Spring draws near.  The singing of birds, the irises pushing their young greens up towards a sun still deciding if it wasts to shine or play hide and seek behind clouds of grey.

Trees think of budding.  The ground is warming.  The pests of spring are awakening while cats/kittens seek the sunbeams shining onto wooden floors.

It’s a new year.  A slow start.  The swirling of things to do, decide, to be, enjoy, leave behind and yet look forward to.

Of destroying and reshaping. Of building and reclaiming.   A reimagining of what it should be.  Or not be.

Now to get the damn pictures off the camera that show the mess in the front yard, the stump of the fallen weeping cherry (sob, so sad to see you fall) and the huge rock that needs to move yet again.  I think I’ll get Girrl out there to push it around.   Blink.  Blink.  That’s not moving no matter how much she tries.

Backhoe!  STAT!

But to soothe the frazzled nerves, calm the panic of a yard gone to dirt/mud/chaos.

Cookies.

Be still my heart.  The cooking bug is back and it’s demanding.  Pushy damn thing.

Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 cups quick cook oats
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup of coconut

Cream together the butter, the sugars.  Add eggs, stir until combined.  Add vanilla.
Add flour, baking soda, salt mixing it all together.  Add oats, pray wooden spoon doesn’t break.  Mix.  Add chocolate chips and coconut.  Stir until all ingredients are combined, arm tired.

Oven 325 degrees

Use spoons to drop dough onto greased baking sheet.

Suggested cooking time is 12 minutes.    For cookies the size I made them, more like 18 to 19.

Cool on sheet, remove to wire racks to finish cooling.  Swat Girrl and Retro-Man away from cookies like flies at a picnic.

Enjoy.

Variations in the works:  dried cranberries and almonds in place of chocolate chips.

My hips will never be the same.

The ingredients flew from the cupboards like a strong wind stirring up trouble.   I pulled down the bowls, selected a size and started assembling.

In went flour, baking powder, and salt measured by hand.  From the fridge, out came butter and milk; from the drawer a fork and a spoon.

Unwrap the butter after measuring what is needed, grab the paring knife and slice, slice and slice into the flour combonation.  Hands oily, mind racing.  No calm to be baking but what the hell.  All speed ahead.  What can it hurt?

Use the fork, smash the butter and flour into a messy look.  Slop in milk, remove fork, in go hands and growl, smash, mangle, work the dough.

Flour stove top, dump dough, grab rolling pin and steamroll the dough as if it’s the answer, or the cause of all potholes.

Clean hands, grab butter again, slap on dough.  Scrub hands of slippery slimy feel before looking for brown sugar. Toss on and give it the hmm, is that enough or more look.  Away goes the brown sugar, back into the black hole of my baking past.   It screams neglect.  I don’t listen and shut the door.

Cinnamon, where is it?  I grab paprika and move it and shove chili powder and cumin around until I shove the oil out of the way.  Damn cinanmon is not where it’s supposed to be.  The spice cupboard is jumbled, a mess,  a place of haphazard who gives a crap organization.  Locating the damn spice, I sprinkle it on the dough.

Biscuit dough gets rolled, sliced with the buttery paring knife and for once I had the baking pan ready to go.  Except for the baking spray I totally forgot to use.

Into a preheated oven, 15 minutes later out come godzilla’s revenge.  They aren’t pretty and the aroma through the house is amazing.  I can’t wait to chomp, the inhale and enjoy something so tasty.

And the biscuit could qualify for a puck.  A hockey puck.  A stone.  A masterpiece of overworked dough that should never have seen the inside of an oven.

Obviously I’ve forgotten a gentle hand is key to making a nice dough/biscuit.

Maybe I’ll try again today as a nice treat for Boy.  It’s his last day of high school.

Where in the hell did the years go?  I know, they ran off with my baking skills.

Happy Wednesday!

While growing up, my grams would make bread, cinnamon rolls, and dough bellies (fried bread dough then rolled in sugar– to die for) but sometimes, when short of time, she’d pull out a few items from the cupboard and whip up biscuits.

Mmmm, butter, biscuit and jelly.  I was, and still am, in heaven over those biscuits.

Watching her make them is a lesson in a long time cook who has all the information in her head.  Unlike me.

I didn’t get the scones made.  Too much happening but damn, I can whip up biscuits and be happy with the mm factor.

A found recipe for biscuits:

Baking Powder Biscuits

(from a 1933 Recipe)

Ingredients:

2 cups sifted flour

2 tsp. baking powder

4 tablespoons butter or shortening

1/2 tsp. salt

about 3/4 cup milk

Sift Flour once, measure, add baking powder and salt, and sift again. Cut in shortening or butter. (this is where I use my hands by rubbing the butter into the flour). Add milk gradually, stirring until soft dough is formed. Turn out on slightly floured board and lightly “knead” for 30 seconds, enough to shape. Roll 1/2 inch thick and cut with 2 inch floured biscuit cutter. Bake on ungreased sheet in a 400 degree oven for 12-15 minutes. Makes 12 biscuits. You can also make tiny tea biscuits that are only 1 1/2 inches wide with a small cutter or glass bottom. These are great served with tea, jam or honey. Makes 24.

But I’m going a step further.  I’m making them into biscuit cinnamon rolls.

Instead of cutting the biscuit dough after rolling it out, get some butter, lay some on that lovely dough.  Yes, that’s the approximate measurement.  Grams doesn’t measure that part either.  After that’s coating the dough, grab brown sugar and toss it on.  Not too close to the edges.  Then dash on some cinnamon to taste.

