True Blood Scones

Ever have one of those months?

Recently, I was dumped by my ex, in an email. Yes, an email. But that's just barely a blip on my radar now. My cat has fleas who think I'm delicious, which is also taking a back-burner. Mostly, it's that my friend is sick. He's been sick for a long time, but now, it's much worse. Somehow, a rumor began in the far-extension of his circle of acquaintances that he had passed away. The rumor spread like wildfire through the nasty brush that is Facebook, and last night, they posted Rest in Peace messages on his wall. Luckily (and I say luckily with more than a pinch of irony), he wasn't awake to see it. Of course some people who actually know and care about him heard the fake-news as well, so we had to let them know that it hadn't happened yet. Poor darlings.

http://shitstorm.2kdub1.org/wellmeaningfuckery.html

As you may know, Food = Love.

...So I make it when I have feelings. This scone recipe is based on a beautiful recipe from Smitten Kitchen.

Dry Ingredients

2 cups Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

2 Tbsp Wheat Gluten

1 Tbsp Sodium-Free Baking Powder

1/4 Cup Demerara Sugar

1/2 tsp Sea Salt

I keep very coarse sugar and salt around, to match my coarse nature and satiate my desire to have everything I do be as difficult as possible. So I threw those babies in my trusty yellow-plastic-smoothie-making-cup and gave them a few good whirls with my stick blender before adding them to the rest of the dry ingredients.

In the meantime, I took
1 hefty Cup Frozen Blueberries
from the freezer and left them out in a measuring cup. Also, I'm awesome, so I added
The Zest of One Lemon
and used the rest of the lemon to make a quick, stevia-sweetened lemonade. Which is lucky, because now I need a pickmeup, and that will do the trick.

But we'll get to catastrophe later. No need for too much foreshadowing, narrator. Don't over-engineer it.

The Cutting

6 Tbsp Cold, Unsalted Butter, cut into pieces

I don't have a pastry cutter, but I did have a hankering for scones, so I used two tools: a whisk and will power. I used these tools to combine the dry ingredients and butter until they looked like this:

The Mixing

Aforementioned Blueberries and Lemon Zest

(gave it a quick mixeroo, then...)

3/4 Cup Part-Skim Ricotta

1/3 Cup Low-fat Buttermilk

I mixed with a flexible spatula until nearly combined, thus:

At this point, I preheated the oven to 400. The original recipe says 425, but like every gas oven I have met, mine runs hot and wonky. Next, I kneaded the dough as lightly as I could to make an even consistency. It was purpley and smooth. All that was left was to transfer the dough to my clean, floured countertop, pat it into a square, and cut that square into other squares! My counter was prepped! My cookie sheet was sprayed! Mumford and Sons were singing to me through the speakers of this very laptop! My PG Tips was waiting patiently in the pantry!

The Carnage

So, I dropped the bowl. It shattered, somehow cutting a giant gash in my foot, which immediately began bleeding everywhere, like the most polite horror movie ever filmed.

I cleaned, I discarded, I cleaned, I disinfected, I sighed heavily. Do me a solid? If you ever make these scones, let me know how they turn out, ok? I'm going to eat leftover pizza and drink that lemonade now. Deuces.

Pumpkin Bran Muffins

This morning I was hungry, so I invented these mini-muffins.

In Kitchen Aid, pour 1/3 cup boiling water over 1/3 cup wheat bran and a tablespoon or so of coconut oil (obv, you can use butter or oil or whatever you have). Let that sit for a minute or two while you measure into a smaller bowl: 3/4 c. whole wheat pastry flour and 1/4 cup hazelnut meal. (Let's be honest, I only had 3/4 cup flour this morning. I made the first batch with just that, then added the hazelnut flour to the rest, and it made a big, tasty difference. You could use pecan meal, almond meal, ground flax seed, or just more flour.), a pinch of sea salt, and 1 teaspoon no-sodium baking powder.

In the mixing bowl, add 1/2 cup pumpkin puree, 1/4 c. egg beaters (or 1 egg), two good squirts of vanilla stevia (about 40 drops), and a Tablespoon or so of sugar-free maple syrup. For flavor, I added 1/4 t. reeally tasty ginger powder, 1/2 teaspoon reeeeally tasty China cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon clove. Just regular clove, actually.

When the wet ingredients are combined, mix in the flour mixture, then 3/4 cup oats and 1/4 cup nonfat dry milk. It is my belief that if you added some chocolate chips or dried fruit at this stage, you would not be sorry.

Drop into mini-muffin pans (they don't rise very much, so it's okay to fill just above 2/3) and bake at 350 for 11-13 minutes. Let the muffins rest in the pan for another couple of minutes, then pop those babies out and straight into your face!

