Easy Delicious Cheese Scones

These take less than 30 minutes start to finish. Preheat oven to 425F.

Scones

1 1/4 cup flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

mix

cut in 1/4 cup butter with pastry cutter

2 tbsp sugar

mix 

1/3 cup milk

Use a fork to mix milk into dough.

1/4 cup grated cheddar

Oddly, less cheese tastes better than more because more cheese has more water and the cheese steams instead of dry roasting. Gather the dough into a ball. Don't kneed it like bread or it will become tough. Just keep pressing it into a ball till the moisture has permeated all the flour and it holds together. Press it into a disk an inch or so thick and about 6 inches across. Cut into six wedges and place onto a parchment covered baking sheet, bake 12 minutes.

Simple White Cake with Caramel Sauce

This little cake is so easy it can be whipped up any time in no time! Preheat oven to 325F.

White Cake

1/2 cup butter creamed

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cup flour

1 3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup milk

1/4 tsp salt

Line with parchment or grease and flour a 9x9 pan.  Cream sugar into butter. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Add flour and baking powder, mix. Stir in milk till smooth. Bake 30-40 minutes. If you

are using all purpose flour you can get a softer textured cake by substituting a tbsp of corn flour for wheat flour. It lowers the gluten content, making the cake softer.

Caramel Sauce

1/2 cup sugar

2 tbsp butter

1/4 cup cream or milk

Caramel sauce is a little more daunting but not difficult to make.  Small amounts are easier to work with at first. Put sugar in frying pan and turn heat to just below medium. The pan needs to be hot enough to melt the sugar but not enough to scorch the caramel. When the sugar has melted, stir in the butter. Add the cream (I used milk, it's not quite as rich but it works.)

When you add the cream bring the whole pan to a rapid boil to melt any lumps of sugar. The more you cook it the thicker it will become. so a couple of minutes should be enough. That's it! Pour sauce over cake and enjoy.  

The best thing about home baking is it has ingredients that satisfy. Commercial foods have ingredients that don't satisfy so you'll keep eating. So if you keep fresh baking available, you'll find it easier to control your weight.

Cajun Snapper with Vegetable Stir Fry

Kevin caught a big snapper and shared it with us. It was almost too much. I pulled all the bones out and salted and seasoned it with Cajun spice mix. Fry it in olive oil. The rice was just done in the microwave with salt, olive oil and lemon juice. The stir fry was simply cut up vegetables, beef stock, salt, pepper, a dusting of flour and a few drops of Chinese Fish Sauce just before removing it from the pan. Delicious! 

Cajun Chicken on Caesar Salad

I salted and seasoned chicken breasts with Cajun Spice Mix.  Brush them with oil and put them on the BBQ over medium high heat. After a few minutes on each side turn the heat down to medium and cook about twenty minutes over all. The juices run clear when chicken is done. Also, the meat becomes firm. If it's still squishy, it's still raw in the middle.

Caesar Salad

1 cup croutons - I make mine from alpine bread and fry them in olive oil before using.

1 egg yolk

juice from 1/2 a lemon

salt

1/3 to 1/2 cup olive/canola oil

finely diced clove garlic

few drops Worcestershire Sauce

1/2 cup grated parmesan

black pepper
1 head romaine lettuce

Slowly whisk the oil into the egg yolk, a teaspoon at a time. If you add too much oil at once, the mayonnaise will break. Whisk broken yolk into fresh yolk to rescue it. When all the oil is taken up, you have mayonnaise. Add juice from half a lemon, a good pinch of salt, plenty of black pepper, the garlic, Worcestershire sauce. Toss and add croutons. Toss and add parmesan. Toss and plate.

A dated presentation but it's easy and tastes great!

Pork Cutlet

Mitchell's breaded pork cutlet with apple sauce. All you have to do is fry it in a hot pan with a little oil. If the pan isn't hot when the meat goes in, the breading will stick to the pan. If there is too much oil, it comes out greasy. The pan needs to be hot and the bottom covered with oil but not more than a tablespoon of oil pooled in the bottom when the pan is tipped. Keep adding small amounts of oil if the pan dries out.

The vegetables were steamed, dunked in cold water and reheated in olive oil.  Apple sauce straight from the jar for a condiment. Overall, a good meal.

Not Quite Honey Garlic Chicken

I wanted to have something other than Cajun chicken for a change. I had half a lemon in the fridge so I squeezed the juice out into a bowl and took curls of rind off and put them in the juice.  I added enough salt for both chicken breasts to the juice, double the olive oil than juice and a tablespoon of honey. A bit of pepper and some ground ginger. It all sounded so good.  I brushed it over the meat and put it on the BBQ.

The glaze run off the meat into the bottom of the BBQ. The flavour went with it. I managed to not overcook the broccoli so it was perfect. The potatoes were wonderful with a bit of butter and salt. The chicken just didn't take on any of the flavour I was trying for. It barely had enough salt.  Clearly I'm not good at this dish, I need to research and try again. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't great.

Pork Souvlaki

Pork Souvlaki from Mitchell's grilled on the BBQ, Basmati rice, Brussel's Sprouts and coleslaw. I think I screwed up the rice by putting too much rice in so it came out under cooked. The coleslaw was equally unimpressive. I didn't cut the cabbage thin enough. I don't really like red cabbage. I didn't make enough dressing. Over all, I probably should have ordered a pizza.