Cooking Venture -- Blueberry Scones

So, an idea I've been batting around for a while is incorporating some recipes into the ol' blog. I make up quite a lot of my own recipes, and tweak out other ones that I come across. I ain't no Pioneer Woman, but I do like to cook. And eat. And eat what I cook.

I have no idea what to call this project, or whether or not I want to devote a second blog or page to it. We'll just see how it goes!

This is what I made for breakfast this morning. My husband said that this is the right combination, and to keep this one, and that these are "the best ones [I've] ever made" -- so I figured I'd share it:

Blueberry Scones

2 1/4 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 Tablespoons cold stick butter or margarine
1 tsp lemon zest
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 cup blueberries
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1 egg
3/4 cup buttermilk plus a little extra
1/4 tsp lemon extract
1 tsp almond extract

Preheat oven to 425 deg F.

Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Cut the butter into the flour mixture using a pastry cutter (2 knives works OK too). Mix in lemon zest and nutmeg.

Add blueberries, stir to coat with flour mixture, then add white chocolate chips. Add egg, 3/4 cup buttermilk, lemon extract, and almond extract. Mix well, making sure all the dry ingredients are incorporated. Mixture will be sticky and very moist.

Drop dough by spoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheet -- I got twelve scones on a half-sheet. Brush tops with a little buttermilk, taking care not to get milk all over your pan. (Trust me, it's a pain in the butt to get off once it's baked on there, and makes the scones stick like crazy). Sprinkle with sugar.

Bake at 425 for 15 to 17 minutes, more or less depending on your oven. My oven cooks a little slow, so you may want to back it off below 15 minutes. The end product should have browned peaks on top and be tender and fluffy in the middle. The other scones I make are a little more cakey, but these are a little lighter in texture.

Here's a picture of what's left; my husband took some to a staff meeting, and the kids helped me with the rest. Please excuse the photo quality!

Getting An Education

A couple of...interesting... things have happened in the last couple of days:

First, my daughter has been learning about money. She has been consistently keeping her room neat and clean, puts away any toys in the living room when she's done with them, has kept her pants dry and clean pretty much all the time, and has started feeding the dogs unprompted. If she notices an empty dog food bowl, she refills it, all on her own. The black lab loves this little arrangement perhaps a bit too much...we had to switch to diet dog food.

Because K has been such a big girl, she has been earning a quarter here and there for extra special good jobs (we don't pay her for her normal every day responsibilities). K had accrued $4 by the time we went to the store, and wanted to take it to get something. She was so excited, she kept pulling her money out of her pocket to show to everyone we passed. This prompted a lot of gentle laughter from most, and I earned a few of those, "been there, done that" glances along with the smiles.

We walked by some hair bands that were pink, purple, and blue, and that was IT for K, she had to have them. Plus, she had just enough money to get them including tax. We milled around the store picking up the other items I needed to get, passing toys, coloring books, art supplies, all her usual likes. I asked her if she'd rather have [insert object here] instead, because she could only get one thing that day. Nope, she wanted the hair bands. All was good in K's world until we reached the check-out line. She kept trying to open the hair bands, and I kept telling her that we had to buy them first. K very proudly pulled out her dollars and gave them over so she could have her pretties.

That's when there was trouble in paradise.

You see, K did not understand why she couldn't have her money back from the cashier so she could ALSO go get a toy, and then some candy. By this point, the hair bands were already opened and K was approaching hysterics, with huge tears running down her face. She wanted her money back. She wanted a toy. She wanted her daddy. She did not want the hair bands any more.

I wavered for a second, wondering if I should return the hair bands and go get her something else. Then I realized that this lesson had to come any way, and it was never going to be an easy one at any time. K turns four in a month, so it was time. So, sobbing daughter and all, we stumbled noisily out of the Walmart and back to the car.

A note for all you ninjas out there: do not shop with a small child who just got their first financial lesson; you will instantly get every eye in the vicinity aimed in your direction and your cover will be blown. Good thing I'm not a ninja.

K howled all the way to the car. She howled in the car while I put the groceries in the back. She howled while I buckled her up. She howled while I put the key into the ignition and started the car. (Are we noticing a theme here?) K howled until I put her daddy on the phone, and he explained the same things that I had. Being a daddy's girl, she did stop and listen, big tears rolling down her little cheeks as she held the phone to her ear. She informed her daddy that, and I quote, she was "NOT HAPPY" in her tearful little voice. All of this affected her more than I would have thought. K even had bad dreams about it that night, Z and I were in there every hour or so listening to her yell, "I want a toyyyyyyyyyy!!!!" in her sleep.

It has taken us a couple of days to explain how this works to K. Z and I have come up with a cookie analogy to try to put it on her level. When you eat a cookie, it's gone. Then you have to go out and do something to get some dough, so you can do it again another time. Somewhat mollified, K has worn a couple of her headbands and gotten that proud/bashful at the same time look on her face when she preened in front of her daddy. I think we're going to be fine. Education can be a hard thing sometimes.

