they are scrumdidilyumtious!

***finally, i have a camera, a canon powershot sd 1100is. it's awesome. it's named "veruca, sweetheart." i love how, in willie wonka and the chocolate factory, mr. salt says this line to his obnoxious daughter, veruca. i was saying it over and over last week when i was playing with new camera, and blake suggested that "veruca, sweetheart" should be the camera's proper name.

i am now making mostly scones for the housing works. and this week, i made a new flavor, maple oatmeal (recipe to come later). for now, pictures of the goods. which are so good.

first, cranberry oat.

orange-currant.
a super-puffy version of goat cheese and green onion. they taste like onion bagels. they're bagels disguised as scones. yum.
and, lastly, maple-oatmeal. incredible. really. la creme de la creme. as you can see, i ate one.
and you can see the strawberry scones in this one. and my messy kitchen table.

organic wins.

by the way, if you think that the organic produce is just the same as the conventional, that it is too expensive, that you can't afford it, i totally get you. BUT, you have to eat the organic romaine lettuce. i know, it sounds weird, like how would it matter, anyways? it does. it's so good and spicy that i keep asking the brother to bring it home from his organic-friendly-work neighborhood (that's soho, kids).

and, a savvy friend sent me this list.
if you are wondering which organic produce makes the most sense, you can consult the list. if you think you can't afford every item organic, then this is the list for you.

converted.

those scones i wrote about yesterday? well, i made them vegan with soy milk and vegan butter. they taste incredible. even my brother ate some. and he's picky.

never have i ever.

so, before i started baking for housing works, i had never made scones before. i soon learned that they are incredibly easy and oh-so-quick to make. i mean, i don't know why i never did it before. few ingredients are required, and most recipes ask for you to mix them by hand, but i just do it is slowly on my stand mixer with the paddle attachment. i'm really into making strawberry scones, as they have oddly been on-sale in my incredible harlem supermarket (that's sarcasm, there). i initally found this recipe online somewhere but i am can't seem to remember the site.

1 cup chopped strawberries
2.5 cups flour, unsifted
3 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
6 tbsp butter, very cold, chopped into pieces
2/3 cup milk (could be soy, could be cream. it all depends on you.)
pinch of salt, though if i use salted butter , i don't add any extra.

heat oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit. approximately. my oven can be inappropriately incorrect.
1. mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
2. add butter. it will look oddly crumbly and coarse. that's how it is supposed to look.
3. add strawberries. mix.
4. add milk all at one time and only mix until it is "just" combined.
5. take the dough out of the mixer with your hands and knead it just a bit and then put it on a table or cutting board and smush it into a circle about 1/2 to 1 inch thick.
6. cut the circle into 6 pieces and place them on a baking sheet (recipes tend to ask for the sheet to have parchment paper but i think it's wasteful, so i don't use it. BUT, i do use a nonstick sheet. it makes it all so much easier).
7. cook for about 12 minutes. they will get a bit golden and lovely.

i like these with butter, even though they are filled with butter. some people like cream. they are best hot, but if you refrigerate them, they will keep for a few days.

when i make some tomorrow, i will take a picture and post it.

almost a new month. may is coming.

it's hard to have a blog. i think about what i want to put on it all of time; well, mostly when i am at work. and then, when i get home from work, i am lazy and think about tasty beers and how to cook the foods and then i get distracted. and half the time, the internet doesn't work. poo.

so i am making a resolution. to write more often. i bought a new camera so i can take pictures, too.

happy may day. go workers. laborers. hell-raisers.

yeesh.

i didn't forget you, blog, i swear. i've just been busy cooking.

what's the point?

so i initially started this blog to talk about food, a minor obsession of mine (some would say major obsession; my students from last semester would say it's all corn, all the time). i've been writing a lot about cooking, not really food politics. and now that i've been baking for the housing works for a while now, i've noticed some things.

• i don't get paid enough to make everything organically. the organization hasn't asked me to make everything using organic products, but i really want to do so. isn't that what we should be eating?
• eggs that are NOT free-range or organic or from pasture-fed chickens come in styrofoam packages. if i chose any or all of those options, i would be losing money on the goods i make just from the eggs alone. the "regular" brown eggs come a recyclable container. why not the others? and why are the brown eggs 30 cents more? is it the container? i spend extra so that the container is recyclable but the dilemma in the egg case at the store is maddening. am i the only one who over-thinks this issue?
  
• milk is another story. i buy organic valley milk. it's so good, and i don't even especially like milk. it's seemingly obscenely expensive, but the gross sorta-pasteurized regular kind doesn't last. i never even finish the carton, and buying the small bottles makes it almost as expensive as buying the organic ones. no one wants bovine growth hormone and utter pus in their milk. anyhow, i love organic valley. their soy products and their dairy products are outstanding (i wrote them a letter last year to tell them so, and they even wrote back); they are a farmer-owned coop; their farming methods are so sustainable that they won an award for them. they really have all the characteristics that i want in a company. and a milk product. i guess that one is non-negotiable for me.
  
• to that end, what's the point? if EVERY product that you put into a cookie is not organic, sustainable, pasture-fed, et cetera, then does it matter? don't you still end up eating things that you don't want in your body? does it matter at all that i over-analyze the dairy case? is it a waste of time? and what about flour? i like the unbleached flour by heckers, but it's rarely on-sale, and therefore, too expensive. does it all have to be enriched flour? can't i just get some grains in a bag? and, is it just insanity that i have two bottles of vanilla extract at home? one for the housing works (mccormick)? and one for us (organic)?
  
• i can't help but read the labels. you have to do so. it's crazy not to, isn't it? there are scary things out there, and they are in the food! (best examples: high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated anything). and what the hell are "natural flavors?" just tell me the flavor; i'll be ok. really, i will.
  

yes, the ignorance was so much easier.