it will do
Andrea
Last weekend was the epitome of the perfect Spring weekend. Saturday was kicked off with a trip to the farmer's market, where a lovely assortment of spring greens, asparagus, green onions and fresh eggs were purchased as we browsed the stalls, cup of coffee in hand. After that was strawberry picking in the country, where Brian and I desperately tried to find enough perfectly ripe berries in the sea of green-tipped adolescents to make our 25 minute drive worth it.
Apparently the field had been picked clean by a gaggle of girl scouts the weekend before and hadn't quite recovered yet. Now I have nothing against girl scouts, but when they clean out the strawberry field I am left with a few bitter thoughts in my head. If you've been reading for awhile, you'll know that Virginia's strawberry season is short and I look forward to it all year long. Luckily my momentary bitterness was nothing a strawberry frozen yogurt and a trip to the reservoir to let the dogs swim couldn't fix.
On Sunday we continued our celebration of spring weekend by grilling out with friends. Brian has been working to perfect ribs on our Big Green Egg grill for a year now, with a long hiatus in the middle for those cold winter months. We thought that this weekend was going to be it, the moment when the ribs would come off the grill after spending hours smoking over low heat, perfectly moist and fall-off-the-bone tender.
I anticipated telling you all about them and had their post written in my head. It was going to be so perfectly coincidental that our first attempt at ribs on the Big Green Egg had been exactly one year prior, on the weekend of my graduation from UVA's M.Arch program, and that exactly 12 months of debates and research and a dozen racks of ribs later I would be sharing with you the perfect rib recipe. Sadly, it isn't so.
While their flavor was delicious, as it always is, the tenderness of the ribs just wasn't where Brian wants it to be. We'll get there, I promise, and you all will be the first to know - after we call all of the friends whom we've been experimenting on to gleefully tell them that we have finally mastered ribs on the Big Green Egg and to please, please, stop by for another taste-test.
Until then, a recipe for ginger bundt cake with ginger-infused strawberries will have to do.
And it will do, I promise, because here's the thing about this cake - it. is. delicious. I knew it would be a success as I was blending the farm-fresh eggs into the batter and it was turning the beautiful golden color you see above. The texture was just what cake batter should be, and the color given to it by those vibrant orange egg yolks (which you just can't get from grocery store eggs) was so beautiful that I did a little dance after each addition. The ginger-infused syrup for the strawberries is so perfect that I can't help but think of cocktail recipes that will utilize it all summer long.
This cake fits right in at the backyard barbeque, nestled in between ribs on the grill and the last few games of Baggo. It has a consistency similar to pound cake, and if you choose to forego the strawberries one could easily eat a piece with their hands without it crumbling to bits. This would be very helpful if a second serving were desired after the backyard games had begun, which is not unlikely.
I hope you'll give it a try this Memorial Day weekend, and if you do, be sure to save some for the next day. For as good as it is on a sunny afternoon piled high with gingered strawberries and accompanied by a glass of white wine, its even better with coffee the next morning. Trust me, it will do.
The recipe for Double-Ginger Sour Cream Bundt Cake with Ginger-Infused Strawberries can be found here, or in the April 2009 Bon Appetit.
The turbinado sugar I dusted on the inside of the bundt pan didn't stay crystalized like the pictures show in the magazine. Instead the sugar melted and formed a perfect crust on the outside of the cake. We loved it.
I substituted white whole wheat flour for the all-purpose and it was delicious.
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Apparently the field had been picked clean by a gaggle of girl scouts the weekend before and hadn't quite recovered yet. Now I have nothing against girl scouts, but when they clean out the strawberry field I am left with a few bitter thoughts in my head. If you've been reading for awhile, you'll know that Virginia's strawberry season is short and I look forward to it all year long. Luckily my momentary bitterness was nothing a strawberry frozen yogurt and a trip to the reservoir to let the dogs swim couldn't fix.
On Sunday we continued our celebration of spring weekend by grilling out with friends. Brian has been working to perfect ribs on our Big Green Egg grill for a year now, with a long hiatus in the middle for those cold winter months. We thought that this weekend was going to be it, the moment when the ribs would come off the grill after spending hours smoking over low heat, perfectly moist and fall-off-the-bone tender.