******************
The second interesting thing to happen to us in the last couple of days comes from our son, A. Due to Snopocalypse 2010 (45" of snow!), my son's class Valentine's Day party was postponed to this past Friday. I made A fill out each valentine; I simply told him which letter to write and put my finger down where he needed to make it. He can sign his name on his own. After he was done, I had him read the names to me. School has really helped him fine-tune his writing skills. It's still pretty messy, but it is (mostly) legible at this point, and what kindergartner has impeccable handwriting skills anyway? My own handwriting was messy on into my high school years.

So, here's where it gets interesting: I left A in the living room after we were finished with the valentines. I had cookies baking in the oven for his party and went to pull a pan out. A went back into the box of unused valentines and pulled out two more. He addressed one to "mom" and one to "dady" [sic] and signed his name.

So, so awesome...he's still largely non-verbal -- although he improves daily with verbal communication. This is a first, though!

And yes, I cried. Big ol' fat tears.



Look! A picture! Before March!

Making Up For Lost Time

Daddy is home all day long right now.

The kids are eating it up.

I have seen more smiles on both of my kids' faces than I've seen collectively for a long time. They usually got to see him a total of 5 hours a week -- if work didn't call late after he got home.

A has been trying to play more, tickle more, and laugh more. He sang the entire song, "I Like To Move It, Move It" from Madagascar for us. Granted, it was garbled in his unique way, but we knew what he was doing. And it was precious.

He is also getting closer to hugging us. We can put our arms around A, but he very rarely reciprocates. His version of hugging is leaning on you for a second. Kisses are also making some progress: instead of keeping his mouth open and sliming our cheeks, he now actually closes his mouth and makes the "mwah" sound.

Potty training is still an ongoing challenge, although he will stay dry most of the time for us now. A is being made to clean up his own butt now, so we're hoping that will speed the need for clean underpants. He hates having anything on his hands, so we're hoping that is additional incentive to do his business in the toilet and not get it all over his bum.

Miss K has been shrieking with joy and laughter as she chases her daddy around, draws pictures for him, and sings him songs. She is a Daddy's Girl, through and through. She is also emulating the "Fancy Nancy" books. She has her own pen with a plume, has played dress-up all day long for the last 2 days, and I had to address her properly at lunch today: "Princess Artist K and her Royal Peanut Butter Sandwich". She corrected me when I told her mommy had to go back in the kitchen. "No, mommy, you're The Queen Mommy." I suspect some Britons might have an issue with that one, but we'll let it slide.

The dogs are also eating up all the extra attention; both of them are following my husband around from room to room and try to lay on his feet if he stops or sits down somewhere. He's forever tripping over them and the kids right now.

The good part is, even though we're not getting paid for anything at this point, Z is able to do a lot more with the youth ministry and worship. He's also designing websites and job hunting. (He used to own his own web design business about 9 years ago; 9/11 and the subsequent economic turn deep-sixed it.)

So we're grooving right along and just enjoying our time together.

Left Field

We've had a bunch of things come out of left field over the last couple of weeks, rendering my blogging time nil.

The first dog, our Siberian Husky, had a nasty reaction to some medication and nearly died. We were discussing humane ways to put him down, it came to that. But he's fine now and stopped sending blood out both ends. He felt well enough to romp through the snow that's been falling.

Speaking of snow, that's the second thing we hadn't counted on. In a week's time, we received 3 inches shy of 4 FEET of snow! Our yard looks awesome, the kids are loving it (all the more so for being out of school for nearly 2 weeks), and my arms and legs are sore from shoveling our driveway. We don't own a snow blower, unless you count me huffing and puffing while I dig out with the shovel. Our driveway is 3 cars wide (which we did NOT clear all the way across), and goes past and behind our house to the garage. We also have sadistic snowplow drivers who come down the highway just when I'm finishing up the last bits, and leave me with another furrow to shovel out.

And it started snowing again today. We're not supposed to get much this time, though, and school is supposed to be back in session tomorrow. I hope so; I don't imagine anyone (teachers included) want to be in school in July.

The third thing that happened is that we are no longer employed. Anywhere, as of a week ago. So the hunting for a job begins, for both of us. The good thing is, we're pretty much taken care of through March -- we had finally gotten caught up from getting behind due to tenants, moving, and life, and paid some things in advance for some strange reason.

Ah, yes, and I finally caved and tried out that Facebook thingie. Just in time for them to make the format "new and improved" once I'd figured a few things out -- so finding 5 minutes here and there for that has made me neglect this blog, in between job hunting.

I'm hoping we're done with left field now, and can move to a place with a little more regular, normal action.