Sunday scones

My gosh, it takes me back to remember how I used to bake scones early every Saturday morning, or almost that often.  Scones for Smelts, and I would bring baggies of them to the pool to give out to teammates.  I don't make them nearly as often these days, alas, but once in a while the urge grips me.  All the better when I have buttermilk in the fridge that needs using.  And so it was the case this morning.

Two batches.  Dried cranberries in the first batch,

chunks of bittersweet chocolate and crystallized ginger in the other. 

I had one of the latter as my breakfast, I'll take some to Van's, and the rest will go in the freezer here for gentle reheating on future mornings when we want to have a mellow start to the day and something to go along with coffee.

Yum!

a bit of baking

Being at home for several days means I am bound and determined to do some cooking.  I made a roast chicken last night, and it was not half bad.  But I was happier that the early appearance of stone fruit in the stores meant that I could pull out my quick and easy souffle recipe.

No, really.  Make a fruit puree, fold it into whipped egg white and sugar (a meringue, essentially).  Bake in individual ramekins.  Bob's your uncle.

A second night here of enjoying dinner together.  I made a Remember the Alimony

and switched to a rose with my chicken.  We'll all get together again tonight over at Van's for online happy hour and for grilling (steaks!).

This morning has been quiet and easy.  I won't quite say lazy.  No, we didn't go for a walk, but I did get back in the kitchen and made up a batch of scones. 

When was the last time I did that?  Honestly, not since some time last year.  A batch of dried blueberry scones for a holiday weekend Sunday morning.  A very nice thing, indeed.

a quick word before I leave the country

So yes, we're at O'Hare, awaiting a flight to Vancouver. A few fun-filled days there of buying new furniture and redecorating the condo. No, I mean that. I'm altogether excited over it all.

A few quick things to catch all four of you readers up on things...

There was baking to be had this weekend: three batches of scones in all, plus individual Black Magic Chocolate Cakes. The former were tasty, the latter, even better than that.



Four of the cakes went with us to Rachel's for Saturday dinner. I tell you, that Rachel can put together a fine meal, thanks in part to Peachy, her consultant, and Vikram Vij, cookbook author. A rare treat to have someone cook for us, and we had an exceptional time of it.



And then we made it two meals in a row with breakfast at Nancy's. A working breakfast, you know - that Aruba presentation isn't going to write itself!

Frank lives! Gone from the Smelts for far too long, and we've not seen him since the morning after the wedding. But there he was on Sunday at Yoshi's, enjoying a VERY packed bar with us. Too packed for me to comfortably take photos until the crowds thinned in time for dessert.

Alright, a quick check-in as promised. Internet access in Vancouver will be spotty in among the work starting to put the condo together. But you four are used to my long silences by now, I know. And thank you for that.

weekend baking

We've not been blessed with the most springlike of springs in Chicago this year. Rather, one might accuse spring 2011 of being altogether wintry at times. Cold, wet, miserable.

This weekend, however, the sun came out, temperatures, rose, and the air conditioning for our building is still not yet switched on. And so I, of course - wise creature that I am - turn to baking.

I'm still rusty at it, I haven't done enough of it lately, and I'm genuinely not being as consistent with it as I'd like. I also really have to wonder about the oven here - I don't think it bakes very evenly at all, and over time, that bothers me more and more. I'll soldier on for now, of course, and put aside the less-than-pretty efforts for eating at home or discreetly tossing away.

Yesterday morning I was up quite early, a fitful night of sleep behind me and a swim practice ahead. Scones for Smelts was the plan. One batch had golden raisins, candied ginger nibs, and walnuts. The other featured dried cherries (my obsession for a year now) and bittersweet chocolate. I gave extras to Heidi as advance thanks for timing me this coming Tuesday and distributed most of the rest to teammates. I ate one with a decaf latte after practice and saved one for Conrad's coffee today.

There was a team function today I'd intended to go to, but in view of Conrad's work travel last week and then today, I realized I wanted the time at home with him. He had packing to do, though, so I turned back to the kitchen and made two lemon loaves for the team to take with them. Simple quickbread cakes, scented with lemon zest and glazed with a lemon juice and sugar syrup. It was a favourite of mine when I was a kid, and Mum gave me the recipe some years back. I need to make it for Conrad's office one day.