I anticipated telling you all about them and had their post written in my head. It was going to be so perfectly coincidental that our first attempt at ribs on the Big Green Egg had been exactly one year prior, on the weekend of my graduation from UVA's M.Arch program, and that exactly 12 months of debates and research and a dozen racks of ribs later I would be sharing with you the perfect rib recipe. Sadly, it isn't so.
While their flavor was delicious, as it always is, the tenderness of the ribs just wasn't where Brian wants it to be. We'll get there, I promise, and you all will be the first to know - after we call all of the friends whom we've been experimenting on to gleefully tell them that we have finally mastered ribs on the Big Green Egg and to please, please, stop by for another taste-test.
Until then, a recipe for ginger bundt cake with ginger-infused strawberries will have to do.
And it will do, I promise, because here's the thing about this cake - it. is. delicious. I knew it would be a success as I was blending the farm-fresh eggs into the batter and it was turning the beautiful golden color you see above. The texture was just what cake batter should be, and the color given to it by those vibrant orange egg yolks (which you just can't get from grocery store eggs) was so beautiful that I did a little dance after each addition. The ginger-infused syrup for the strawberries is so perfect that I can't help but think of cocktail recipes that will utilize it all summer long.
This cake fits right in at the backyard barbeque, nestled in between ribs on the grill and the last few games of Baggo. It has a consistency similar to pound cake, and if you choose to forego the strawberries one could easily eat a piece with their hands without it crumbling to bits. This would be very helpful if a second serving were desired after the backyard games had begun, which is not unlikely.
I hope you'll give it a try this Memorial Day weekend, and if you do, be sure to save some for the next day. For as good as it is on a sunny afternoon piled high with gingered strawberries and accompanied by a glass of white wine, its even better with coffee the next morning. Trust me, it will do.
The recipe for Double-Ginger Sour Cream Bundt Cake with Ginger-Infused Strawberries can be found here, or in the April 2009 Bon Appetit.
The turbinado sugar I dusted on the inside of the bundt pan didn't stay crystalized like the pictures show in the magazine. Instead the sugar melted and formed a perfect crust on the outside of the cake. We loved it.
I substituted white whole wheat flour for the all-purpose and it was delicious.
The smells that accompanied these mornings were varied but always indulgent. Sometimes we'd have flakey buttermilk biscuits with sliced ham and provolone, or my daddy would fry up eggs that we'd sop up with buttered toast alongside lil' smokies or pan-fried bacon. And some mornings there were cinnamon rolls or even better, orange danishes. Popped from a can, baked for 15-18 minutes and then slathered with glaze - those Sunday breakfasts were my favorites.
These days, now that I'm all grown up (some might argue with the truth of that, even me...) Sunday mornings are still somewhat lazy and indulgent. Saturdays are started early, sometimes with a long run, and always (during the season) with a trip to the farmer's market for breakfast and the week's produce before embarking on the day's agenda full of errands, chores and projects. Saturdays are busy and productive, the perfect justification for the extra 30 minutes in bed on Sunday mornings and the indulgent breakfasts that typically follow once my feet hit the floor.
And even better than my extra 30 minutes in bed is the fact that Brian typically requires an extra 2 hours in bed on Sundays, leaving me with the kitchen all to myself. This is my baking time. I wake up to a quiet house and kick the dogs out to the back yard to ensure that it remains quiet. I clean up any leftover dishes from the night before while going through breakfast ideas in my head. This is the time when new
These cinnamon rolls were delicious, certainly a step up from the canned variety although they take about 3 times as long to prepare. I substituted spelt flour for some of the all-purpose and loved the extra flavor that the whole grains provided. I've become a big fan of spelt flour lately, experimenting with Wiggs' 
The original Cook's Illustrated recipe can be found 
One of the best aspects of going to Papa's house was his well-stocked kitchen. And by well-stocked I don't mean fresh produce, top-quality olive oils or a superb selection of dried fruits and nuts (my grandfather used his oven for storage and ate most of his meals at the local all-you-can-eat buffet). Instead, he stocked all of the classic junk food that I wasn't allowed to eat at home - "t.v. dinners", Little Debbie cakes, KoolAid popsicles, frozen Snickers ice cream bars, Campbell's Chicken + Stars soup. I'd run straight to the kitchen as soon as we arrived to see what goodies he had picked out especially for my visit (because of course, it was all about me).
