Five things make a Sunday morning

[ksmith]

The snow began last night. But it stopped around midnight--when I let the pups out around 430am, it still hadn't resumed, and I hoped that conditions had changed and we would avoid a pounding. 730am was another story. I am so glad I don't have to go anywhere. Still only an inch or two on the ground so far, and no clue how much we'll wind up with. I only hope the power doesn't go out.

Gaby's outside. She's nuts. She went out before breakfast, then came inside only long enough to eat. At one point, she was prancing around a rope toy that was frozen to the ground, stopping every so often to chew on it and try to pick it up.

King's inside. He has been outside several times, trying to entice the neighbor's dogs to run the fence with him. But those dogs are old, with very short coats. They stayed outside only long enough to do what they needed to. No running the fence for them today.

I have other things I need to do, but I want to bake something. King Arthur Flour sent me a free box of lemon-ginger scone mix with an order, and I will make them this morning. The house needs to smell of baking.

Dinner will consist of leftover pot roast unearthed from the freezer. If ever a day needed gravy, this one does.

Comments

[e-moon60.livejournal.com]

Definitely baking and pot-roast-with-gravy weather. We've having a dry cold front (will be in 20s tonight) with strong north wind and no clouds. No rain for over a month now. In fact, no real significant rain since the deluge in September. Very, very, VERY dry here.

Made cookies from purchased dough last night, lazy creature that I am (also with weather headache and a sinus that feels the size of a basketball.) Should start a lamb something today. Or soak beans for a bean soup, using the ham bone from Thanksgiving.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

The scones came out iffy. The recipe called for cold butter cut into pats. I used a stick of frozen butter hacked into pats. I worked it into the dry ingredients with the pastry cutter for a good 10-15 minutes, but it still didn't spread enough and the resulting mix wasn't "crumbly." So instead of waiting for it to soften so that I could blend things properly, I went ahead and added the wet ingredients and mixed. Dumped the mess onto the parchment paper-covered baking sheet, and tried to pat it into shape. But it was that weird scone dough combination of crumbly and sticky, and while I was able to shape it into a 9" round and run a knife through to make eighths, I couldn't separate the pieces. Being the impatient sort, I baked the mess anyway. When it was golden brown, I pulled it out. Waited five minutes, cut out a piece, and saw that the interior was still raw.

Since the pieces were much more solid, I was able to separate them and pull them apart. Shoved them back in the oven for about 10 minutes. Tried a small piece, and lo but the brown edge was the tastiest bit. So I flipped all the scones over so that the still-underdone undersides could feel the heat, and popped them back in the oven for another 10 minutes. Now they're done. Very brown, but that's how I like baked goods anyway. I always overbake things.