Caramel Pear Scones

Not doing so great. Visited the dr this morning to change my blood pressure medication - I'm having a minor allergic reaction to it and my blood pressure refuses to stablize. Dr wants me to go on a more extreme diet than I am currently doing because I'm not losing weight. I haven't been that good with looking at my diet as a tool for weight loss lately because I wanted to focus on it being healthy and I can only focus on so much at a time. She's also very disapproving of my using MSG instead of salt. She doesn't want me to use either. GRR - it's tough when you get older and you start developing health conditions that refuse to go away. So I'll take the weight loss more seriously especially since we are finally getting signs of spring.
Of course, this all leads me to guilt over pizza last night at my dad's. He likes to have us over and this time he wanted to pick up some Little Caesar's pizza.
I made these scones on Sunday. We vacuum sealed some and put them in the freezer. We're trying to experiment with preservation so I can do big baking on the weekend and stretch it out over a period of time without it rotting.
These scones are amazing. I subbed out the all-purpose flour for about a half n half mixture of oat flour and whole white wheat. I used applesauce instead of the butter but kept the 1/3 cup of sugar - mixing white sugar with molasses. I might try these with just molasses next time because they are really sweet. I had some leftover butterscotch sauce from my mom and opted to use that instead of making caramel sauce. The flavor is amazing and the sauce adds a sealing coat to the scones keeping them super moist. It's not really scones because I associate a more dry quality with them but these are amazing. The chopped pears create little wet pockets that are wonderful. However, do not leave these on your counter while you finish them up - the moisture leads to quick souring. I've been grateful we got them into the fridge with some in the freezer.
*Note - mine had no nuts, ran out of walnuts at some point and forgot to add them to the list. And I didn't peel the pears.

Caramel-Pear Scones
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter, chilled, cut up
2 to 3 pears (1 lb.), peeled, chopped (1/2 inch) (about 2 1/3 cups)
1 egg
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon whole milk, divided
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup butter
2 tablespoons whole milk
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Heat oven to 425ºF. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine flour, 1/3 cup brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in large bowl. With pastry blender or 2 knives, cut in 6 tablespoons butter until mixture resembles large peas. Stir in pears. Beat egg and 1/2 cup of the milk in small bowl; stir into flour mixture until moistened. (Mixture should form soft ball. If too wet, add 2 to 3 tablespoons flour. If too dry, add 1 to 2 tablespoons milk.) On lightly floured surface, roll or press dough into 11-inch round 3/4 inch thick; cut into 8 wedges. Carefully lift wedges out with floured spatula; place on baking sheet. Brush with remaining 1 tablespoon milk; sprinkle with walnuts. Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until lightly browned on top. Cool. Meanwhile, heat 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup butter in small saucepan over medium heat until sugar is melted. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Stir in 2 tablespoons milk; return to a boil. Remove from heat. Stir in powdered sugar and vanilla. Drizzle over scones.

Rice Congee

My mother discovered this dish earlier this week. Congee is a rice porriage sort of dish. The wonderfulness of this recipe is that it stretches a cup of rice into many servings. It's easy to make and since the dish is rather plain it takes on a variety of flavors.
To make congee, add 1 cup rice to 6-9 cups water (we use 6 and it seemed like plenty of water). Throw it in the crockpot on low overnight.
My mother added 3 bananas and cinnamon to the pot and then served it with sugar and milk.
I think it would be better with ginger and garlic. I ended up adding a little sugar to my banana dish and then adding MSG to give it that salty savory sort of flavor.
I, personally, am not a huge fan of sweet rice even though this dish has plenty of opportunities to offer both sweet and savory.
I used brown rice and ended up with a mushy mass so it might be a good way to work brown rice into your diet. Overall, it was tasty and reminded me of wet oatmeal. I plan on playing with the flavors and seeing what goes best for us. I think using apples would still be good - perhaps with some walnuts and dried cranberries to make a breakfast dish.
This is not just for breakfast. I read that many use this as a "sick" dish and I can see the appeal. I would love to have a great dish for when we are all sick and no one wants to cook and this seems like it. Maybe cook it in chicken broth with garlic and ginger - think I'm craving garlic and ginger - maybe some lemongrass. I'd love to hear what you ate with congee.