After that I looked at some new biscotti recipes and settled on an almond crunch recipe. These were mostly to go with Conrad to the LA office. An easy enough recipe, but I think I would want the crunch to be less burnt sugar and more sweet/salty toffee or praline. I may swap out that part if I can find a good candy recipe. Still, the cookies looked nice enough, so that was good.



After Conrad left, I decided to do a bit more baking for friends. No photos from that effort - I simply forgot. I did get some chocolate chip cookies in the mail to a couple of people, though. I don't often make chocolate chip, I confess, and this was a new recipe as well. That sounds like an excuse somehow, right? I think they're fine, the cookies, but I might go to other recipes in the future.

The last batch of cookies are not yet complete. Chocolate ginger cookies a friend requested, and the dough needs a good chilling. Tuesday night I'll roll the dough and bake them up. I think that should be fine.

I've eaten a bunch of cookie dough, and we'll call that dessert. A bit more baking to come this week, and with forecasted cooler days and nights again, that should be fine.

demanding week

This blog is a great means of getting all confessional with the 3 of you who occasionally read it (thank you). Today's confession (good for my soul, I think): I am lazy.

Oh yes, a life of lying on a couch, eating bonbons and reading magazines would be all too appealing to me. I don't care to have to buy a new set of fat clothes, though, and such a lifestyle would demand just such outlay of cash.

But really, I hate the gym, I'm useless at most sports (hand-eye coordination? What is that?), and I hate inconvenience. Which makes exercise something of a challenge at some periods of my life, despite what you might have read on here about marathons or other craziness. And really, I have no class reunion this year (oh, well, I do have the ten year anniversary of graduating from McGill - shoot! there goes that excuse), so who am I trying to impress?

This week, I did two things.

• I went to the gym. Twice. The tiny little ab muscles buried under my rolls are not happy with me.
• I swam a heck of a lot. If I have it figured right, in the last week I have done 13+ miles in the water. A hint of exercise sneaking in to my life.

The swimming is the easy one. I don't suck at it, for starters. It feels good - there's a weird thrill in nailing a turn and coming off that wall in a great streamline (Jossy-poo, I will never forget you making fun of us at BC Winter Games in North Van for our horrid streamline). Also, even though swimming is done in my own mental space, it's a team thing for me.

The workout this morning was substantial. 100 X 100 yards - 10,000 yards total. Each 100 was on an interval of 100 seconds. Super easy interval for the first 1000 yards or so. By 9000 yards in? Most welcome! A fun set of swimming, too - not all free. And, best of all, a very good group of people to swim with. Chris, our coach, organized the swim and Liz, another coach, booked the space for us. Carrie rejoined us after time off with a new, young son. Adam and Dan have been doing this from the start several years back, and Heidi is no stranger to it, having done it a few times now, I believe. Greg and Michael are new recruits, and Marcia is not only new, but not a Smelt (but she was part of our national champion open water team in 2008!). Alas, no Marty, no Matt. Next time!


My prep started Friday night. Carb loading? No, not really. My traditional pre-marathon dinner (because this was about endurance): sushi! Rice (for carbs), but protein and few sauces and little fat. Suit packed. Pull buoy packed. Extra goggles put together (I use the Swedes) just in case. Saturday morning, it was scones for Smelts, special 100 100s edition. And then? a big swim. A big, satisfying swim. And a great group to do it with.

I will be a little sore and stiff tomorrow, then Monday back to the pool and Tuesday back to the gym. One day, maybe, I'll drop the 5 or so pounds and broaden my shoulders. At least, for one demanding week, I have made a start!

Scones for Smelts: 2010 program

Up at 6:45 this morning, in the car, and a quick dash down to Jewel. In my exhaustion last night after the one-hour timed swim, I didn't think to pick up buttermilk while we were getting a late bite of dinner at Whole Foods. To Jewel, then, and buttermilk. A new year, and a resumption of the Scones for Smelts program on Saturday mornings.

Two types today, simple ones: currant (on the bottom in the photos) and dried cranberry with walnut (on the top)
. I had them baked well in time for practice.

Easy practice, too. After the 4625 yard swim last night, I didn't push anything this morning, and headed to Whole Foods for breakfast with Conrad well before the end of practice. After some time, other Smelts joined us. Not all of these teammates got scones from me - it's always kind of arbitrary whom I give scones to - but some did, and the others are sure to at some point. Good group of people, we have a nice team vibe going, I think.

