Weekend Cooking; Road Trip to peace.

Yesterday I had melted Brie, fresh bread and apple slices. 

 There was chaos getting to that peaceful spot though.

Groovy Girl began the day sad causing waves of tears and snappy answers from her.  It took us a bit to convince her she could take charge of her own mood.  She did and we went off to skating a bit late but still there.  After her skating lesson, Husband and I had a planned road trip with friends and I was excited to go.  A few days earlier husband found out about a peace walk and wanted to participate.  Of course, the timing of the event squeezed it right in between skating and our intended road trip, which makes handsome husband think "oh, great we can make it!"  Ugh.  Love peace, Hate rushing.

I often walk laps around the arena while Groovy skates and I needed a shower and I had less than 30 minutes to get ready for the walk and the road trip.  Could I have planned more the night before?  Yes.  Did I? No.  In my rush I spent 3-4 precious minutes trying to get new milk from Hansen's into the refrigerator cramming it between various water bottles.  I should have taken water bottles out but instead somehow managed to spill the small pitcher of margaritas I'd made the night before.  I cried as the mason jar spilled it's contents all over the kitchen rug. Now I had to stop and wipe it all up.  What a waste.  It wasn't the loss of the drink (well a little bit) but I dislike rushing and the affects of rushing.  I did make it up to take my shower and even though I was sad about spilled "milk" I knew it wasn't the cause but I still managed to have another mini-meltdown as I was driving back down the highway previously traveled for skating.

Meltdown's are rarely about what started it and I knew I was nervous about leaving my children for the day and for my husband cramming something more into our day.  I sobbed to my handsome and understanding husband-he said "Ill listen as we go..."  He did listen yet my feelings still hadn't resolved as we arrived at the gathering spot.  While praying for a peace I realized these things:

1. My children are old enough to be on their own together but it was my first time leaving them for the day without my mom or someone else to consult.  They would have to take care of chores, and lunch and dinner on their own.  They survived.

2. My husband and I have walked, prayed, rallied for peace from Arkansas, D.C. and Iowa.  Of course he would want to walk this walk.  The walks purpose is to highlight a Dr. King park we hope to have built in our church neighborhood.

Even though my tears and my brain fought it; the walk healed me and reminded me of what I know to be true.  My life is good and we need more peace in our communities both locally and worldly.  I left my grumpy bugs behind.

Our road trip with friends to the Amana Colonies was fantastic.  We went to Fireside Winery for a tasting,  shopped, (I bought pecan maple syrup at the General Store) and root beer here and enjoyed the company of our friends and the fantastic autumnal weather.  At both winery and Millstream we were able to sit on the patio with just sweaters.  We had a delicious family-style dinner at The Ronneburg Restaurant, which included sides of sauerkraut, German potato salad, beets, coleslaw and dark rye bread. My grandmother would have loved it!  The meal was good but the Brie on the patio was my favorite part of the day.  Sunshine, a light white wine and laughter made me forgot all about my meltdown.

The margarita recipe:

12 oz can frozen limeade
12 ounces of tequila
12 ounces of water
8 ounces of triple sec (2/3 can)
1 can domestic beer
Ice and Limes as desired


Use the frozen limeade can to measure ingredients.  Mix well in a gallon pitcher.  If you would like to blend them; don't add the water and blend.  Either way serve in a small glass, with limes and salt.  Perfect.

Fall is not margarita weather here but our school published a new cookbook (our second one) and my school friend, Stephanie, had this brag-worthy mix.  We toasted together on Friday night while we watched the Cardinals win the World Series. Yeah!!!

This crazy long post is linked to Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

Just a minute...

After completing all my chores for the day for work and home and the list is long-I feel like Santa with a list curling out for miles-I have just a few minutes to write.  Breathe.

The Secret Lives of Princesses by Philippe Lechermeier and illustrated by Rebecca Dautremer is a joyful tongue-in-cheek look at princess behavior.  There's Princess Molly Coddle who's a real handful and Princess Claire Voyant who sees far into the future.  Each page is a full spread of information if not about a princess then about a princess's garden, friends, forest (where many a princess has hidden) and a guide to determine true princess behavior.  Groovy Girl and I poured over each illustration and the corresponding notes.  I'm glad I was there to explain a few words and why it made each character funny or interesting.  Eco Princess was one of our favorites:


The court of the Eco Princess is made up of amazing subjects: snakes, zebras, tigers, cheetahs, and panthers.  She is at home in all parts of nature-jungles, savannahs, rainforests...She ties up her beautiful hair with vines from trees.  It is a very elegant look.  Birds nest in her gorgeous hair and whisper secrets to her of princesses of long ago.  She spends her evenings chatting in her tree palace with her closest confidantes and animal protectors.  She will only accept a prince who is not afraid of heights, lightning or beetles.   (48)


After we'd read most of the book Groovy Girl came up with her own,  Princess Miss Alainy; one who does a little of this and a little of that as in miscellaneous.  I thought she was pretty clever.  This book would make a excellent holiday gift for every princess who is extraordinary!

