Last night I took an herbal cocktail/mocktail class with my friend Brittany from Eudemonia Herbs. The emphasis on seasonal libations that harness the bursting herbal energy of spring included a little cup of rose sugar for rimming the glass, and I swiped that as part of my goodie bag.
When I woke up this morning, the rain and wind called me to the kitchen. Did I combine the rose sugar from Eudemonia and the basic principles of spring Chinese medicine that my friend Martha at Full Moon Acupuncture is teaching in her seasonal Renewal to come up with a sharp, pungent, sweet, and soothing baked treat?
You bet your ass I did. And here it is.
Ginger Lime Scones With Rose Sugar
Ingredients 2 cups gluten-free all-purpose flour (or regular AP flour, but don’t knead too much) ⅓ cup sugar 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder ½ teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon baking soda ¼ cup crystallized ginger, chopped Zest of two limes 8 tablespoons butter, very cold and cut into small cubes ½ cup sour cream or yogurt 1 egg Rose sugar for topping (see Notes)
Method: Preheat oven to 400⁰.
In a medium bowl (big enough to get your hands in), mix together flour, baking powder, salt, ginger, and lime zest. Add cubes of butter and rub flour into the butter until the mixture resembles cornmeal (this can also be done in a food processor in pulses).
In a small bowl, mix the sour cream and egg. Stir this mixture into the dry ingredients, pressing and stirring the sticky dough until it comes together.
Turn the dough out on a lightly floured surface and knead it slightly to bring it together. Shape the dough into a circle that is approximately 8” across. Cut into eight triangles and place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet about one inch apart. If you want smaller scones, you can also cut the triangles in half; you can also shape the dough into a rectangle and use a circular cookie cutter. If you opt for the cookie cutter, use a metal one with a sharp edge (this allows the scones to rise).
Sprinkle each scone with rose sugar.
Bake scones for 17-20 minutes or until they are golden brown. Let cool slightly before serving.
You wake up to a wintery landscape, snow blowing in delicate flakes, adding to the two inches that has already fallen on the railings of your balcony and weighed down your plant’s new leaves that last week’s 65-degree temperatures coaxed unseasonably into life.
Scones. That’s the thing for today. It’s too blustery for walking, and there is no need to go anywhere, so you pile up books and paper and pens and lists of movies (or whatever you really like when you’re hunkering down), and you throw together scones, ready in 30 minutes (but better after cooling if you can wait that long).
When you realize you don’t have an egg, you don’t panic. You substitute a tablespoon of vegetable oil, a tablespoon of water, and a few splashes of cream. And it all turns out just fine.
1/4 cup each chopped walnuts and chopped crystallized ginger
Zest of one lemon
Turbinado sugar for topping
Method:
Make sure your butter is frozen before you start.
Preheat oven to 400⁰.
In a medium bowl (big enough to get your hands in) mix together dry ingredients. Grate butter into dry ingredients, and quickly rub flour into butter until the mixture resembles cornmeal (this can also be done in a food processor). Add chopped walnuts and ginger and stir to combine.
If you are using sour cream, mix egg and sour cream together in a small bowl. Stir this mixture into the dry ingredients, pressing and stirring the sticky dough until it comes together.
On a lightly floured surface, shape the dough into a circle that is approximately 8” across. Cut into eight triangles and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet about one inch apart. If you want smaller scones, you can also cut the triangles in half.
Sprinkle each scone with turbinado sugar.
Bake scones for 15-18 minutes or until they are golden brown. Let cool slightly before serving.
Waffles. Plain, sweet, savory, topped with chicken, or wrapped around a generous tablespoon of Nutella. No wrong answer.
This has been a helluva a ride, 2020, and we are in for a wild few (more) weeks? Months? Years?
You can still influence that timeframe by voting if you have not already. Make it count by dropping your mail-in ballot in an official ballot box OR donning a haz-mat suit and voting in person. However you do it, VOTE.
But in the meantime we have somehow made it through another week of biblically-proportioned disasters, both natural and manmade. It’s time to rest and reset, preferably with something absolutely delicious.