Scones for Smelts

I seem to have a program underway of feeding some of my teammates each Saturday. I rise well before practice and get one or two batches of scones in the oven, and come 8:45 outside the pool, I am disbursing baggies filled with two or three fresh baked goods.

I think it's a popular program thus far.

This morning it was up and out the door by 6:20, getting buttermilk from Jewel. Once home, I was to work. First batch: milk chocolate, toasted almond, and orange zest. The second batch, not shown, were studded with currants.

Despite an overcrowded pool that forced me to stay on deck coaching, it's been a lovely start to the day. A stroll early in the morning, baking, brunch at the Center on Halsted with teammates, and now a glorious sunny day. We'll do what we can to whip this mess of an apartment into shape.

easy, satisfying day in the kitchen

I'm at the tail end of a good Saturday with some nice work in the kitchen.

No, work is too much. This wasn't a hard day, a difficult day, in any way. I made some things, I was pleased with them, and all of them took relatively little effort.

(and once again excuse the rather poor quality of iPhone photos if you view them in larger size)

First "project": scones. Part of my joking Scones for Smelts program. Just a nice treat for various friends on the team when I see them at Saturday AM practice. Two batches, with a few kept for me and Conrad.
The first ones were simply currant scones. The second batch were dried sour cherry (from the awesome Lily's of Traunik store) and chopped walnuts. I think they turned out well.

After practice, before I did some housecleaning, I made some mixed spiced nuts. A simple and very good, reliable recipe from the Union Square Cafe cookbook - rosemary is the twist that makes them so appealing, I think. We'll have these to snack on, including when Conrad heads out of town in a handful of days.

Dinner tonight? I'm rather pleased with it. Two Saturdays in a row of producing nice meals. A little thought works. Here's what I did:

• Marinated two pieces of halibut in fino sherry with olive oil, lemon zest, pepper, fennel seed, coarse salt, and saffron. Baked it at 450 degrees.
• Lightly caramelized parsnip with some shallot, seasoned it with salt, pepper, and thyme, then cooked it tender-soft in chicken broth. Pureed it and strained it.
• Blanched Brussels sprouts. Sauteed chopped thick-slab bacon, removed most of the rendered fat, added chopped onion. Mixed in the Brussels sprouts and set it all to bake in a small tin at 450 degrees as well.

All of this plated up nicely. We dined at the kitchen table,
and sipped some Conundrum white wine, a favourite.

And now Conrad has gone back to do some work he must get done in the days ahead. A lovely dinner, and a fine day all around in the kitchen for me, however. I feel a little inspired to perhaps tackle cookies tomorrow!

scones before practice

How long has it been since last I made scones? It feels like ages, and it probably was. Wow.

An odd night of sleep last night, and so I got up early, ate breakfast, FBed, Twittered, read news online, then got to work on a quick batch of scones. There are a few people on the swim team who could stand with a bit of fattening up, and I am more than happy to enable the process, of course.

The recipe is an easy one, my stand-by recipe from a Karen Barnaby cookbook. I stuck to the basics this time and made a nice little batch of buttermilk and currant scones. I really was a little worried how they'd turn out, but they were fine, or so Conrad (who got one of the batch of ten) tells me.

I've missed baking. I should do a bit more tomorrow (Sunday - I've not yet gone to bed Saturday night as I write this) to send in to Conrad's office on Monday.

buttermilk, transformed

You gotta be careful what you ask for sometimes, right?

I'll be meeting Mark soon for a bite of brunch before he heads back down to the cornfields of Urbana. He had joking (or maybe not) about having me make scones for him, so...



Yes, I've been busy this morning.

A liter of buttermilk makes 4 batches of Karen Barnaby's recipe. Four batches means four variations, and so I had fun. From left to right (more or less):

Dried apricot
Golden raisin and candied ginger nibs
Dried sour cherry and bittersweet chocolate chunks
White chocolate chunk, pine nut, and dried orange zest

Best of all, no buttermilk leftover and ultimately tossed out while I'm in BC in the week ahead. Hooray. I hate food wastage.

I have cookies on the go to finish up my baking for the morning. Now to pick out the pretty scones to bring to Mark when we meet at Yoshi's...

Relaxation

Sometimes a fun, relaxing evening at home by myself is perfect for accomplishing nothing more useful than some baking.