My favorite treat, and his too, were the 
Papa was recently moved into a new assisted living facility that provides a more home-like environment than his last residence. For some reason, when discussing his new home with my mother, I get images of him sitting in his wheelchair at a sunny window with a butter cookie tin in his lap. I've had him, and those cookies, on my mind for the last couple of weeks. It was only a matter of time before I searched out a recipe to replicate them, and only appropriate that my adaptation of them involved another of Papa's favorite flavors - key lime. He is the 6th generation of Floridians in our family after all, making me 8th until I moved 5 years ago. Key lime juice is practically in our blood.
The above picture is misleading...please don't follow its direction. My first batch of these delights was baked on a cookie sheet with no grease, as the recipe specified. The result? Cookie shrapnel, as pictured below.
My trusty 
I sprinkled unsweetened coconut over the tops of my cookies (except for one batch, on which I forgot it and regretted it) and loved how the subtle toasted coconut flavor complimented the key lime. Also, I really like citrus. Really. So if you don't, you might want to reduce your key limes to 4 instead of 6.
One last thing - these cookies are addicting. If you don't want to eat all 36 of them I highly suggest that you share them with friends and co-workers. Because if they are in your kitchen you will eat them. I promise. By the handful.
Key Lime Butter Cookies
adapted from 
Baked Oatmeal with Strawberries and Bananas
original recipe from 
In the Blog World...
Cheese + Chive Buttermilk Biscuits
recipe modified from 
Oh yes, it was a weekend filled with indulgent breakfasts. Is that bacon on my plate?!? What?!?
I"ll be sharing another breakfast with you this week, but it is of the sweet variety and involves oatmeal. Get excited, because it is fabulous. :) And its healthier than eggs, bacon and biscuits, so who wouldn't be excited?
I hope you're all having a great week!
Granola is one of those grocery store items that I hate to buy. It is somewhat expensive and every time I pick up a box or scoop some into a bulk bag I think to myself "I should just make my own!" My good friend Beth sent Brian (my hubb) and I a batch for Christmas which was consumed quickly and similarly to Whitney's. Since then I've had granola on my to-make list, and the arrival of Whitney's package secured its spot at the very top of that list.
As I've written before, its spring cleaning time. I've been working through the containers of dried fruits and nuts in my pantry, cleaning out items that have been stored for far too many months to make room for new purchases. Granola seemed like the perfect way to use up the small quantities of miscellaneous dried goods that I had left. I dug around and found currants, cranberries, apples and pineapple along with walnuts, pumpkin seeds and a small amount of finely shredded unsweetened coconut.
As I gathered my ingredients I eagerly pulled up 
I quickly decided that powdered milk must not be an absolutely necessary ingredient in granola. My reasoning? Everybody loves granola, including Vegans. And a granola that contained powdered milk would not be vegan so powdered milk must not be necessary. This means that honey must not be absolutely necessary either but I chose to keep it in, because I do love honey.
For my kitchen sink granola (or should I say pantry shelf granola?) I decided to hop over to 
I spoke too soon. Imagine my surprise when I woke up Friday morning to a dusting of fresh snow on the ground. So. Very. Disappointing.
The unfortunate weather coincided with my Momma's arrival from Florida, where sunny 75* days have been the norm for weeks now. The weekend plans that originally included vineyard tours, outdoor meals and grunt work in the 
But there was still a race. The glorious 
One of the thoughts that kept me smiling through the race? Cake. I run so that I can continue to eat cake (and other wonderful baked goods of course, but cake is very near to the top of the list...). Because, you see, the other important event that coincided with my Momma's visit to Virginia was my Momma's birthday.