(Princess of the Sands)

The 1st daughter reviews it at There's A Book.
The Secret Lives of Princesses website.

(Princess Quartermoon)

(Princess For-A-Day)

Weekend Cooking; Buttermilk Coffee Cake from La Jolla, CA

Okay, I'm not really there but one of my favorite cookbooks is Southern California Cooking from The Cottage by Jane and Michael Stern and Laura Wolfe and it makes me feel like I'm there.   I whipped up this breakfast cake for overnight guests from a visiting church choir.  I adore this cookbook and I remember purchasing it because of all the great breakfast recipes and I think it was the first cookbook I sat down and read like a book.  It has great stories about how the restaurant was purchased by the Wolfe's mixed with surfing and restaurant memories.   I have several starred recipes with penciled in notes about when I made each and how it turned out.

The cookbook is divided into 10 typical sections (breakfast, breakfast breads, soups, salads, sandwiches, dressings and sauces, sides, dinner, and desserts) but the recipes that fill each are extraordinarily yummy!
We love breakfast at our house and I could easily make every single recipe from the two breakfast sections.  Everything from Country French Toast, Breakfast Chiliquiles, 3 different eggs bene's, to Laura's Meatloaf Hash which uses leftover meatloaf.  I've not made that one but now that I have several sources for good, local beef it could happen.

The sandwich section is my second favorite part of this book with recipes like the B.L.A.T (we love avocado here too), the Eggplant Panini, and the Brie, Avocado and Sun-Dried Tomato Melt.  Yum!  Who's ready for lunch??

Here is the Buttermilk Coffee Cake recipe:

A great cake to serve in the morning or anytime during the day.  Buttermilk Coffee Cake has been a staple at the Cottage since the beginning.  We offer bites of it to customers waiting for a table when the place is packed on weekend mornings.  (I love these little notes for their ability to place me right there, waiting for a table.)

1 cup canola oil
3 1/3 cups flour (unbleached)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/3 cups packed brown sugar
1 T. ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 egg
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 tsp. baking powder (aluminum-free)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I had pecans so I used them)


Preheat oven to 350.  Grease a 13 x 9-in pan.  In a large mixing bowl combine the oil, flour, sugars, cinnamon, and ginger.  the mixture should be crumbly.  Set aside 1 1/3 cups of this batter.  To the remaining batter add the egg, buttermilk, baking powder, soda and salt.  Mix well.  Pour the batter into the baking pan.  To the reserved batter add the nuts and spread topping evenly over the batter.  Bake for 25 minutes or until cake springs back to the touch.  Makes 12 pieces of (warm, crumbly) cake.  (52)

Weekend Cooking is hosted at Beth Fish Reads-click there to find many more food-related posts.
Some day I hope to take a food journey to La Jolla so I can sit at the cottage and enjoy the casual ambiance.I might even have a Sam Smith Organic Lager listed on their drink menu. Click here to see The Cottage website.

Happy Cooking!

This is why I read; Stiltsville by Susanna Daniel

Stiltsville

Susanna Daniel

2010

306 pages

This book spoke to me as a woman who loves being part of a family. Stiltsville refers to a community off the coast of Florida with small cottages built on stilts in the surrounding water.  It tells the story of Frances who as a young woman finds her true love during a chance meeting at his family's stiltsville cabin.  It happens like that in just a moment, in an odd location, and in a blink of an eye you meet the person you will spend the rest of your life, for better or worse.  Through their courtship, marriage and the birth of their daughter, Margo, you see what family and friends brings to your life.  I laughed and cried at several memorable  moments that had to do with Margo's adolescences and as Frances and Dennis struggle with the confines of marriage.