They're kinda ugly, these muffins, so I am not bothering with a non-glamorous picture from my camera phone. But srsly, they are so good for you, and they taste like treats!

*Serve with the effing delicious coffee you just made because you are some sort of breakfast goddess.

Pantry Challenge: M*ther F*cking Layer Cake

So, MMM and I are at my parent's house for the holidays. (For those of you who don't remember the last pictures posted from here, please note the kitchen wallpaper. In their defense, they hate it. Also, please note that my father refuses to ever throw away tinfoil, no matter how used. See it, above the sink in the background there?)

I like to do pantry challenges (make some food with only what you can find). Also, I am definitely off the diet wagon for the holidays, so MMM and I made a cake. A F*cking Layer Cake. Oh mah guuuuuuuuuuuuuuh!

Into the Kitchen Aid bowl went a box of Golden Butter Cake mix, 1/3 cup Amaretto, 1/3 cup skim milk and 1/2 cup no sugar added applesauce and 3 of the delicious farm-fresh eggs that my parents get from people down the road with, like, nice chickens. You know, because West Virginia plus hippies equals Amish eggs and friendly birds. We whipped it good (it liked it, obviously, because it got all fluffy and delicious) and baked it in two 9" rounds at 350 until it was f*cking perfect. I think it was around 25 minutes, but I can't say for sure, because in the meantime, our relatives showed up, a day before Dad *thought* he had invited them, and we had a messy house and no food prepared. Like you do.

We let the cake cool while hanging out with the relatives and napping, and otherwise hiding from my family. It cooled for an even longer time as my father became stymied with the weight of needing to devise and implement a system with which to deal with yesterday's turkey.

Then, we iced that b*tch.

We found a very nice glass pie plate in a breakfront cabinet, which also contains a terrifying corncob man who sits on a rocking chair. Between the two perfect f*cking cakes of perfection, we smeared a nice layer of Dad's homemade sugar-free apple butter, and then on the top and the sides...

Missy busied herself with the turkey that stymied my father; else he would still be in there, trying to fit platters into the oven. In the Kitchen Aid, with the whippy device, I mixed one stick of softened butter, some powdered sugar (1 cup?), some maple extract (1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon?) and a splash of heavy cream. Maple damn buttercream, ladies and gentlemen. Damn it.

It's not a large recipe, but I believe that a cake this moist and delicious only needs a bit, so we frosted the cake, sprinkled a couple of teaspoons of graham cracker crumbs on top, mostly just for the speckledy look, and ate that sh*t up. Oh, dear me, I want some more.

Right. Now.

Butternut Squash "Mac'n'Cheese"

Dearest darlings-

I've been remiss. I haven't been sending you

recipes at all!

Personal updates: I am now officially Tattooed Domesticity, as I have a tattoo on my right shoulder. It's a flock of 6 swallows, a gesture of solidarity for my friend Tim, who is living

with ALS. I'm also captaining a team for the Atlanta Walk to

Defeat ALS. I will be return

ing to my theatre in about a week and a half, and sh

all continue to live the life of a glorified laundr

ess (albeit with a really cool job). Last night, with my former roommates, I watched 3 scary movies and ate sand-

witches and eye-popping soup, while drinking beer with eyeballs in it. (cocktail eyeballs: canned lychee with cranbe

rries in the pits!)

Today, I'm making a recipe that Michela swears will be a creamy, dreamy, tasty explosion of not-quite-mac-and-cheese. I'll blog as I go,

and you can do it with me!

Butternut squash can

just last forever. I've had this squash for a shameful amount of time...it moved with me to this apartment, as a matter of fact! I've grown to love butternut, and I'm thinking that's related to the fact that most of my recipes don't involve peeling it. I'm just gonna say it: f*ck peeling butternut squash. It is such a total pain in the bottom! But, ok, I peeled this one. Then I seeded it, and cut it into chunks.

A little tip for you: a

nyone who tells you they like peeling a butternut squas

h: liar. Into the oven (@375) it goes, tossed with a couple Tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and a teaspoon or two of herbs de provence (Michela said to use rosemary...use whatever you want)! That was about 20-25 minutes ago, and my house is starting to smell delectably like herb-y, baking squash, so I'm gonna go start the next steps. (It is, btw, a firm belief of mine that most food's doneness can be discerned by smelling.)