Alors, jam tartlets (quince and blackberry), scones (dried apricot and pistachio, dried fig and walnut), and an eccles cake using scrap pastry.

And it's an Ugly Betty to boot! Ahhhhh.

Buttermilk baking binge

You know how it is. You have a litre of buttermilk in your fridge, and you've meant to use it. And suddenly, it's at its expiry date, so you gotta use it fast.

Welcome to my Thursday night.

Oh, I'll come clean, I had wanted to do baking tonight anyway. Souffles aside, it had been far too long since last I really baked. And, sadly, the rustiness showed.

Conrad cooked dinner for me. Yes, it was his specialty: turkey burgers. And yes, I did make the (simple) salad dressing - oooh, try this: just toss the salad with a little plain low fat yogurt, salt, and pepper. Easy, breezy, yummy salad dressing! In any case, he did this for me since I was so late home from work. As if I didn't have reason enough to love him.

Dinner done, I settled into the kitchen. Before dinner I'd looked up a few recipes using buttermilk, so a few things - the cakes - were new to me tonight. I put on some CanCon and got to work. Jane, Kate and Anna, Holly Cole, Rufus, Martha, the Ladies, kd, and others: ahhhhhh....

First up: get some lightly sweet pastry made and put into the fridge to rest. Not a problem doing it, but I'm not happy with the result. More shortly.

Next up: warm sour apple and buttermilk torte. That's the recipe name, but I suspect it will be served up room temperature at either Conrad's office or the Library tomorrow. An easy enough recipe, and the apples atop the cake do look attractive. The texture seems light, though I had hoped it would rise a little more. Ah well. Pretty simple cake otherwise.

Then: jam tartlets. Damson plum and raspberry. These things are popular at work, and I haven't made them in ages. I decided I was burned out on blackberry after the souffles, and I only had a little of my precious Saskatoon berry jam, so the two flavours are what resulted. Now then, the pastry: I think I used too little butter in it (and yes, Steven, I know lard makes pastry best, but butter is what I had on hand). It all held together and wasn't too wet, but I think it became easily overworked. The tartlets are alright. I ate one (and ugh - how much dough/batter did I consume tonight? Far too much. Bad Peter!) and thought it too crispy, not flaky or rich. Butter does that, I know, makes things crisp, but I think some more butter would have been better. Am I getting too alliterative here? The other concern is that the filling is a little skimpy. The jam boils up during the baking, and if it overflows the pastry, it's a real nuisance to clean up, let alone try to fish an intact tartlet out of the tin. I haven't made them in a while, and my eyeballing abilities have atrophied.

I took the leftover scraps of pastry I hadn't eaten and made something like what my Mum used to do. She called it an eccles cake and filled it with raisins, butter, sugar, and cinnamon. I had some apple slices leftover from the first cake, so I diced them and used them in place of the raisins. A misshapen little thing, but it should taste alright. I've had eccles cakes from bakeries in Canada and the UK - they aren't exactly like Mum would make.

After that: a maple buttermilk spice cake. Not sure how this one will be. I think I may have had it in a bit long as well, for the cake seems a bit dense and, well, solid. We'll see. I have yet to unmold that one.

And then: two simple buttermilk cakes that are meant to be brushed liberally with a syrup made from sweet dessert wine and topped with macerated berries. Not tonight. Two cake layers, each of which I will wrap and freeze and use for a furture casual dinner party when I can dress one or both with a syrup, some cream, some fruit, whatever. Maybe a wedge alongside poached pears?

Finally: chocolate chip and candied ginger scones, something to honour the good mornings back in Terrace when I would show up at Skeena Jr. Secondary with some fresh from the oven to give to my friend Greer on her break. I hope she made the other teachers jealous! Man, I am rusty. I forgot that I had adjusted the recipe to make twelve rather than ten, so these scones are big! I think they turned out well. Jeph received his copy of the cookbook I use for them today. May he give them a go and play with other combos of things for them rather than the currants in the recipe.

And that, my friends, used the entire litre exactly. Conrad did have to run to the store downstairs for eggs, but ah well.

Ah, and just to brag a little (oh let me - I have the tartlets' pastry to keep me humble!): I got all this baked AND clean up done by 10:20. As one thing was baking, the next was being mixed and put in the pans. So, a pat on the back to me, and let's hope that people tomorrow like what they're snacking on!