Pancakes and muffins are for Saturdays, but Sunday means waffles.
Crispy on the outside, soft and steamy on the inside. I eat the first one off the iron with my hands before the lid is even closed on the second one. Drenched in maple syrup, spread with Nutella, or oozing with homemade apple butter.
Sometimes, truthfully, delightfully plain. It is brunch-y goodness.
But here’s my recent discovery: play your cards right, and you can eat waffles all day long. One recipe, minor modifications, and you have breakfast and supper all in one.
Regular sweet waffles in the morning (ish) with whatever toppings make you feel warm and fuzzy inside.
Then in the afternoon? What about the afternoon?
Chicken and waffles, friend.
Someone has actually looked into the history of chicken and waffles, but all you really need to know is this: it is pretty much the best thing you can put in your face on a Sunday afternoon.
I like mine with a fried chicken breast or thigh (easier to eat, and ease is the rule. Purists insist on the bone. I do not.), a copious drizzle of honey-sriracha sauce, and pickled banana peppers or onions or maybe an apple slaw with vinegar and jalapeno.
None of these things take long to make. Ten minutes, max, made while the waffles are cooking.
Easy like Sunday morning. And afternoon. As it should be.
Basic waffles
As ever, this recipe is gluten-free, but you can certainly use gluten-packed regular all-purpose flour if you’d like.
Ingredients
2 cupsgluten-free all-purpose flour blend 1/2 tsp. salt 1 T sugar (use 2 T if you are skipping the savory recipe) 3 tsp. baking powder 1 1/2 cups milk 2 eggs, beaten 1/4 cup neutral oil (you can use butter, melted and cooled, but oil is easier) 1 tsp vanilla (sweet version only)
In a medium bowl, mix the first four ingredients (the dry). In a small bowl, combine the last four ingredients (including vanilla if you are only having sweet waffles) and mix until totally combined. Add the wet to dry ingredients and stir until they are no longer lumpy. I use a whisk and beat out any remaining frustrations from the week. #Smile #Breathe
SAVORY VARIATION
At this point, if you are planning on waffles for brunch and chicken and waffles for football snacks, move half of the waffle batter to a separate container and add 2 T chopped chives or scallions (chives give a less intense zing) and a generous grind or three of black pepper.
Optional: up to one cup of grated cheese of your choosing. Cheese for me is gilding the lily, so I wouldn’t use it for chicken and waffles. Maybe with a burger and a fried egg.
Cook the waffles according to the directions on your waffle maker (they all vary, so me giving directions for mine is pointless. You know your own tools, so go with your instincts on this one).
Cook the sweet waffles first, then the savory. In my waffle maker, this makes six to eight waffles, depending on how diligent I am with getting equal amounts ladled for each waffle.
When it’s time for chicken and waffles, here are a few tips:
Set up a breading station. Pat the chicken breasts dry. Dip into cornstarch, then a beaten egg, then a mixture of gluten-free all-purpose flour (or almond meal is delicious here) that is seasoned with salt and pepper. Let sit in the ‘fridge while the oil heats.
Keep frying oil at 350 degrees. This ensures a crisp coating AND cooked chicken.
A medium-sized chicken breast takes between ten and 15 minutes to cook. I am not above cutting one open to check. I find taking an internal temperature to be a dangerous proposition in hot oil, so I do a visual check.
Make these vegan. Obvi, skip the chicken and use any egg and plant milk substitute for the waffles themselves. Flax eggs would work here, and a neutral milk will serve your better (almond milk seems to come closest to neutral).
Serve these with a sauce that is equal parts honey and sriracha, or try a sauce of yogurt, Dijon mustard, and a touch of honey. Or drizzle the whole thing with maple syrup. #YourChoice
Don’t sleep on this delicious, versatile snack/breakfast/garnish.
Look, I’m not gonna say that this is the best thing you’ll put in your mouth all week. I don’t know how you live your life. But if you want a strong contender for that title, this crispy quinoa granola is it.