Why breakfast is the most important meal of the day

I've been struggling this week. It's such an off week and I'm rather tired. I was going to share the cute cupcake things I made for my son's birthday but I forgot the pictures at home so I'll share those tomorrow. The idea was cute the execution not so great but I'll explain more later. I promise I will have some recipes soon, we're just not creating anything new.
Well, this blog post came in my email last night and I decided it was one that needed to be shared. Let little otter explain to you why breakfast is the most important meal of the day - I promise you won't be disappointed with his logic.

Pancake Mix and Baked Pancakes

I used to make pancake mix and then didn't for awhile which is how things are in our house - I go through cycles. The last pancake mix we had was Mama's Gluten Free Mix which was a great pancake mix. I had 2 bags of her almond blend to use up and thought replacing the pancake mix was a great way to do so. Mama's Gluten Free Almond Blend is the only gluten free flour I have used to make this pancake mix - this is not a gluten free recipe but can easily be altered.
If using gluten free flours - add 1-2 teaspoons of xanthum or guar gum (I use guar gum because it's half the cost of xanthum gum).
I have made this mix with soy milk powder and powdered milk - you can not tell the difference except in the mix its self (soy milk powder is softer than powdered milk).

Pancake mix
8 cup flour
2 cups milk powder
½ cup sugar
2 tb + 2 teas baking powder
4 teas baking soda
Mix together and store in an airtight container

To make pancakes:
2 eggs
1 2/3 cup water
1/3 cup oil or butter
2 ½ cups mix

This weekend, my son had his cousin spend the night. They wanted pancakes for breakfast and requested cinnamon to be added to the batter. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to use up some of the bananas in my freezer, especially since we are currently out of eggs. I freeze bananas in their peels so I don't have to really think about them. To peel them, I run them under hot water and remove the peels. Sometime the inside of the peel sticks to the banana and I use a knife to scrap it off. Because the bananas were frozen I stuck them in the microwave to thaw them after peeling.
So the recipe:
3 bananas
1 1/3 cups or so water
1/3 cup oil
2 1/2 cups mix
1 teas cinnamon
Mash the bananas, add 1 cup water and the oil. Mix in the pancake mix and cinnamon. Add remaining water a little at a time to make a pourable batter.
Now here comes the tricky part - I could not get the batter not to stick to my pan. To matter what I did the pancakes would not turn out. We were running out of time to eat breakfast before church so I turned the oven onto 400 degrees and poured the batter into a non-stick baking sheet that I rubbed with butter. About 10 minutes later I changed the oven to broil and let the top get a little golden. I'm not sure the broiling really made a difference.
Then I rubbed butter on the top before cutting into pancake sized squares. We ate them with peanut butter to find these were the best pancakes ever made. Each serving was perfectly cooked. I did slightly miss the crispy edge of fried pancakes but they were so good. So much so that my family asked me to continue baking them every time.

Cinnamon Rolls

Now that you have the bread recipe (see yesterday's post), it's easy to turn it into cinnamon rolls.

In addition to the bread ingredients you need:
1 cup white sugar
1-2 TB cinnamon
(or about 1 cup cinnamon sugar)
1 stick butter, melted
Unflavored dental floss

After the first rise, pull the dough out of the bowl and knead briefly. Press or roll the dough into a rectangle. The dough will not exactly co-operate since it's rather elastic but keep at it until you get a rectangle that is about 1/2 inch thick. Using a pastry or basting brush, brush the butter on the dough. Make sure to cover it well but not leave puddles of butter. Combine the cinnamon and sugar (you may want to taste it to make sure you have enough cinnamon to sugar ratio). Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the butter. Starting at a long side of the dough (preferably closest to you) roll the dough in on it's self until you have a long log. Pinch the dough at the end to seal it. Tear off a foot long piece of dental floss. Wrap it around the dough about 1 inch from an end. Pull the floss tight until the dough is severed. Continue cutting off 1 inch pieces of the log. Use the remaining butter to grease a 9x13 pan. The rolls may not quite touch but that's okay.
Cover with towel and let rise until doubled in size.
Bake at 350 until the rolls are firm and golden.
Frost with cream cheese frosting:
8 oz cream cheese
2-3 cups powdered sugar
milk (you can use milk, dairy substitute or a creamy liqour like irish cream)
Cream the cream cheese with the sugar. Add more to taste if desired. Add milk at 1 teaspoon at a time until you get a frosting consistency. More milk will make the frosting like a glaze if desired.
Frost cinnamon rolls and enjoy.
*If you are eating right away, frost cinnamon rolls warm. If not, wait until the rolls cool before frosting.

