maple-oat scones

oh my heavens. home from vacation, and first-day-back i thought it would be fun to work 11 hours at the office, go to the gym, have dinner and shower, make bread dough and prep the crock pot for tomorrow’s dinner, pack tomorrow’s lunch, finish laundry and read some blogs. what? is this my normal?

yes.

and our poor dog probably thought we gifted him to our bffs Joel and Molly while we were away for eight days. psych, Wallace! you are still our stinky puppy.

we had the best time in New York, visiting my sister Celeste, and her boyfriend Luis. Brooklyn is wonderful, the weather was delightful (sunny, but chilly), our Thanksgiving dinner party was a huge success! Celeste and I cooked for two days: mushroom stuffing; kale and brussels sprout salad; potato and fennel gratin; roasted sweet potatoes with coffee-bourbon-caramel drizzle (you HAVE to try making that beauty yourself!); Celeste made an incredible pork roast wrapped with prosciutto, kale, apples and mushrooms; she also made parker house rolls from scratch and i ate six million of them!! i made white bean dip and ginger-pomegranate champagne punch for the pre-dinner cocktail hour; and for dessert there were pumpkin panna cotta with candied hazelnuts and brown-butter apple pie. some of our guests brought delights such as Tibetan dumplings and seaweed salad, which were so good! (the amount of dumplings i consumed while in new york city numbers in the hundreds.. i’m positive.) we played catch phrase with our friends til 3am, and i ate more rolls and dumplings!

our Thanksgiving dessert plate

Celeste’s beautiful pork roast!

Thanksgiving sisters!

we also saw some sights, shopped some stuff, and ate a lottt. as far as celeb-sighting in The City (cause i know you care!), Jesse Eisenberg was totally on our flight over to NYC, and we spotted Katie Holmes both in Central Park and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where we saw the Warhol exhibit. which was incredible! my favorite part: seeing the Avedon portrait of Truman Capote IN PERSON, like, i stuck my face right in front of it. since studying photography in college and shooting portraiture for a living, it was breataking to see Avedon’s beautiful work, up close. just absolutely astounding… Avedeon was really the master. i’m still dreaming about it.

my husband and me, waiting for the F train on a chilly night

Soho sunshine

we had a wonderful time.

as we’re trying to keep up with catching-up, these days i am drinking large, large amounts of coffee. which i think deserve a sweet treat alongside, don’t you agree? i bring you homemade oat-nut scones — easy enough for ME to bake! i’m not that great at baking (though i land griddle scones in the winning column every time), i’ll admit. and scones, especially the store-baked type, can be a dry disappointment, filling me with simple carbs and regret. i know! combine those symptoms with the $4 i have to spend on a coffee-shop scone?….

sad sophie.

these are so easy and just as delightful as a scone should be — soft, a hearty crumb, not too sweet and not too large (go ahead and eat a whole one!) oh yeah, and coffee’s best friend. we’re enjoying these as an afternoon treat when the fifth cup of coffee for the day sounds really perfect. i really like the chopped pecans, and the nuttiness brought by toasting the oatmeal. a maple glaze gives a simple, cozy sweetness.

i hope you had a wonderful holiday, and if you’re still being stared at by leftover turkey, may i suggest my favorite part of post-Thanksgiving? turkey pot pie!

enjoy.

adapted from America’s Test Kitchen

makes 8

• 1 1/2 cups oats (Old-Fashioned rolled or quick oats will work)
• 1 cup pecans, chopped
• 1/2 cup half and half
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup maple syrup (pure or homemade)
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
• 10 tablespoons butter (cut into pieces and chilled well)

toast the oats and pecans in a 375-degree oven (or if you’re me, in a dry skillet on medium heat, walking away just long enough for them to nearly over-toast — so keep your eye on ‘em) until browned and fragrant, and set aside to cool. if you’re smart and used the oven method, increase oven temp to 450 for baking scones.