Packed with protein, filling, slightly sweet, salty, versatile AF. As at home on top of a curried squash soup as it is in a vat of that extra fatty Scandinavian yogurt. Excellent with plain old (non-dairy) milk or eaten dry out of a coffee mug with a spoon as you lie in bed watching cooking shows. #AskMeHowIKnow
Take 30 minutes (largely hands-off) and make yourself happy. You’ll be glad you did.
Crispy Quinoa Granola
(makes about four cups)
Nuts, seeds, and fruit can be subbed in any combination you like. Just keep amounts the same and you’re all good.
Ingredients
1 cup almonds, chopped
1 1/2 cups uncooked quinoa
1 cup pumpkin seeds (I used salted)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup honey (see Recipe Notes)
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup dried fruit (I used cranberries)
Method
Preheat oven to 300 and line a large rimmed baking tray with parchment paper.
Combine almonds, quinoa, pumpkin seeds, and salt in a large bowl and stir to combine.
Add honey and oil and mix completely. Pour onto baking tray and spread evenly. Use two baking sheets if the mix is more than 1/4″ thick.
Now the fun part, where you need be mildly diligent. Cook for a total of 25 minutes on 300, stirring every 8 minutes or so, then turn the oven temperature up to 350 and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes, stirring every couple of minutes.
Be careful here. Your quinoa will go from a lovely brown to a charred cinder very quickly.
When the quinoa is a nice deep brown, remove from oven. I like to take it off the baking sheet (still on parchment) and set it on my cool marble counters to cool completely.
DO NOT SAMPLE WHEN HOT. The quinoa will cling to your fingertips and lips and burn the shit out of you. Be patient.
Store in an airtight container. This might last longer than a week, but I doubt I will try that out.
Recipe Notes
If you are eliminating added sugar, you can use apple cider syrup instead of honey. Reduce any quantity of apple cider (not juice) by half and use that instead of honey. You can also substitute maple syrup here. If you like a slightly clumpy, sticky granola, honey is your best bet.
The picture above is made with almonds and cranberries. I can imagine that cashew/apricot and walnut/cherry would be delicious.
This is unspiced, but I also imagine that cinnamon would do well here.
A long soak – the first stage of bitter orange marmalade.
In the alley behind KWeeks’s house there are three Poncirus trifoliata trees. Known more commonly as bitter orange, hardy orange, or sticky orange, it grows well even in cold climates, hardy to -10F.
Which means that these trees, neglected and largely left untended, are perfect for Baltimore, itself often neglected.
I had an entire blog idea in my head for this, but I completely forgot it before I wrote it down. It was a good one, though, genius level, in fact. You’ll just have to take my word for it.
So instead I will share an article I read this week in The Guardian, an article that gives me hope for the future (which is challenging to come by. Hope for the future, not articles from The Guardian.).
Evanston, Illinois, one of the most segregated places in the U.S., has become the first in this country (the world?) to begin the formal process of reparations for slavery.
You should really read the whole article and the story of Robin Rue Simmons and what inspired this transformative, reparative act, but in a nutshell, the city is providing grants to BIPOC people who wish to buy a home (along with support for renovating it) and making plans to build a new school in Ward Five, a historically-Black neighborhood that has never had a school.
They are funding these grants and the school with taxes from the cannabis industry, attempting to re-distribute wealth from a predominantly white-owned business sector that has, again, historically incarcerated Black folks for the very thing that white people are making money off of now (growing and selling weed).
When I read this, I fired off emails to Brandon Scott, Baltimore’s presumptive Democratic mayor, and Larry Hogan, our Republican governor with a history of hating Baltimore. I suggested they work together to legalize recreational cannabis and to put this type of restorative justice in place for the state of Maryland.
Rather than pay developers to tear down entire city blocks and then gentrify the shit out of them so that Black folks can no longer afford to live in their own neighborhoods, let’s lift up those same folks and get them started building generational wealth.
Let’s build/remodel/equip world-class schools and community centers in those same neighborhoods to educate our kids for free – fulfilling the promise of public schools (access to a high-quality, free education).
