Scones!

Apparently Scone is a place in eastern Scotland, but as a pastry it might have its roots from the Dutch word schoonbrood which means pure/clean bread (this is all according to Merriam-Webster). Aunt Susan gave Rebekah a scone mix in her stocking this Christmas and I finally got around to making it last Sunday. It didn't fit the Dutch word, however, as it was a lemon, Poppy Seed scone mix, very much not pure/clean (Ok, things could be a lot less pure). A possible alternative etymology for these scones would be vervuildbrood, which the Internet tells me is polluted bread. The mix was from the Sticky Fingers Bakeries of Spokane Washington (which is ironic as we are much closer to Spokane then Aunt Susan is). On the package it also said "English Scones", which I guess throws out both the Dutch and Scottish roots.

I just noticed that according to the Sticky Fingers Bakeries of Spokane Washington scones originated in Scotland.

All this to say, they were delicious. The lemon chunks were a little hard sometimes, but that could be because they had to travel from Spokane to Maryland, to Pennsylvania, to California, and then to Missoula before sitting in our cupboard for a while until finally being mixed with just water and baked. We took them to our Church small group and the scones were proclaimed Delicious by at least two people. Another asked if they were to be consumed with butter or sugar. Not knowing how to respond I said "You are supposed to eat them with cream and sugar... in your tea." There was no tea available, however.

So, thank you, Aunt Susan, for that adventure!

Crepes Delicizette

For Saturday brunch Ryan made crepes. Though he was halving the recipe and forgot to halve the butter, they were excellent. I had mine with kiwi and whipped cream (the squirty kind; I like this combination on my waffles as well). Ryan had his with the apricot jam mentioned in a previous post or with lime juice and powdered sugar (as another phase in his continual quest for lime bars for breakfast). We went cross-country skiing afterwards to burn off the extra butter--ok, so it was margarine this time, too. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

We forgot to set an alarm last night, so we slept in a bit. Hence, Ryan had to start working right when he got up. He was so deep into his work that he didn't notice me making noise downstairs (except when I had some crashing going on trying to get out the big thing of cookie cutters my Aunt Susan gave me a couple years ago--then he asked me if I was okay, but not what I was doing). So I made these biscuits, and right before they were done, I went upstairs and asked him, "If you were to have biscuits today, what would you want as topping on them?" His answer: "Pink with your face on them." I looked at him like he was nuts, so he said, "Chocolate chips? Is that the right answer?" So I had to clarify that I meant in the butter/jam/honey category. He then gave a very reasonable answer involving butter (ok, so it's margarine--not that it matters, just maintaining the accuracy of our reporting) and apricot low-sugar preserves (we recently discovered, compliments of Ryan's parents, that Smucker's low-sugar preserves taste a lot better than the full sugar stuff without any nasty-tasting artificial sweetners--they use half the normal amount of sugar so the taste actually resembles fruit instead of sugar with a faint hint of fruit). So I went downstairs, took the biscuits out of the oven, laughed at how some of them had risen, and margarined and preserved (hey, butter is a verb, why not margarine and preserve in the sense of jam?) his five biscuits and put "my face" on one of them with raspberry preserves--so it was kind of pink. He was shocked that I was so fast seeing as he had not noticed the noises I had been making previously were all involved in the biscuit-making process, so the biscuits were already done when he placed his order. You may notice that he didn't take the picture until he had eaten one and a fifth or so biscuits. 

Instant Replay

In the spirit of the Superbowl and the Olympics, we have an instant replay from the last post (you do read them in chronological order right?). Many of you doubtlessly noticed the striking and bold new apron (a custom order from the winter line of the Janet Yates collection). But did anyone notice the Steelers yellow lurking beneath? How about the nearly empty propane tank that ultimately would make the whole outdoor part of the adventure fruitless. Perchance one of you noticed the Seahawks colors around my head where I could send out negative brain waves, to disrupt their game (apparently only the refs heard them). Just in case you missed any of these details, I added this instant replay.

My New Apron

Continuing with our grand update, we have... Me, in my new apron! Making the chicken for Buffalo Chip Chicken Dip. So you make the chicken, rip it into tiny pieces, mix with cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and sour cream, then bake for a while. But first you ask Rachel for the recipe (she recently received Gmail chat). We took it to our Superbowl party (they were all Seahawks fans, so they didn't comment on the dip).

Challah!

 As promised, here is the picture of the excellent loaf of challah that Rebekah made. Not only did it look delicious, it tasted spectacular. Since making this we have progressed to use the same basic recipe, but as small loaves with more wheat flour and some molasses. Making the bread in small loaves has made the bread easier to eat. We don't have to make a bunch of crumbs slicing it, and it is in a good size for one portion. Having it braided achieves this too as the braid chunks are easy to pull off.

I have been enjoying eating it by cutting a mini-loaf in half and toasting it with cheese (Tillamook special reserve white cheddar), then putting the two halves together and eating it with soup. Mmmmmmm.

Updates

Contrary to popular belief, we have eaten since December (I know our figures don't show it). I'm writing this to let all of our readers know about the delightful culinary adventures we have had and will write up. Due to lack of temporal assets, we have heretofore been unable to delight in the writing up of said adventures.

First we have Rebekah's recent success in making Challah. Since then we have modified the recipe to move closer to the lovely loaves of bread given at Outback Steakhouse (and with each step also closer to the coupe du monde de boulangerie).

Next we have pictures of myself in my new apron (an essential for all cooks!). I am sporting my new adornment while placing chicken on our grill. Little did we know that the grill was about five minutes from being out of gas.

Lastly we have the aforementioned chicken (after finishing its cooking indoors) shredded and mixed with various cheeses to make Robin via Rachel Buffalo Chip Dip (Rebekah uses the name Buffalo Chicken Dip, but we all know its true name).

This is simply to whet your appetite for what is to come!