I wanted to make a cake that would remind us all of warmer days, in celebration of Momma's birthday and as a thank you for standing in the cold to watch me run. Luckily, I stumbled upon a variation of 
And this cake? Its almost fairy tale-like as well. I recommend that you make it as soon as possible, for the 
Lemon Yogurt Cake
from 
Among the items found? Crystalized ginger, dried cranberries, a bowl full of oranges. Okay, so the oranges were on my table, not in the pantry, but to me they make the perfect bridge from winter to spring. You see, I grew up in Florida, where winter citrus is abundant as are 80* December days. I've never associated oranges with cold weather and probably never will. And who doesn't think of warm, tropical places when biting into a juicy orange? Anybody? The power of positive thinking will get you far and I am determined that my bowlful of cheery oranges will carry Virginia straight into Spring without another winter storm. :)
On Sunday morning while perusing my pantry I was dreaming of baked goods, as is often the case, and thought of one I hadn't made in awhile. Scones.
For years I wasn't a fan of scones. Those I had tried were dry and crumbly, with nondescript flavors that left them completely unmemorable. Until one fateful Friday morning when a friend shared her daughter's fresh-baked scones at an office meeting, and I was hooked. Soft and supple, moist and flakey, the mix-in possibilities were endless. I knew I had to have the recipe, and lucky for me she shared.
The basic recipe for these scones was given to me years ago and I've been trying different variations ever since. Many different flours have made it into the experiments, all-purpose, bread, white whole wheat and whole wheat included. The whole wheat pastry flour is my favorite. It gives the scones the fluffier texture found when using the all-purpose, but leaves you with a happier conscience after having one for breakfast.
Citrus Scones with Cranberries and Ginger
makes 8 scones
Ingredients:
For another Bella Eats scone variation, 
I found 
I clicked through a 
The recipe calls for two 10" x 2" round cake pans, but I had three 9" x 1.5" round pans to use. I adjusted the cooking time and all was well, we just wound up with a taller finished product...which I think made it all the more grand and birthday-appropriate.
I got a little carried away with the amount of filling between the dense layers. My thinking was "the more the better!", and, "what a pretty picture it will make!". However, when it came time to smear chocolate ganache across the entire outer surface the excess filling was problematic. It oozed out and mixed with the frosting, making it difficult to get an even spread. My advice? Save the excess for vanilla ice cream.
This cake is excellent. The kind of excellent that makes it worth the 4-hour prep time (with a lot of resting to allow for cooling between steps..and photography) and the extra mileage you tack on to your runs to make up for having not just one, but two slices. The kind of excellent that leaves you dreaming of the endless possibilities this recipe permits just by changing the filling, or making cupcakes instead of a towering cake. The kind of excellent worth sharing with very good friends while drinking champagne and celebrating a very special birthday.
Double Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Filling
Makes 12-14 servings. Recipe from 
My hubb was such a sweetie and made me this gorgeous salad for lunch, complete with homemade vinaigrette! He even took pictures...can you believe him?!? I also was craving some soup, so I ran across the street to 
My salad had:
When we got home I knew I wanted something warm and comforting. Luckily I had some soup on the menu... This weekend I managed to fit in 2 long hot baths, complete with bubbles, vino and the latest Bon Appetit magazine. I also had the February 2008 issue of BA, which I hadn't had a chance to read last year because I was deeply entrenched in my graduate studies. I held on to all of my neglected foodie magazines so that I could read them this year, during their intended month to take advantage of the seasonal recipes always featured. I read about yukon gold potatoes, kale, meyer lemons and leeks. My reading left me craving a hearty winter soup...and a lemon drop martini. I fulfilled the first craving tonight, the second will probably wait until the weekend. :)
Tonight's dinner isn't a recipe from BA, unfortunately...it probably would have turned out a bit better if it had been. It was good, the flavors were spot-on, but the texture of the soup was a bit, well, gluey. For lack of a better descriptor. I believe the reason for the extra thick creaminess was my use of yukon golds, which in hindsight I think would be better suited to a chunky soup than a pureed soup. Lesson learned. I will definitely try this recipe again, just with a different type of potato.
Dinner: potato leek soup with kale and hearty oat biscuits.
[437 cal]
Potato Leek Soup with Kale
226 calories, 7.4g fat, 1g sat fat, 37.5 carbs, 4.9g fiber, 9.2g protein
makes 4 servings
Ingredients:
I also made some
Dessert: more beautiful grapes.
[110 cal]
Alrighty, I'm feeling much better now but am ready for bed. I really want to get up in the morning for my run so that I can keep my evening free for yoga, although that means I'll only be getting about 5.5 hours of sleep. :( There are not enough hours in a day!!! How many hours of sleep do you get a night? I feel really lucky if I get 7, but I'm usually closer to 6. Not good...