Oh, yum. I've just had my first bite. Here's what I did while we were parted:

Well, first of all, I think I over-roasted the squash just a little, but that gave me an excuse to

pinch off the crispy bits and snack on them. I boiled the squash with a pot of 1 cup milk [

actually, I'm out of milk, so I used nonfat dry milk, which worked perfectly well! (whisk together 7/8 cup

cold water and 1/3 nonfat dry milk)], and

1 cup low-sodium chicken stock. Trader Joe's makes a good one, but I r

oasted a chicken last month, so I made my own stock out of the carcass and froze it in ziplocks of 1-cup-each. I can't tell you how

accomplished I felt, using one!

While I was getting down with the sauce, I started to boil the pasta, whole

wheat fusilli. I think I used about 1 1/2 cups dry.

I whisked and I mashed and I stirred. Here ar

e my implements of squash-destruction:

I added the pasta when it was not yet fully cooked: a coup

le of minutes before al-dente. It was around this time that I realized that my sauce was not really thickening. I'm betting that if I used sweet potatoes instead of squash, the natural starches would have done it, but as it was, I sifted in a couple

of tablespoons of whole-wheat pastry flour.

I should mention, speaking of my friend Timmy, that my phone shuffled to some songs of his from college while I was cooking, and it was adorable. Oh, dear me, he used to write songs about our friends...it was pretty much the cutest thing that an electric guitar ever did.

Anyway, my yumminess was thickening quite nicely. One might call it done. But I'm a bad person. So I added a wee fistful of grated parmesan cheese. Please allow me to reiterate: this was a wholly unnecessary step. I only did it because I am a bad woman.

And, because I remained an unrepentant bad person, I topped my serving with some homemade, whole wheat bread crumbs. (I still haven't found a good whole wheat, 1lb bread machine, low salt recipe, but my sh*tty bread makes yummy dried crumbs!) And then, because I'm a bit of a good person, too, I added some flat-leaf Italian parsley.

Bon Appetit!

Sassy Saturday Buckwheat Pancakes

Boy, I am a catch.

Ok, so I've finally come up with a buckwheat pancake recipe that I find flavorful and healthy! Believe you me, darlings, I have made some terrible pancakes in the last 6 months. (and if you know me at all, you know that pains me deeply, as I am totally awesome at pancakes.) I finally just decided to stop following other people's recipes and alter my own favorite pancake

recipe. The page in my mother's cookbook where this recipe comes from is one of my favorite things on Earth. The cookbook opens to the page when dropped, because it is coated in old batter spatters and drops of food coloring...pink for Valentine's day, green for St. Patrick's day...it's like a post-modern road-map of my youth. If Jackson Pollack wanted to say something about me childhood, he would need to look no further.

Anyway, here's the recipe. Cook, eat, love.

Sift together:

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup buckwheat flour

2 Tbsp flax seed meal

2 Tbsp pecan meal

1/4 tsp sea salt

2 1/2 tsp no-sodium baking powder

There are some coarse things in this mix. I used a whisk to work them through the sifter, then dumped the last couple of tablespoons of yummy pecan chunks, etc in anyway and gave it all a little whisk. Feel free to skip the sifting, as I usually do; I just wanted as even a consistency as possible while refining my technique.

In a smaller bowl, mix:

1 cup skim milk

3 Tbsp melted and cooled extra virgin coconut oil (feel free to sub vegetable oil or butter...mmmm...butter...)

1/4 cup egg beaters (1 egg equivalent)

1 tsp amber agave nectar

1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce (optional: I like adding the applesauce for flavor, but it makes the consistency of the pancakes a little gooey inside after cooking. I tried it both ways this morning, and definitely prefer the with-applesauce option, but if you want a very fluffy pancake, skip it. Also, be aware that the batter will be thicker than normal pancakes, and if you don't add the applesauce, the pancakes will not bubble when it is time to flip; you just have to keep an eye on the underside.)

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and combine with a couple of strokes. The batter will seem runny for a minute, but thicken quickly. (It's all that baking powder.)

Now heat a skillet and spray with cooking spray, or coat with a little butter for more flavor. Dole out batter (about a 1/4 cup per pancake). I added about a tablespoon of frozen wild organic blueberries to the top of each one right after putting them in the pan. I highly reccommend adding some fruit, but the pancakes are good without as well!

I served mine with a little butter (oooh yeah!) and some sugar-free maple syrup.

"Why, sometimes I believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast!"