Margo is mature physically for a fourth grade student and at a school conference her teacher suggests to Frances and her husband, Dennis, that Margo might feel more comfortable skipping fifth grade and jumping right to sixth. Her parents go along with this idea and Margo finds herself in the midst of sixth grade serious drama, teasing and bullying.  She is invited to a popular girl's sleepover where she leaves half way through the party because the girls have set her up in a most embarrassing way (mooning a group of boys) and laughing at her afterwards.  The incident was well-written and made me feel for poor Margo and her parents as they try to figure out how to help her through this new year.

I found this book filled with poignant moments like this that mirror my own life in some way.  I worry about my youngest daughter who is innocent and lacks the ability to see through the mean girls in her own fourth grade class.  I also loved the college Margo as she ventures forth to find her own path leaving her parents to explore their empty nest, which just leaves room for more worrying.  I loved the story of Stiltsville, Frances and Dennis, his parents and his sister, Bette, their set of friends, and Margo all make for a memorable story; one that I keep thinking about many days after finishing.

My handsome husband competed in his 11th marathon this past weekend and I was there to cheer him on.  I read and finished this book while I waited for him at various stops along the race route.  It was cold outside and I openly cried as I finished the last two chapters.

A quote:

This time she cried almost without sound.  We'd made a mistake in pushing her ahead-of this I was certain.  I'd let pride influence me.  Shamefully, though, I felt a little grateful for the mistake, because my daughter needed me, and I knew she wouldn't need me in the same way for much longer.  Still , I couldn't shake the image o Margo sitting in Mrs. Madansky's class, raising her hand again and again.  (134)

There is a moment in the book where Dennis and Frances are talking about Margo and Peter, Margo's new husband and Frances realizes that anything Dennis says to Margo seems to be understood but if Frances brings delicate subjects up somehow it is seen as her being critical of her daughter.  As I reader I noticed this throughout their relationship and it definitely reflects experiences my husband and I have had with our own daughters.  Somehow fathers have leeway with what they can express to their daughters that mothers are left out of entirely.

I'm sure this must be commonly true but I hadn't really been able to express it.  I have more fond memories of my father and do think of my mom as being more critical.  I hope this is not always the case and don't want my own children to walk away from our home with the same feelings.  Hmmm.  What do you think?  Are mothers destined to thought of in this way?   Luckily it does not damage forever as Margo and Frances stay connected throughout the book.

Key Biscayne; Stiltsville

Another review:

Seaside Book Corner

and

Susanna Daniel's website

Weekend Cooking; Whipping up something yummy with Groovy Girl

[photo credit]

Did you know October is National Cookie Month?  I didn't until we visited the library a few days ago and they had a table display of kid's cookbooks laid out (just for us, I'm sure) and we picked just a few!

Kitchen for Kids; 100 amazing recipes your children can make

Jennifer Low

176 pages including index/glossary

We didn't make cookies but we did read through the whole book cuddled together in our comfy chair. Wednesday night after she thumbed through it again she found a recipe she really wanted to make and said in her sweetest voice:  "We have all the ingredients!  It will be so simple."  I'd already made a pan of our favorite eggplant lasagna for dinner and wasn't looking forward to more time not relaxing after dinner but after I perused the recipe I agreed. I couldn't resist her or the recipe.  Could you have resisted?

Gooshy S'More Cakes
[makes 4 ramekin cakes]

Cakes:
4 large marshmallows
1/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup all-purpose flour [spoon in, level]
1/3 cup whole wheat flour [spoon in, level]
1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt

Chocolate Goosh:
1/4 cup water
2 T. packed brown sugar
1 T. unsweetened cocoa powder

1. Pop the marshmallows into the freezer.
2 Preheat the oven to 350*
3. To make the cake, melt the butter in a bowl at 50 % power in the microwave (about 1 minute). Use a whisk to stir in the sugars.  Cool slightly.  Stir in rest of ingredients for the cakes (so not the Goosh) until smooth.  Spoon into four ramekins or baking cups, filling 2/3 full.  Put a cold marshmallow in the middle of the cake.
4. To make the Goosh, put the ingredients in a cup and heat at 50% power in the  microwave, until hot.  Stir smooth.  Pour over the marshmallows and cake batter.
5. Put the ramekins or cups on a baking sheet.  Bake 23 minutes or until puffed, the chocolate is bubbling and the marshmallows melt into top crusts.  Cool until warm.  Don't unmold.

Eat it right up!  You could lick your bowl but you might get your nose stuck in the ramekin!  I would have taken my own photo of them but I couldn't find my camera fast enough and then... they were gone.

