , Water , High Maltose Corn Syrup , Corn Starch , Cocoa , Contains 1% or Less of: Salt , Distilled Monoglycerides , Polysorbate 60 , Natural and Artificial Flavor , Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate , Citric Acid , Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate , Chocolate Liquor , Yeast , Nonfat Milk , Potassium Sorbate

Ingredients for Nutella: Sugar, peanut oil, hazelnuts, cocoa, skim milk, minerals, whey, partially hydrogenated peanut oil, soy lecithin emulsifier, vanilla, artificial flavoring