~ Scones: A Recipe ~

Tea Time Scones

Scones are quite simple to make, so we usually make our own.   You can add all kinds of extras to your scones, depending on your taste.  Try cut-up apples, currants, ginger, orange zest, almond flavoring, cinnamon, apricots, fresh blueberries, cranberries, or even chocolate chips – our favorite!

           

2 c.  flour           

1 T.  baking powder

2 T.  sugar

1/2 t.  salt

6 T.  butter – very cold

1 c.  buttermilk, or whole milk

Egg wash ( 1 Lightly beaten egg with 1 T water )

Sugar, or cinnamon sugar for sprinkling on top

Mix dry ingredients.  Cut in 6 T.  butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. (If you want to add anything to your scones just mix it in before the buttermilk)  Make a well in the center and pour in buttermilk.  ( If you do not have buttermilk or lemon juice than just use regular milk.)  Mix until dough clings together and is a bit sticky- do not over-mix or you will get bricks instead of scones :) Turn out dough onto a floured surface and shape into a 6- to 8-inch round about 1 1/2 inches thick.  Quickly cut into pie wedges or use a round biscuit cutter to cut circles.  The secret of tender scones is a minimum of handling.  Place on an un-greased cookie sheet, being sure the sides of the scones don’t touch each other.  Brush the scones with the egg wash for a shiny, beautiful brown scone.  Sprinkle sugar or cinnamon sugar on top.  Bake at 425°  for 10 – 20 minutes, or until light brown.

The House Made Out Of Gingerbread... Part 2

Today we said goodbye to our Gingerbread House!  We tried a new recipe this year, and this was the sturdiest house we had ever made!  It took some MAJOR pulling and pushing to get this house to come down.  As you can see, the roof came off in a big chunk, and only a section of a wall would come off....

Well, for those of you who have only experienced fragile, and frail gingerbread house recipes, I thought I would share ours from this year!  :D

~~  Laura Elizabeth

Gingerbread House

Recipe courtesy Gale Gand

I once made a ginger bread house with my Banquette chef Bill at the Pump Room that was big enough to walk into. It was a life size gingerbread playhouse and took days to build. Have fun!

Prep Time:

2 hr 0 min

Inactive Prep Time:

3 hr 30 min

Cook Time:

15 min

Level:

Difficult

Serves:

1 house

Ingredients

Gingerbread:

• 8 ounces unsalted butter (16 tablespoons or 2 sticks), softened
• 1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup dark molasses (not blackstrap)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 6 1/4 cups cake flour
• 4 teaspoons ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Gingerbread House Templates, recipe follows

Royal Icing:

• 3 cups confectioners' sugar, plus more as needed
• 2 egg whites*

Assemble and Decorate the House:

• Heavy cardboard base for the house
• Pastry bag with a medium plain tip and a small plain tip
• Frosted shredded mini-wheats for the roof, as needed
• Mini tootsie rolls for a fence, as needed
• White Hershey Kisses for roof top spikes, as needed
• Small candy canes for a lamp post outside the door, as needed
• Granulated sugar for snow drifts, as needed
• Necco Wafers for a cobblestone path, as needed
• 3 large marshmallows, for snow man
• Pretzel sticks, for snowman arms, as needed
• 2 whole cloves, for snowman eyes
• Graham crackers to build a shed, as needed
• Assorted candy such as gum drops, peppermint drops, M & M's, white chocolate chips, red hots, non-pareils or snow caps, silver dragees, green mint jelly leaves, Life Savers, and Animal Crackers

Directions

In a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar and mix until light and fluffy. Add the eggs 1 at a time until incorporated. Add the molasses and vanilla and mix.

Sift together the flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, cloves, and salt. Working in batches, and mixing after each addition just until combined, add the flour mixture to the butter-sugar mixture. Shape the dough into a thick disk, wrap in waxed paper, and refrigerate 1 to 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and grease 2 cookie sheets.

On a lightly floured surface, divide the dough in half and roll each piece out into a large 1/4-inch thick sheet. Transfer the dough sheets to the sheet pans; then cut out the required shapes with your templates (see Gingerbread House Templates below).

Bake until stiff and toast-y, about 10 to 15 minutes. Let cool completely.

Make the Royal Icing: In a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the confectioners' sugar and egg whites together. Add more sugar, if necessary, to reach a spreadable consistency.

Assemble and Decorate the House: Glue the house walls together by setting them up on the cardboard base, and piping the royal icing at the joints with a medium plain tip from the inside. Prop the sides up with wine or soda bottles and let set for 30 minutes. Attach the roof pieces, using the icing in the same way

Using a spatula to apply the icing, glue the frosted mini-wheats on the roof to look like thatching. Attach the front door, with hinges made from icing (leave it open to be more inviting).

Decorate as you like, following the suggestions in the ingredient list, using the icing as glue, if needed. Use a small plain tip for any filigree style decorative line work, you may want.

*RAW EGG WARNING

Food Network Kitchens suggest caution in consuming raw and lightly-cooked eggs due to the slight risk of Salmonella or other food-borne illness. To reduce this risk, we recommend you use only fresh, properly-refrigerated, clean, grade A or AA eggs with intact shells, and avoid contact between the yolks or whites and the shell.