The cookbook is well-designed with lots of photographs to ooh and aaah over.  6 sections are divided into  1. breakfast, lunch and dinner
2. breads and crackers
3.cookies
4. cakes
5. pies, pastries and squares
6. candies, confections and cool treats.

You can see where the emphasis is; kid-friendly sweets.  Low also provides an interesting section on organizing the kitchen for your child, tools and measuring instructions.

We liked the Paddy Thai Noodles from the first section, the big soft pretzels from the second section, alphabet cookies from the third section and candy marbles from the last section.  Most recipes don't include as much microwaving as the s'mores cakes, which is good because I'm a little weird about using the microwave too cook.  Many recipes in the book are done in smaller sizes or kid-sized.  This is definitely one book you will want to read the recipe through before making something just to make sure you will have enough.  I'm pretty sure we'll make a few more recipes before we return it to the library.

Jennifer Low's website.

Weekend Cooking is hosted at Beth Fish Reads.  Stop over there and find many other food-related posts.

How To Buy A Love Of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson

I can't imagine not having a book in my hand for most of my life.  Even in my wild 20's I read during parties and in my 30's I read between waitressing and bartending shifts.  I've never wavered in my love for books and all they hold so it was interesting to have my handsome husband give me this book for a birthday gift.

Synopsis:

When Carley Wells is asked by her H.S. English teacher what her favorite book is, she answers: "Never met one I liked."  Her parents are both horrified when the English teacher passes this information to them and so begins her parents quest to bring literature to Carley.  Because they have a ton of money her parents decide to hire a writer who will help Carley create a work of fiction.  Through the hired author and Carley's eyes we see this incredible life of money, boredom, parental error and self-loathing.

My Thoughts:

Carley is an overweight young woman who is in love with her best friend Hunter.  Hunter suffers from major depression and chooses to drown his feelings in Vicodin and alcohol.  Hunter and Carley have a somewhat toxic friendship as they rely on each other, trying to hide their own negative feelings.

The parents of each of these teenagers is a terrible parental example.  Hunter's mother has a thing for Jackie O and spends more time watching clips of Jackie's tour of the White House than she does listening to her son.  Carley's mom wants her to be thin and reminds her of it every day.  Carley's dad had a few good qualities until its revealed that he's having an affair.  They seem to think throwing money at each problem is the best solution.  It doesn't work.  Carley's character grows throughout the story and this makes the journey very worthwhile.  Does she get a love of reading?  You'll have to read the book to find out.  

A sample:

Carley's father had bought her Choose Your Own Adventures when she was a kid, mazelike books that begin with you waking up places like the planet Zantor and having to make choices like whether to trust a family of six-headed purple Zantorians who tell you to follow them home to safety before sundown when the planet's carnivorous plants will wake up.  Only problem is that the Zantorians, with their six mouths of fangs, are a little vague about what they themselves eat.  If you take the Zantorians up on their offer to "have you over for dinner," turn to page four.  If you decide to take your chances tiptoeing through the snapping tulips, turn to page ten.  The only thing Carley ever liked about them was working backward from the end, taking the forks in reverse to figure out how to end up on a spaceship bound for home.  (39)

Here is Tanya Egan Gibson's website and her twitter link.
I am interested to see what her next book might be like.

p.s. I read this book way back in August-one of these cold Fall days my reviews will catch up with what I'm reading now.

Weekend Cooking; Weekly Menu

Tomato Pie

Oh so many recipes to share!  This week my menu planning for has been very exciting.  We ate leftovers (garbanzo pesto soup) from last week's guest menu two days out of the week. Then  I made a  Sweet Potato Soup inspired by this post at one of my favorite new blogs, Sweet Mama Jane's.  On Thursday night I made this amazing Tomato Pie that I discovered on Janssen's Everyday Reading and she via Perry's Plate.  This pie was delicious and because I didn't think my kids would really enjoy the combination of flavors I made them something else and served the pie just to my husband and I, date style, after he got home from a late meeting.  He loved it and I shared a piece with my co-worker, Janice, and she asked for the recipe.  This pie was quite perfect as it was but I could imagine it with sprinkles of local bacon under the cheesy/mayo topping.  The pie had a BLT quality and this got my mind thinking about bacon.