And let’s open up the cannabis industry in Maryland to BIPOC instead of reserving it for white wealth. This should, of course, come with commuted jail sentences (and an expunged record) for all people currently in jail for cannabis offenses. Full stop.
I have only gotten a form letter back from Hogan and the same from Brandon Scott (his at least said his staff will review my email; Hogan’s basically said, “Thanks for writing.”).
In the meantime, I shook the hell out of those bitter orange trees until the walnut-sized, fuzzy fruits dropped to the ground (mind the two-inch-long spiky thorns as you grab the tree). Their juice is mouth-puckeringly tart, and each tiny fruit has about 146 million seeds. On top of all that, some part of them when you squeeze them for juice is sticky – so sticky that I had to put my cutting board and good knives through the dishwasher to clean them off.
But the effort was worth it. This bitter orange marmalade takes two days to make and rewards the long-suffering with a bright, clean, tart/bitter/sweet spread. I imagine that it will be incredible on a cream scone with a generous slathering of clotted cream or extra-rich butter (cream cheese in a pinch).
I have five pints of this and will hoard it like it’s the last jam on earth, but I can see it making its way into a Victoria sandwich over the winter. If you have a bitter orange in your neighborhood, I highly suggest you shake the tree when it begins to lose its leaves and cover your head for the bitter oranges you shake loose.
Bitter Orange Marmalade
This recipe makes five pints total; I used half-pint jars because I never quite make it through an entire pint of any kind of jam. Know going in that the residue from these oranges is very, very annoyingly sticky. It will all be fine.
Ingredients
1 1/4 pound bitter oranges, well-washed
4 1/4 cups water
1 1/4 pounds sugar
Method
This bitter orange marmalade takes two days to make, and the first day is the soak.
Juice all of the oranges, and then strain the juice into a large jar with a lid. It’s okay if some of the pulp gets into the juice, but your don’t want the seeds in there.
Remove some of the pith – the white part inside the bitter orange – from the orange peel, but don’t be too precious about it. The pith is what helps the marmalade set.
Slice the peel into thin strips and place in the jar with the juice. Add water, stir, then let sit on the counter for 24 hours.
The next day, dump the juice, peels, and water into a large pot, cover, and bring to a low boil for about an hour and a half (or until the peels become translucent and soft). Your house will smell like bitters – antiseptic and pungent – so be warned but don’t worry. This goes away.
Add sugar and stir to dissolve. Bring the mixture back to a low boil, and simmer, uncovered, for about 40 minutes or until the marmalade sets.
Pro-tip: to test the set of the bitter orange marmalade, chill a small plate in the freezer, then spoon some hot marmalade onto the plate. Let cool for a few minutes, then run your finger through the marmalade. If it runs quickly back together, keep cooking. If the marmalade sea remains parted, it’s ready to can.
You can put this in a jar and keep it in the ‘fridge if you’ll eat it all in two weeks or so. Otherwise, plan to can in a water bath. SO EASY.
Bring a large pot of water to boil. Once the water is boiling, sterilize clean canning jars (with fresh lids) but dipping into the water and allowing them to boil for a few minutes. Dip the fresh lids in the water (and any ladles or funnels you’ll use to can. Success = properly sterilized jars).
When the bitter orange marmalade is ready, ladle into prepared jars (a funnel helps), leaving about 1/4 – 1/2″ at the top. Screw lids on loosely. If you don’t have one of those bright green canning baskets that make it easy to put jars in boiling water, sink a dish towel into the bottom of the boiling water so the jars don’t rattle as they boil.
Place jars in boiling water, making sure the water covers the lids by at least 1″.
Boil for 10-15 minutes (longer at higher altitudes), then carefully remove jars and place on a towel on the counter. Leave them completely alone for 24 hours.
You will know you have successfully processed your marmalade when you hear the satisfying “pop” of the center lid being sucked down. If you don’t hear it after 24 hours, press in the center of the lid. If there is some give, then it did not seal. You can attempt to re-process in a clean jar with a fresh lid, or you can put in the ‘fridge and eat the jam in yogurt, on oatmeal, with scones – anywhere you want some interesting, citrus-y goodness.