Gingerbread House Templates:

Brown paper bags, as needed

You'll need to make 7 templates, by drawing the dimensions out on brown paper and cutting them out. Use the templates as a stencil to cut the dough into the required pieces. Here are the templates you'll need:

Two front and rear walls: 5 inches high by 8 inches long. Cut out 2 windows from each wall, and 2 1/2 by 1 1/2-inch door in one.

Two side walls shaped like a house (triangle on a square): 5 inches high by 6 inches long, with a triangle 7 inches high on top (cut all in 1 piece). Cut 1 window out of each side.

Two overhanging roof pieces: 4 1/2 inches wide by 9 inches long.

One door: 2 1/2 inches high by 1 1/2 inches wide.

A House Made Of Gingerbread

For the second year in a row, we have made a gingerbread house with a friend!  

This year, our wonderful neighbor Renee came over to help out....

We started working on the dough right before lunch, at lunch, put the dough in the oven, took the dough out of the oven, and let it cool.....end of story!  We were talking and laughing so hard during the "rollin out" process, that we ran out of time to decorate!  :D  

Well, we never could find a time to have her back over, so Lizzy and I finished it up.

We decided to make a log gingerbread house -- like our new house here in TN!  Though the scaling isn't correct, and our field here isn't that small, we think it represents our little farm pretty nicely!  haha

Our "puddle" of a pond .....the candies that we melted stuck to the pans and made a sticky mess!

Our "not so healthy" garden!

We really enjoyed making this candy house!

Renee:  we will have to give it another try next year.....and start in the morning next time!  :D

~~Laura

Websites

Boy has this been a busy year so far!  Farmers' markets, sewing, websites, photography classes, baking, knitting, harp lessons, music recitals, guitar playing, candle dipping, soap making, birthday's...... we have done it all!  whew!  So many things to post about!  

Well, to start off I would like to mention that www.barefootseamstress.com is getting a makeover!  Elizabeth and I are making new additions faster than I can get pictures of them and then uploaded them on the site.  We are adding - funky, retro aprons, organic baby items including burpies, booties, hats and blankets, tea cozies, hand-dipped candles, homemade soaps, wonderful smelling lavender products, hand knit dishcloths, spa sets, and a bunch more that I can't think of at the moment!  ;-) 

A new addition to my list of "things that I love to do" is a photography business!  Yes www.imagesbylauraelizabeth.com is under construction!  Finally!!  :-)

Well, I will be posting our candle-dipping pictures as well as everything else that we have been up to very soon, so keep an eye out!

~~Laura

Fresh Bread Anyone?

Tomorrow we are having some friends over for a re-make of our Empress Tea!  This time we will be adding in some gluten free things as well as one WONDERFUL raw food dish.  Here is a sneak peak of one of the delights.........

More pictures and details later!

~~Laura

Lunch Time!

We don't have much time, but we thought we might share our "Elizabeth and Laura proof" lunch! It was completely gluten-free and totally delicious!  We have given the explaining to Muddy and so take a look at her blog in a bit.

Almond Milk

Mango Cherry Milkshake- with the Almond Milk

Raw Mexican Pizza

Elizabeth's Not Egg Salad

Raw Apple Pie

~~Laura

What can we say?

I know that "I'm sorry" really doesn't cut it this time. Our last break from blogging didn't have an excuse, but this time is different however. About 6 months ago we realized that Elizabeth had more food allergies than we could count. She and I also learned that we are gluten intolerant. All of this excess baking (and eating something that she was allergic to) really took a toll on Elizabeth and until recently she had been in and out of the doctor's office twice a week. Thank goodness she is doing better and is only going once every two weeks! We are now back to normal with a few additional activities that we can't wait to share! We have a lot of catching up to do, so hang around and see what has been going on around here. :-)

~~Laura

January Women's Luncheon Bazaar

Farmers Market Again!

Our second trip to the farmers market in Santa Fe in 2007. Only this time it was coooollldddd! What can we say, we're from south Texas.

We filled our ice chest and all sorts of corners of the van as usual with treasures from the market. Aahh! The smells and colors. We love it!

~~ Sisters

Au Revoir Garden Bread

Now that hatch chili season and basil weather is coming to an end, we will put a couple of breads to rest for the farmers market.

Our 2 french loaves that are stuffed with hatch chilis and sun-dried tomato pesto bread will be temporarily retired to make room for some fun fall goodies.



The new additions will include Pumpkin Cranberry Loaves (made with honey and no sugar), and our version of the Chocolate Zucchini Muffins. The pumpkin cranberry loaves are made with fresh organic cranberries that are sooo delicious and give a bright light flavor instead of the heavier denser dried cranberry versions. The chocolate zucchini muffins are so light tasting they could fly away -- once again with whole wheat flour and honey.

~~Sisters

Our Favorite Time Of The Year

Our favorite time of the year is 'Green Hatch Chili Season'. We will either get our roasted hatch chilis from Santa Fe, NM (if we are there in September ;-)) or we will get some from Whole Foods. (in the pictures below) We love to visit all the vendors at the Santa Fe farmers market who not only sell the chilis, but also roast them on site. The smell of roasted chilis can't be matched.

