Birthday Cereal

It's time for another edition of:















The Princess' 7th birthday brought on a slew of questions from family and friends. Everyone had the same burning question.

"What birthday cereal did she choose?"














She chose a box full of food colouring, refined sugar and highly processed grain and it lasted 2 and a half days.

What makes a box of Lucky Charms a box of birthday fun?

Read on.

A long time ago, on an island far far away, I made a new friend named Shannon. She lived across the street from me, went to our church, and her house wasn't perfect. It was wonderful.

Shannon changed my life.

She introduced me to the 'Birthday Cereal' rule, saving me from years of whiny children in the grocery store.

Ok....saving me from years of whiny children in the cereal aisle in the grocery store.

The rule is simple. The birthday child gets to pick one box of WHATEVER sugar filled, fake fruity, gagging chocolaty, dye laden cereal that their little heart desires. Their mother will not say 'no', although she will inform the checkout clerk the reason she's spending 8 bucks on a box of junk and that she doesn't always let her children rot their teeth on such stuff.

There is a secondary rule. It is to be shared amongst their assorted siblings.

The third rule is that this is the only time in the entire year that their mother will buy junk cereal. No exceptions.

It's brilliant. It eliminates whining for the rest of the year when it comes to begging their saintly mother to purchase junk cereal. Which she won't. And doesn't. Except on their birthday.

Conversations in the cereal aisle revolve around what cereal they're going to choose on their next birthday (even if it's 11 months away). But they don't ask if I'll buy it. When they were younger and they DID ask, I didn't need to answer 'no', but rather, 'on your birthday'.

And it's turned into a great family birthday tradition.

Works for me Wednesday is now being hosted over at We Are THAT Family. Head on over to check out some other great ideas linked on her blog.

Cranberry Orange Scones

It's time for another episode of:
Cranberry Orange Scones

I've looked at and tried out quite a few cranberry scone recipes. It's hard to find recipes that call for fresh cranberries. Also, I wanted a recipe that wasn't fussy. This house hasn't seen parchment paper or zest of anything since, well, several children ago.

So I ended up conglomerating several recipes into something pretty easy and not too time consuming. Cutting up fresh cranberries takes some time, but you can use a handy tip that my mom taught me. Say a prayer while you're doing something that is mindless and takes a bit of time. Like cutting up lots of little cranberries.

Enjoy!

Cranberry Orange Scones

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 Tbsp sugar

1/2 cup butter, cut into small pieces

1/2 cup fresh cranberries, chopped

2/3 cup orange juice

2 tsp orange zest (if you've got it and have the time. I never add it.)
















Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Mix dry ingredients together.

3. Add butter and mix until the texture of coarse crumbs.















4. Stir in cranberries, using a spoon.















5. Add orange juice and mix with spoon just until mixture comes together.

6. Empty onto counter and gently form into a rough ball.

7. Press ball into a thick circle.

8. Cut circle in half, then each half into three.

9. Place on doubled baking sheet.

10. Sprinkle with sugar (optional.....I like them iced, but they're great with sugar, too).

11. Bake for 22 minutes, until a light golden brown.

12. When cooled, ice with a thin vanilla or orange glaze if you haven't sprinkled them with sugar.

I always double the recipe and use margarine instead of butter. They're best when made with butter, but at $4 a pound out in these parts......margarine it is!

And now, I'm moving on to start perfecting some lemon scones. I don't think I'll be able to get away with 'zest free' for those.....

Recipes anyone?

** and is anyone else out there having major problems with spacing on blogger? No matter what I do, it won't save the changes I make with the spacing....I give up!!**

Pumpkin Scones

I read a lovely big blog called Rocks in My Dryer .

Shannon is the blogger I want to grow up to be. On a completely strange little sidebar, I have an identical twin out there in the world who is in no way related to me but she must exist because every once in a while I have someone come up to me and say, "SHANNON!!" and then do a double take and say, "Oh, I thought you were someone else.....wow......huh...." and then they just stand there looking at me funny. It's gotten less awkward as time goes by.

Anyways, Shannon over at Rocks in My Dryer has a weekly thingamabob called, "Works for Me Wednesday" where other bloggers can add a little or big tidbit of helpful info to help all of us out in this overwhelming world of ours.

So here's my tidbit for the day. Pumpkin Scones. I make these all the time. And I've been promising someone the recipe for about a year now, so, here ya go J. See? Even when I blog I'm multi-tasking. What a woman.

Pumpkin Scones

2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/3 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup canned pure pumpkin
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix all dry ingredients together.

Cut butter into dry mix using two knives, a pastry blender or if you're really lucky and your husband bought you a beautiful red KitchenAid Mixer for Christmas, you can use that. Blend until the consistency of course crumbs.

Mix buttermilk, pumpkin and vanilla together in a separate bowl.

Pour wet ingredients into flour and butter mixture.

Mix until everything just comes together....do NOT over mix. I'll come over and tsk tsk tsk if you do.

Pour mixture out onto a clean dry surface.

Knead dough 5 or 6 times, just enough to get the ingredients into a ball.

Gently press dough into a circle.

Cut circle in half, then cut each half into three. If you've done it right, you'll end up with six scones. Yay for math.

Get out two baking sheets. Put them together.

Place scones on top sheet (yes, you need to do this step. I don't know why, but putting the two sheets together helps in the baking process).

Bake at 400 degrees for 22 minutes.

While your lovely scones are cooling, make yourself some icing. Easy peesy.

1Tbsp butter
A bunch of icing sugar
A dab of vanilla
A smidge of hot water

Mix butter, some icing sugar and a bit of hot water together until creamy. Add vanilla. Continue adding icing sugar until the icing is the consistency you want.

Spread icing onto cooled scones.

For an added flair, reserve about a third of the icing you've made. Add about a teaspoon of cinnamon, then pipe the cinnamon icing onto the iced scones.

Enjoy!

I always double the recipe. And I never have buttermilk in the house. Just put 1 tsp of vinegar into 1/3 cup milk and voila! And I never use butter. I use margarine and they're delicious, but they'd be even better if you use butter.

Now....if someone has a great recipe for Cranberry and Orange scones, I'd be most grateful.