G'night!
I was really excited when
I'm relatively new to the world of blondie baking, in fact I've only made blondies two other times and both were inspired by 
I used natural sweeteners (turbinado sugar and the dates, of course) and whole wheat pastry flour to make the recipe a bit healthier than some of the others I was looking at. But don't let that fool you, they still aren't light in calories. Next time I'll experiment with replacing some of the butter with yogurt, and maybe add in some applesauce. Also, eliminate the egg yolks? But overall, I am very happy with the result. The rest of the batch is going to my co-workers and my hubb's co-workers. Unhealthiness problem solved. :)
The sweetness of the dates complements the saltiness of the peanuts perfectly. I thought about adding semisweet chocolate chips to the mix, even had them portioned out and ready to go in the mixer, but decided at the last moment that they might overpower the dates so I left them out. I'm so glad I did. The dates are subtle and delicious and would have been lost with the addition of chocolate.
My inspiration came from
Typically I would take a recipe like this and try to healthify it, using natural sweeteners and substitutes for the refined sugar, oil and white flours. But it had been awhile since I'd made a full-fat, high-cal decadent cookie, and this seemed just the recipe to indulge on. And it helped to know that I would be sharing the 18 resulting cookies with 12 friends and co-workers tomorrow during the inauguration ceremony. I followed David Leite's instructions almost completely, but did have to make two substitutions. The first was to use ghirardelli chocolate bars chopped into 1/2" pieces instead of chocolate disks. The second was to replace the cake flour. I scoured the shelves on the baking aisle at Whole Foods and found no such flour. I decided to substitute the whole wheat pastry flour I had at home and hope for the best.
A warning: the dough requires 24 hours of refrigeration before baking. I made the dough last night and of course sampled it, which made me all the more excited to come home from work tonight to bake the cookies. Its kind of nice, the phasing of the recipe. You get all of the mess out of the way the first night and are left with the simple pleasure of balling dough and pulling perfectly golden cookies from the oven the second night.
These cookies are worth the 24-hour wait and the extensive blogger hype. Totally worth it. They are perfectly crisp around their golden edges, soft and chewy in their centers. The sea salt adds an unexpected depth that heightens the flavor of the chocolate while at the same time reducing its richness...a quality that makes it even easier to finish the entire 5" mammoth cookie all at once. In case you missed the link above, here is the 
Here's a recap of my other eats for the day, although who wants to read about them now that I've introduced cookies to the mix?!? Especially when its a day full of repeats...
Breakfast: the standard oat bowl. I know, I know. But I love it and its very filling and that's good enough for me.
Snacks: my Oikos is back!!!!! 1 blueberry Oikos and a tangelo. Sadly, I didn't actually eat the Oikos 'cause I just wasn't hungry enough. The tangelo was excellent though.
Dinner: leftover veggie soup with some bulgur added to it and a hearty oat biscuit. So good, and this is the last of it. :)
Dessert: a cookie. Of course. :)
And I'm off. Have a great Tuesday, everybody! Happy Inauguration!!!
I received this little crêpe pan, along with a crêpe-making lesson, from my stepfather for Christmas many years ago. Surprisingly, it hadn't been used in a few years and I decided that this was the morning to take it out of retirement.
Crêpes are really quite easy to make and can be filled with either savory or sweet combinations. We chose sweet this morning. I'm inspired now to make one of my dinner crêpe recipes soon though... I used 
After my lovely french breakfast I went to my favorite Vinyasa Yoga class at Studio 206. Class was fabulous as usual, and I left feeling all gushy and dreamy. :)
Lunch: the last of the leftover roasted squash + potatoes on bulgur, along with 3 Back to Nature Multigrain Flax flatbread crackers.
The
I used 
This recipe is really great and so fast to whip up. Like I mentioned above, next time I will add a bit of salt. I also think that adding rosemary or chives would be really tasty, and maybe a bit of sharp cheese.
Alrighty, I'm exhausted and have to work tomorrow. :( So sad. I hope you all had a fabulous weekend!
This recipe comes from 
A quick recap of today's eats so far...