Ok, first of all, there is no such thing as heart-healthy fettuccine alfredo. But, this thing I just made is whole grain, low-sodium and effing delicious! it's high in fat, and you could probably play around with subbing nonfat greek yogurt for the creme fraiche and olive oil for the butter, but dude. this. oh god. ohhhh, this was good.

mmmm, guuuuuuh. (just now, i walked away from the computer to get the piece of bread i threw in the toaster and sop up all the leftover sauce with it.)

anyway, it was easy as 1-2-3, simple as doe-rae-me.

i boiled some unsalted (sigh) pasta water and threw in the package of fresh,whole wheat fettuccine i just got on sale at the farmers; market.

meanwhile, i threw into my serving dish a scant tablespoon of salted butter, cut into chunks and

then spooned around it 2 oz of creme fraiche. i sprinkled 2 teaspoons of plain old store-brand grated parmesan on top and cracked a bunch of pepper on there, too.

when the pasta was al dente (i used about 1/3 lb fresh, btw), i used my tongs to throw it right into the serving dish and then to toss it. i sprinkled another 2 teaspoons of parm on top.

i served mine with a salad made of cucumber and this amazing salad mix i bought at the downtown decatur green market today. seriously, it's worth 4

dollars, and it's worth the trip. i drizzled fresh lemon juice and a dash of olive oil on top, with some cracked pepper.

i also had this delightful glass of water, also graced by that most lovely of phallic vegetables.

by my calculations, this amazing food was only about 14% of my recommended daily value of sodium (about 335 mg). eff. yeah.

Heart-Healthy Enchiladas from Heaven

Ok, some vegan should marry me for this.

This may be my most successful pantry-challenge yet. I am really making a concerted effort to eat the food I have, instead of continuing my pattern of manic proliferation of foodstuffs, just because I'm bored.

Tonight, I invented Enchiladas.

O. M. Jeezy.

They're good.

Here goes:

I opened a can of no-salt-added beans and threw them in a pot for a couple of minutes, just to get hot and let some of the seasonings in. I threw in some onion powder, equal parts cumin and coriander (thanks, Dusti), some white pepper and a touch of garlic powder.

Once those were good and hot, I tossed them aside (I'm fickle that way).

Then, because I have no dishwasher in my adorable new apartment, I rinsed the pot for the next round. The next round, by the way, was all of the vegetables I thought looked go-together-y from my fridge, freezer and pantry. I ended up with some garlic, a red onion (side note: woooooooooooo! that red onion had been in the pantry for a hot minute! when i was chopping it, i was crying as if i was watching sense and

sensibility!), the kernels from an ear of corn, some three pepper blend (bt-dubs, I really can't say enough about Trader Joes' frozen three pepper blend. It changes my life with each recipe.), and most of a package of baby bella mushrooms. Isn't that pretty?

I threw a tablespoon or two of olive oil in the pot and cooked the veggies, 1/2 batch at a time, until they got good and roast-y. In case you don't understand the terminology of good and roast-

y, feast your eyes:

Meanwhile, I made the sauce, thusly: I threw 2 or 3 tablespoons of no salt added tomato paste in a bowl and added spices until it tasted normal-y. I wanted oregano, but I'm out, so I used marjoram and just a bit of Italian seasoning. Of course, I added a bunch of chili powder, and also a touch of this other thing that I thought was chili powder, but was probably red curry powder. A touch of onion powder, some healthy dashed of aromatic bitters, 1/8 teaspoon coarse sea salt, some cracked pepper and a fair amount of cumin. Then I threw in 2 or 3 tablespoons of olive oil and enough water to make it the right consistency. (I like mine thick, but you can thin yours with more water just as easily.)

My veggies were done right about then, so I turned off the burner, turned on the oven, and started assembling.

I mixed the veggies together and put them on soft-taco sized whole wheat tortillas. These tortillas are the heavyweights in this meal, as far as salt content goes, so I filled them pretty full,

trying to help the good food --> salt ratio a little.

I lined them up in a 9x13 casserole dish (they ended up pretty big!), topped them with the sauce and baked them at 350 until I was done washing the dishes and having some orange juice, about 15 minutes.

Then I ate one up. I served it with some nonfat Greek yogurt in lieu of sour cream, but sour cream would be alright, too. I recommend something. I found that the yogurt was the final ingredient that brought the dish together and made it taste like more than just a lot of unsalted, cumin-y food. The onions had really sweetened up, as well, and they were delectable.

I have this new habit of counting sodium amounts in my head, the way hardcore dieters count calories. It's interesting; I think it is coincidentally teaching me portion control. By my calculations, each of the enchiladas had about 235-250 mg of sodium, or around 10% of your recommended daily intake. If you're a single girl, like me, who also happens to have freezer paper because you used it to stamp your own wrapping paper this Christmas, you might want to consider freezing the rest for quick meals to take with you.

Make.

Eat.

Enjoy.

Go in peace.