Roll up, slice, place on pan and follow the directions to bake.

Then dive in and enjoy.

That’s before the hoover that is Boy finds them and inhales the batch.

Favorite family recipe? I’m dying to know.

A wishlist in my head.

I’ve been gathering items and going ohh, ahhh, that’s so yes, I would like, hell, I need that.

Like this.   In red.  Followed by this becuase it’s just too damn cute. No clue what I’d do with it but just give me the chance, Retro Man.

I’ve become addicted to Le Creuset.  It’s bad.  I see no cure.  I don’t want one either. And I’ve yet to own a single piece of it.

Don’t get me started on the knives that keep whispering to me.   Or the cookware that isn’t warped, scratched, sticking and oh so frustrated to use at times.

I’d forgotten how much I love to cook.  It’s easy when half the family is slightly I won’t eat that.  Or that!  Having one who will eat anything (omg, how can you eat that couscous?  The dog won’t even touch it!) is a blessing and a curse.  Of course, now he’s going to college this fall so I’ll be outnumbered.

The scones…they aren’t made yet.  I’d forgotten how busy life can get at the end of school year.  Then add in the pre-Grad stuff, the oh crap, the niece is graduating today moments and you have a recipe for a neglected recipe.

Which leads me back to bakeware I’ve been eyeballing.  Sheets that aren’t older than me (and trust me, that’s old) and and.. I’m blinded by the possibilites of new pieces.  Of creating just because.

This afternoon is looking good for baking.  Only 80 outside.    Now to find the recipe (I put it in a safe spot, should have remebered where that spot was….) and crank out some yummies.

Omg, where's the nest?

Aren’t they just cute?

The girls gave us their first eggs yesterday.

Tiny, slightly on the brown side (Girl called them yellow) and I think Retro Man has plans for them.

Happy almost Friday.  I think I need a weekend.  You?

On the menu for today: scones.

I hope I can do it today but if not, it’ll be done this weekend.  The idea of having these on hand is making my tummy rumble and grumble and dare I say, make the mouth drool?

I’m a sucker for cinnamon brown sugar combos.  Poptarts.  Cinnamon rolls.  Just a few items that put that together and make me nom nom nom.

Have a favorite bakery item?

Cinnamon Scones

Filling:
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons cinnamon
4 tablespoons butter, softened

Scones:
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg, beaten
4 tablespoons butter, melted

Topping:
3 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper

In a small bowl combine filling ingredients until they form a thick, crumbly paste. Set aside.

In large bowl mix flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Combine beaten egg with buttermilk and add about 3/4 of the mixture to the flour along with the melted butter. Using a fork, stir until dough comes together, adding more buttermilk mixture if too dry. Just as dough is coming together, turn onto floured service and kneed 4 or 5 times gently, just to bring dough together nicely.

Pat dough out into a rectangle, about 10×16-inches. Place filling evenly along one, long side of the rectangle. Fold long side of dough over filling, ending up with a rectangle about 5×16-inches. Seal edges.

Slice into 4 rectangles, each 5X4-inches. Slice each rectangle on the diagonal, ending with 8 triangle shaped scones. Place scones on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush tops with remaining buttermilk mixture, or if none is left, with plain buttermilk. Combine cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle over tops of scones.

Bake at 425 F for 14-16 minutes or until firm and lightly browned. Serve while still slightly warm or cool completely.

Makes 8 scones.

Food.  I love it.

Most of my family doesn’t get the way I adore certain foods.   The texture and the taste can make or break an item for me.

Hershey Kisses.  Okay, not the best chocolate but there is something about that candy that I can seriously OD on.

There are countless examples of what I’ll head straight for like a cat faced with catnip.

Enter a night that the family unit needs dinner.  Fast, tasty, and what I have on hand and it better not be spaghetti.  Again.

Google the ingredients.  Toss the first few suggestions as meh.

What I found, what the family fell on like starving fiends and was requested over and over.

It’s become comfort food.  It’s become 4 bodies in agreement on what’s being served.

Consider me speechless.

Simple ingredients and yet fit my simple requirements to make it sing.

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef
1 can (10 3/4 oz.) Campbell’s® Condensed Cream of Celery Soup (regular or 98% Fat Free)
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 cups frozen hash-brown potatoes
3 slices process American cheese

Directions:

COOK beef in skillet until browned. Pour off fat.

ADD soup, water, ketchup and Worcestershire. Heat to a boil. Stir in potatoes. Cover and cook over low heat 10 min. or until done. Top with cheese.

That’s it.   Only one suggestion was offered on the first outing of this recipe.  Swap out the Worcestershire and add mustard.   Yeah, we’re great foodies.  Really.  Snort.

The other thing.  I didn’t have Cream of Celery that night.  I had cream of broccoli.  Girl turned up her nose but it warmed the cold shell of my heart to see her diving into seconds.

Last night’s offering was yet different again.   Cream of potato soup.  Added in mixed veggies.    And doubled the spuds, the soup amount and a bit extra water.  Still good but not the best zing I expected.

Would I do it that way again?   More than likely no.

Will this simple recipe get made again?  I have a feeling it will become a requested item much like the dreaded spaghetti.

Now if they’ll all fall in line over lima bean soup.

Got a recipe you love to cook and they love to eat?