Breakfast: Oats! I'm so in love with my normal combo, I just can't get enough! This morning I stepped it up an extra notch by adding dried figs. Yum! The fig seeds added perfect little bits of crunch.
Lunch: Leftovers! I know I promised another wrap, but when I opened the fridge this morning and saw a perfect lunch-sized portion of leftover pot pie and collard greens, I couldn't resist.
Snack: 1/2 cup Fage 0% and 5 lovely strawberries. I have to say, I'm really loving the Fage. Its making me miss my Oikos less and less each day...
Tonight the hubb and I are going over to our friend Amy's house for dinner, which is why I'm posting a bit early. I'm making a quick lasagna recipe that I'm really excited to try and can't wait to share the results with you tomorrow!
Be sure to check out 
I've loved the different swirl breads I've seen pop up over the holidays, but have never attempted one myself. I thought about banana bread with a cranberry swirl...yummy for sure, but I had no overly ripe bananas on my counter. Cinnamon bread with a cranberry swirl? I couldn't find or come up with a plain cinnamon bread recipe to modify. Sweet potato bread with a cranberry swirl? Now we're talking, I just happened to have a baked sweet potato sitting on the top shelf of my fridge. But wait...Sweet Potato Apple Bread with a Cranberry Swirl? Ding Ding Ding!
I started with the recipe I came up with for 
I was pleasantly surprised when I peaked in the oven after 45 minutes and all seemed well. And the smell...oh. my. goodness. It took me right back to the holidays. I gave the bread an additional 5 minutes to set up then pulled it, placing it on a rack in the pan to cool for 10 minutes. It fell a bit after sitting, I'm sure the cranberry goo contracted as it cooled and lost air bubbles, causing the bread to cave in a bit. I was absolutely terrified to flip the pan and release the loaf.
Another pleasant surprise...it released perfectly.
After letting the loaf cool on the rack without its pan for 40 minutes, I couldn't resist slicing it to see how successful our swirling method had been.
I wouldn't call it a swirl, per se, but the CK added a lovely touch to the sweet potato apple bread, both visually and orally. I will DEFINITELY be making this recipe every year, along with the cranberry ketchup. :)
Sweet Potato Apple Bread with a Cranberry Swirl
Ingredients:
I hope you all had a fabulous Monday!
Coconut Mango White Chocolate Bread Pudding
Ingredients:
You will probably need two medium-sized loaves of bread...Italian is what we typically use. If you remove the bread from its packaging and sit out over night it will be sufficiently stale the next morning. Remove all crust and cut into 1" cubes.
The recipe is really quite simple and the combination of flavors is absolutely perfect. I actually made this for my co-workers for breakfast once and they were very, very happy...
I hope that some of you will try it and let me know what you think!
Make sure to be quick with getting the marshmallow goo from your mixer to the pan and smoothing it out, it starts to harden pretty quickly. After we had our batches settled in their pans (we made 2, one vanilla flavored and the other peppermint), we let them sit overnight to set. In the morning, I released the marshmallow from the pan to cut it into little 'mallows.
I tried several different methods of cutting, and didn't have any knives that worked for me. The hubb suggested that I use my stainless steel scraper, and it was perfect. The key is to push the blade straight down through the marshmallow, don't pull it through like you would cut a cake. The 'mallow is just too sticky and it deforms if you try to pull a cutting utensil through.
They turned out beautifully, and are so amazingly good. You've never had a marshmallow if you've only had the store-bought variety...these are 100 times better.
After cutting the marshmallows (and eating quite a few!) we moved on to 
The chopped cherries, walnuts and crystalized ginger were perfect compliments to the dark chocolate.
The chocolate-y goodness spread out nicely on the sheet pan, but at this point I was still skeptical of how the bark would turn out. I was worried that when we cut it into individual pieces it would shatter into much smaller pieces than I was hoping for.
But it came out perfectly. I was shocked at how easy it was to cut and how nicely it sliced into small pieces. And the flavors are amazing together, not too sweet.
We also made 
This was so fun. I love doing projects like this with my hubb. It probably took us two full days with all of the candy making, shopping for ingredients + materials and assembly of the boxes, but it was so worth it. We've had great reactions from our friends and had such a great time putting the gifts together!