whisk cream, egg and maple syrup together, pouring just about a tablespoon of the mixture into a small bowl for brushing tops later.

in a food processor, pulse together flour, baking powder and salt until combined. add butter pieces and pulse 12 – 14 times; look for pea-sized butter in the mixture, or thereabouts. add this mixture to oats/pecans, then fold in milk mixture, just until dough comes together. (here i became worried that the dough seemed much too wet — i was imagining a dry biscuit dough — but don’t fret! press on.) turn out onto a lightly floured surface and pat into a large circle about an inch thick.

cut into 8 wedges and brush tops with remaining tablespoon of milk mixture. set at least 2 inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and bake at 450 for 12 – 15 minutes, until golden brown.

devour while warm with a big cup of coffee, or cool for glazing.

for glaze, stir 2 – 3 tablespoons maple syrup into 1/2 cup powdered sugar and drizzle over scones.

griddle scones – camping for winners

today i’m bringing you one of my favorite camping foods! i realize that this photo is clearly from my dining room… but i haven’t had a chance to go camping yet this summer. sad story or what!

i love camping. when we were growing up, my family camped often; maybe we camped a little more often than i would have thought was ideal. i wasn’t crazy about it when i was a kid because i’ve always had an aversion to dirt. and camping gets you all up in it. right? still, i have fond memories of poking around the “wilderness” with my siblings, making friends with chipmunks, hiking over lava formations, and my personal favorite — canoeing! paddling across a crystal-clear lake, with no places we had to be, nothing else we had to be doing.

and thanks to my mom, we ate great food out there.

just because one is out in the middle of nowhere (possibly without running water, maybe with a camp stove, but maybe cooking over an open flame) doesn’t mean one shouldn’t eat well.

food tastes amazing in the outdoors; there’s something that is so comforting in the smell of sizzling meat or browning potatoes over a campfire. i remember my mom cooking whole trout that my dad caught on the lake, with round, thin slices of lemon on top. juicy hamburgers for dinner. roasting marshmallows over the coals, of course. the best of all were her breakfasts, waking us vigorously and fueling us for a day of adventure. pancakes (cornmeal or buttermilk), cinnamon rolls, bacon, hot chocolate to warm us. but griddle scones were always my favorite! or girdle scones, if you’re a Scot. cooked in a cast-iron skillet over a fire, they would get a touch blackened on the tops and bottoms, while the insides would still be a bit gooey, undercooked. i loved this! i think these scones are perfect this way. but cooking these at home, i have more control over temperature, and they come out perfectly-cooked every time, golden brown on the outsides. both ways, so tasty! chewy, kind of like an english muffin, but with crunchy edges.

you can really crank the heat and try them “camping”-style at home, slightly blackened and gooey, or cook them more subdued, more properly… either way, as James Beard writes, “these are best served swimming in butter.”  along with sausage patties and eggs, if you’re me. i don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there is sausage served alongside or inside a lot of the breakfast recipes on this blog. i kind of love sausage. (almost as much as our dog Wallace does. he starts hanging around the kitchen, getting underfoot as soon as the aroma of cooking sausage begins to make it’s way through the house… he always thinks he’s going to get some. he is a rascal!)

rascally wallace

these scones are delicious with just butter, but i also like to eat them with berry jam or honey. enjoy!

griddle scones

recipe from James Beard’s Beard On Bread

makes 8 – 12 scones

if you’re going to make this recipe for camping, mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl with a tight-fitting lid, such as Pyrex, at home. when it’s time for breakfast in the wild, mix in the buttermilk or sour cream, shape, and cook. breakfast is served!

• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• buttermilk or sour cream

whisk dry ingredients together. add just enough buttermilk or sour cream to create a soft dough (i usually use buttermilk, and it takes just over a cup or so). turn out onto a floured surface and pat gently into two circles. cut into wedges, and cook in a large, heavy skillet over medium heat (preferably with some bacon or sausage grease in the skillet) until browned, then flip and repeat.