It is a virtual cornucopia of recipe sharing out there.  It is so easy to pick and plan when there are such a wide variety of recipes around!  I find much of my inspiration on the internet, googling ingredients to find a recipe or from blog posts but I've also turned inward toward my own cookbook collection to new and favorite recipes.  Friday night, with a little extra time on my hands, I used the last of Janice's cherry tomato bounty, which she shared with me, to make Giada's Cheeca Sauce and tossed it with spiral pasta.  Shocking was the fact that Groovy Girl hated it.  She said the orange cherry tomatoes taste funny to her.  Seriously.

I found this Potato Pancake with Cinnamon Apples in a Tyler Florence book from my own cookbook shelf and I plan to make it this coming week.  I love apple season.

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads-pop over and see many other food related posts.

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

My friend Tina and I strolled through the library one afternoon on lunch break and I came home with an arm full of books.  Anna and the French Kiss was one of them.  Tina always reads the newest stuff and often picks up brand new books that the library has ordered for her. She's on the cutting edge of book-newness!
I, on the other hand, am always a little behind!  It is a good thing I have her to lead me a long like a blind person.

Synopsis:

Anna's wealthy writer dad decides she needs to experience a year abroad her senior year.  Anna is happy with the life she's already living in Atlanta with a great mom, a little brother, a wonderful best friend and her job at the movie theater with Toph, her might-be crush.  Her divorced parents get her set up at The School of America where she meets her next door dorm neighbor, Meredith who in turn introduces her to the rest of her friends.  `Etienne is one of them and he makes Anna a blushing and bumbling idiot for most of the book.  They get all their signals mixed and confusion occurs.

My thoughts:

I loved all the characters and the Parisian setting was beautiful.  I did so want to shake both `Etienne and Anna at different times.  Good golly:  `Etienne has a girlfriend for more than half the book-obviously it's not working out-but really you can tell he is totally smitten with Anna.  She, on the other hand, keeps throwing this almost crush with Toph in `Etienne's face every chance she gets.  Once they finally begin to connect it is a bit of magic though.

Stephanie Perkins has a gift for a teen chatter, which makes it easy to read.  I'm very interested in her follow-up books, Lola and the Boy Next Door and Isla and the Happily Ever After.  I understand these are companion books but I would really like to know what happens to Anna and `Etienne once they are ever so close to each other in California.  Of course, Anna and the California Kiss lacks a bit of romance!  If your behind the times like me don't leave this book behind.

It begins:

Here is everything I know about France:  Madeline and Amelie and Moulin Rouge.  The Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, although I have no idea what the function of either actually is.  Napoleon, Marie Antoinette, and a lot of kings named Louis.  I'm not sure what they did either, but I think it has something to do with the French Revolution, which has something to do with Bastille Day. (3)

I know a little bit more about France than this but an interesting starting point for Anna...

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship of Her Own Making

Official Website:  Fairylandbook.com

Groovy Girl, Handsome Husband and I stopped for a quick library visit on Sunday.  We found a few books and had fun wandering together.  Groovy Girl and I had finished up the sixth Sisters Grimm the night before and she was anxiously scanning the Buckley section for the seventh.  It was gone (gasp!) and the nice librarian at the desk put a hold on it for her.

In the meantime I scanned the new elementary fiction section for something inspiring and The Girl Who Circumnavigated... popped out at me on the shelf.  Literally I think it moved a few inches out to attract me.  My friend V and I had recently skyped with our three kids to talk books and this was one we discussed.  She hasn't been able to get it from the Little Rock Library and here it was popping off the shelf for me.  I tucked it under my arm and hummed just a little.

Mind you, I haven't finished it so this is not a review per se but Groovy Girl and I have read 4 chapters the last three nights and I'm in love with the writing.  It reminds me of one of my favorite books, Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth.  The main character's name is September.  She has conversations with the Green Wind, Latitude and Longitude, two witches named Goodbye and Hello and rides on the back of a flying leopard.  And if that isn't cool enough the language  is thrillingly descriptive and beautiful.

It was difficult to choose just one but here is a sample:

The Leopard of Little Breezes yawned up and farther off from the rooftops of Omaha, Nebraska, to which September did not even wave good-bye.  One ought not to judge her:  All children are heartless.  They have not grown a heart yet, which is why they can climb tall trees and say shocking things and leap so very high that grown-up hearts flutter in terror.  Hearts weigh quite a lot.  That is why it takes so long to grow one.  but, as in their reading and arithmetic and drawing, different children proceed at different speeds.  (It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else.)  Some small ones are terrible and fey, Utterly Heartless.  Some are dear and sweet and Hardly Heartless at all.  September stood very generally in the middle on the day the Green Wind took her, Somewhat Heartless, and Somewhat Grown.  And so September did not wave good-bye to her house or her mother's factory, puffing white smoke far below her. (4)

and this from what we just finished with tonight...