Breakfast Bake

This recipe is one my husband came up with after getting a brief description from someone else. He made it at Christmas time and then again last Friday (for dinner this time). It's an easy dish to make but does take time in the oven. He's still tinkering with the time and temperature so you may need to adjust a little.

Breakfast Bake
1 bag frozen hash brown (1 pound or so)
8 eggs
1/2 pound sausage (could substitute bacon)
pancake mix and ingredients to make pancakes
Pancake syrup

Fry sausage in skillet, breaking into bite sized pieces. Layer hash browns in an oiled 9x13 baking dish. Pour over eggs. Crumble over sausage after draining off fat. Mix one batch of pancake mix per instructions on box. Pour over hashbrowns. Smooth even. Pour over a generous amount of pancake syrup. Bake in oven at 450 for 45 minutes.

At 450 for 45 minutes we did end up with a few doughy spots but not overly so and the outside was browned nicely. May want to reduce heat to 425 and bake for 1 hour or until completely cooked through. My husband loves this with a little extra syrup. I am contemplating the best condiment for this - I like ketchup on my hashbrowns but not so much on the pancakes.

Smoothies

Growing up "smoothies" were a standard breakfast except in those days we referred to them as breakfast milkshakes. They are still a treat we like on hot summer mornings or really any time we want something cold and fruity.
There is no real recipe for our smoothies since they are catered to each drinker.

Start with frozen fruit. Our favorite has always been bananas. I have a freezer full of bananas. What I do is - when a banana has gotten to that point I know no one will eat it, I throw it in the freezer (peel and all). For me there's a lot of convinience in this. When I need to use a frozen banana, I run it under hot water for no more than 30 seconds and peel. I may need to use a butter knife to scrape all the stuff off but it doesn't take very long. Other family members, peel the banana and set it on cookie sheets to freeze and then pile them in freezer bags. My method has no freezer burnt bananas but it does mean a lot of slippery bananas falling out of the freezer when we over fill it. Either method works - it just depends on you.
You can also use any other frozen fruit. My grandmother would make them with frozen strawberries. The problem with strawberries is they are not always sweet and can make a pretty sour shake. I have used mixed berries, peaches and others but banana is what we seem to come back to.

We have a "bullet" type blender which makes everything in one serving. So I use 1-2 bananas, depending on their size and cover them with milk. Blend until smooth, you may have to stop now and again and add a little more milk to keep it smooth. Easy peasy - you have a basic smoothie. We like to add peanut butter and chocolate syrup to our banana smoothie but you can really add anything, including fresh fruit (with frozen fruit).

What I like best about this particular method is there is no added water - no ice chunks, nor is there any ice cream. The fruit acts as ice so if there are chunks - it's kind of nice. I like working my way through a piece of soft frozen banana, more than I like hitting a piece of ice. I, also, like that I have complete control of the nutrients, full serving of fruit and milk. And the best part is if they do melt, it's not a watered down version of the drink.

Granola Bars

I found a recipe that I love for granola bars. It's simple and just a little bit junky to make it taste good. The original recipe called for rice krispies and oatmeal - along with some other gluten foods. I have omitted everything but the oatmeal and made a new yummy easy to manipulate recipe. If you are oatmeal free - any small cereal will work, experiment on your own.

Granola Bars
20 oz marshmallows (you can use flavored marshmallows but I didn't notice a difference)
3/4 cup Nucoa
1/4 cup honey (if using raw, cook it a little before adding marshmallows)
1/4 cup peanut butter (any nut butter works nicely - we did use sun butter but haven't tried tahini yet)
9 cups oatmeal
1 cup coconut, unsweetened (omit if you can't use coconut)
1-2 cups dried fruit or nuts
2 cups chocolate chips

In large saucepan (heavy bottom preferred) melt butter, honey, peanut butter and marshmallows. Stir often to prevent burning. Remove from heat and add oatmeal and nuts and fruit. Stir until everything is mixed together. Add chocolate chips. (Wait 10 minutes or so if you don't want the chips to melt). Scrape everything out into a jellyroll pan or cookie sheet with sides. Press to make top smooth (may need to oil hands or tools). Let cool. Cut into bars.
I love to play with this recipe and add all sorts of things.