Ok lovelies, I'm off to another holiday party tonight, this one is for the hubb's office. And tomorrow morning, at a VERY EARLY 5am, we are loading the car up with luggage, presents and dogs for our 13 hour drive to FLORIDA!!! YAY!
Have a fabulous evening... :)
What is your favorite holiday dessert?
Ingredients:
This is why the parchment paper part of the process is SO IMORTANT. When the scones first came out of the oven they looked like this...
The hubb and I thought we'd leave them on the sheet for a few minutes until the peppermint hardened and then we would just pop them off the sheet. WRONG. The peppermint is like glue...those scones weren't going anywhere after being out of the oven for just one minute. So, back in the oven they went to soften the peppermint.
Once the peppermint softened after a few minutes we brought each scone out of the oven individually and put them on parchment paper on the drying rack. I'm dreading scraping off the cookie sheet...we may just be buying a new one because I don't know how we're going to get the hardened peppermint off of it...
Theses scones are soooooo good. I love the texture of them, they are a little softer than scones you get in bakeries. They have more of a biscuit-y texture than the dry, crumbly texture typical of the classic scone.
The peppermint is perfect. The eggnog doesn't come through as much as I had hoped, which might be a good thing since the peppermint is pretty strong.
They are so festive visually and in flavor, they'd make a great addition to a Christmas baked goods gift.
Not pictured:
I made two loaves, so I sliced one and put it in the freezer for later.
Sunday Dessert: Becca's award-winning 
Snacks: I of course snacked on some of the baked goods I made throughout the day. I think I wound up eating two of VeggieGirl's Pear Pistachio Ginger Blondies and one of Jessica's Chocolate Gingerbread Bars. No pics...sorry! I need to get better about my baked good / snack consumption...I've been going a little overboard. :(
Monday Breakfast: Toasted Ezekiel Cinn Raisin Muffin w/ 1 tbsp almond butter and sliced banana, the rest of the banana on the side.
Monday Lunch: 1/2 a leftover 
Snacks Monday: My lunch calories were a little light (surprising I know, but the enchirito really isn't bad for you!) so I was hungry for this beautiful pear a couple of hours later. I also grabbed one of the chocolate gingerbread bars that I brought into the office to share with my co-workers.
And because I was in the office until about 8:30, I ate 1/2 of this Clif Builder's Bar at 6:30 to keep myself from eating more choco. gingerbread bars... (iphone pic, sorry!)
Monday Dinner: My hubb came to the rescue again with a fabulous quiche!!! I'll post this recipe later too...it was SO YUMMY! And I was starving by the time I got home so I had 1/4 of it, along with a glass of chardonnay (no pic...).
And for dessert a molasses clove cookie (see what I mean about the sweets!?!?!?)
We're almost there!!! Thanks for hangin' in there for this LONG post! :)
Tuesday Breakfast: Toasted Ezekiel Cinn Raisin Muffin with 2 tbsp PB...I wanted to make sure I wouldn't get hungry on my drive and be tempted by a Starbucks baked goodie! Also, a banana.
I managed to get PB all over myself while driving. It was dark and I had no idea until the sun came up...pathetic. :P
Tuesday Morning Snack: I stopped at Starbucks for a grande non-fat chai latte about halfway through my morning drive.
Tuesday Lunch: We all went out to a fantastic Vietnamese restaurant where I ordered grilled tofu on lemongrass vermicelli noodles. It was AMAZING but I have no pictures because it was definitely not appropriate to pull out my iphone with the entire team of architects and engineers present. It was sooooo good though...
Tuesday Afternoon Snack: My hubb was so sweet and made me a very special trail mix to snack on during my long drive...he even took the pictures for me so that the note stayed a surprise. He's the best!!! :) I had a handful of the mix on my way home.
Tuesday Evening Snack: One glorious dark chocolate covered joe joe...
Tuesday Dinner: Leftover quiche and a spinach salad with hearts of palm, red bell pepper, cucumber and lite ranch dressing. And a much-needed glass of cabernet after my long day.
Whew!!! Thanks for sticking with me! I'll be back later tonight to post today's eats and the two dinner recipes I promised. I feel so out of the blog loop because I haven't read any since Sunday!!! I hope to get caught up tonight... Have a great day! :)