The full moon shone jubilantly as September strode up over the dunes and into the interior of Fairyland with her belly full of witch-cake.  She smelled the sweet, wheat-sugar of sea grass and listened to distant owls call after mice.  And then she suddenly remembered, like a crack of lightning in her mind, check your pockets.  She laid her sceptre in the grass and dug into the pocket of her green smoking jacket. [given to her by the Green Wind]  September pulled out a small crystal ball, glittering in the moonlight.  A single perfectly green leaf hung suspended in it, swaying back and forth gently, as if blown by a faraway wind.  (38)

It is hard for me not to read ahead after I tuck her in...
Sweet Dreams.

Girl Power picture books

Groovy Girl read all these picture books the first two days we had the bag home from the library.  Me, well, it has taken me over two weeks to read all of them and I had to renew them once in order to write about a few of them.

1. The Queen of France by Tim Wadham, ill. by Kady Macdonald Denton (2011);   Rose wakes up and "feels royal" so she plays dress up and goes to look for her mother dressed regally.  Using her imagination her parents play along as Rose changes from the queen to Rose and back again.  A seemingly simple tale of love and acceptance, Rose demonstrates one can be a girl with many sides.  Denton draws Rose with a Ramona-like haircut in amazing watercolor illustrations.  Click here for an interview with Tim Wadham.  Hooray for first time author Wadham, a fellow librarian, with this picture book.

2. Not All Princesses Dress In Pink by the mother/daughter writers Jane Yolen & Heidi E.Y. Stemple; ill. by Anne-Sophie Languestin (2010);  Similar message in this one with quirky digital illustrations.  Each page shares how princesses can play soccer, baseball, wrestle with a dog, dance in the rain, break their nails while planting a garden of pumpkins (of course), and my favorite, escape a stony tower using all their cool girl power, using a ladder like monkey bars.  I like Denton's  illustrations better but the message of this one is equally strong: whatever you choose to be you can still wear your sparkly crown!

Happy Sunday and wear your crown with pride!

Weekend Cooking; Oatmeal Apple Scones for our guest

It's not a happy thing to look back on my week, blog-wise and know that my last post was my cooking post from last weekend-especially when I have many finished books waiting for review.  We did have a busy week plus we had a guest this week-my husband's cousin came from Colorado via the train and we had a great time catching up.  My husband drove the two-hours to pick him up from the train station and I got inspired and made scones for the next morning.  This recipe was incredible easy, fairly healthy and they tasted good.  I can't find my camera or I would share a photo of the finished scones.

Oatmeal Apple Scone Drops
(makes 12 scones)

1 cup uncooked old-fashioned cooking oats
1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking soda
1-2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup cold butter, cut into chunks
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 medium, organic tart apple, unpeeled, cored, finely chopped
1/2 cup golden raisins
1 egg, slightly beaten

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Combine oats, flour, 1/2 cup brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a large bowl; stir until well mixed.  Cut in butter with pastry blender or fork until mixture looks like coarse crumbs.  Stir in remaining ingredients until well mixed.
Drop batter by 1/2 cupfulls, 2 inches apart, onto lightly greased baking sheets.  Slightly flatten each mound.
Bake for 12-15 minutes or until toothpick trick comes out clean.  Remove to wire cooling rack.
Can add drizzle of powdered sugar (3/4 cup with 2-3 T of water) if desired over warm scones. Serve warm.

 Drizzle would make them pretty but I chose not to add it and they were wonderful.  I would add it though if I were to make them for a party or brunch.  I did not have golden raisins in my pantry so I substituted dried cranberries, which totally worked.  I would try other substitutions next time like slivered almonds with the apples sounds good.  I always use milk mixed with a little vinegar to make my buttermilk.  I just cook so infrequently with buttermilk that this easy substitution works great for me.

They turned out like a breakfast cookie, with a more casual free form shape, compared to another scone recipe I make that requires rolling the dough and cutting into neat large triangles.  Everyone liked them and even though our cousin is health-conscience and is trying to stay away from sugar, he had one because, as he put it...he knew I baked them with love in honor of his visit.  I didn't have the same willpower; I ate three the first day.

Happy cooking!

Weekend Cooking is sponsored by Beth Fish Reads.  Click on her link to see my cooking related posts.