After packaging bags for the freezer, we then go to work.




Our first favorite thing to make with the fresh green chilis is homemade hot sauce -- YUMMY!
We use fresh tomatoes, garlic, cilantro, green chilis, lime juice and salt. Then we blend it all up in a food processor. While we are munching on chips and hot sauce, we start getting creative.




For this particular meal we made some chili mashers to go with Daddy's meal.




Here is Daddy's 'meat and potatoes' meal. We used grass-fed beef, organic carrots, the chili mashers, and of course chili season wouldn't be complete without roasted green chili french bread.


While Daddy was enjoying his steak we were enjoying our "BIG" salad. We start with a bed of greens, PILE on guacamole, sprinkle on corn and red peppers, splash on some of the roasted hatch chili hot sauce, and for an extra punch throw on more diced chilis.

Below is Muddy's salad ~~ Can you tell that we are from the Southwest? ;-)




To kinda cool the palate, this particular meal I made whole wheat sopapillas. We dipped them in plenty of raw honey ---- YUUUUUMMMMMY!

~~ Laura

French Day

While studying French with our friends, we enjoyed this Provencal Fougasse with our salad for lunch. Although this is an awesome bread, we don't make it for market because of it's 1 day shelf-life. It tastes great for a couple of days, but it is the texture of a cracker after the first. (This particular day it turned 'cracker' on us after 2 hours. ;-)

EASY TO MAKE

~~Laura

Pizza Fridays

Our whole family enjoys pizza, but each in our own way. Muddy likes it raw, Daddy has to have the meat, Elizabeth likes a variety but absolutely NO tomato chunks, and Laura ~~Everything but the ONIONS! Here are 2 pictures of our most recent pizza feast.

Laura mills fresh whole wheat flour and makes the dough from scratch. We then go out to the garden and find some of our toppings -- The pizza below has eggplant, greens and fresh herbs. Then we saute and add anything we have on hand. Some items include - olives, artichoke hearts, home-dried tomatoes, red onions (for Muddy), peppers, home-canned tomato sauce, shitake mushrooms, and turkey sausage for Daddy.

The bottom is a calzone which is everything stuffed into the dough, baked, and then dipped into tomato sauce.

~~Sisters

Summer Memories...

Is it mine or his?

I made some homemade doggie biscuits for our Mr. Bingley. In this first picture we are having him "leave it". That is something that we have taught him to obey before he digs into treats. He won't even trust himself to look at it until the person that said 'leave it' says 'OK!'.

The second picture is me trying the treat myself. (with Mr. Bingley eying me) ~~~ They were really good!


We will have some of these treats for tomorrows farmers market.

~~Laura






(And no he did not eat the whole plate....we allowed him just one)

Happy Birthday Laura!

Thought we would start at the end of July--My 16th Birthday. It was a pretty special one because my parents went halvsies with me on my new sewing machine! My old one (Elizabeth calls it her new Elna Jane) just wasn't giving me the right tension -- so my parents surprised me with the idea of helping pay for one so I could get it immediately. Of course, as soon as the new one entered the house, Elna Jane acted perfectly--good for Elizabeth.


Since I'm the baker of the family, I like to make all the birthday cakes--even my own. This wasn't actually a cake, but it did the job just fine. I found this recipe for chocolate zucchini muffins on Debbie's Blog. I'm up for anything with chocolate. I have made these three times since then, and have even changed the recipe --- keep an eye out for the new version in our upcoming cookbook.


Daddy took the family to dinner for our celebration. Muddy and I asked the waiter to make special salads. The waiter later told us that the chefs in the kitchen were so excited and had alot of fun coming up with something different and special. Here's the result. It has lots of veggies, mango, raspberries, avocado, as well as a beautiful chunk of brie--my favorite.

The waiter then surprised me with a little birthday candle on my dessert plate. What a special ending to a perfect birthday!

~~Laura

We're Selling at the Farmers Market!

She makes linen garments and sells them,
And supplies belts to the tradesmen.
Proverbs 31:24



She rises also while it is still night
And gives food to her household...
Proverbs 31:15

These last couple of weeks have been REALLY busy! We've been participating in a couple of local Farmers Markets! The first one was at 9:00 a.m. so we started baking at 4:00 that morning. This past Friday it didn't begin until 3:00 p.m. so we had a bit more time. It was a much larger market, so we still started baking at 5:00 a.m. to be able to bring many more items. As you will see in the pictures, we baked and baked and baked and baked.

The baked goods included ~

Challah Bread

Jalapeño Cheese Bread

Daddy's Favorite Sticky Buns

Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

I also had a selection of Aprons and Knitted Baby items. Elizabeth was the one who made those CUTE flip~flops.

We sold out of all of the baked goods within the first couple of hours. (Daddy was sad that there were none left over for him. :-) We had SOOO much fun. We are now getting ready for this Saturday's market.

Here are some of the 'Highlights' of our first two markets:

~~Laura