Buttermilk scones with cranberries and ginger

Scones with cranberries and ginger. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

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 Another variation on scones, this time with the dried cranberries and candied ginger sent by Frieda's Specialty Produce.  The scones are especially nice served for a holiday brunch, so practice the recipe a few times and turn them out for family and friends at Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Buttermilk scones with dried cranberries and candied ginger
 
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup unsalted butter, frozen
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup candied ginger, diced
Milk or cream for glazing
Turbinado, demerara or sparkle sugar for glazing

1. In a batter bowl, mix dry ingredients together. Using a regular grater, shred the chilled butter and with a light hand, gently mix the shavings into the dry ingredients. Using your hands and a gentle, quick touch, make sure the butter is evenly distributed throughout the flour mixture.

2. Pour in the buttermilk and stir gently with either a wooden spoon or my instrument of choice, a silicone spatula. If mixture seems dry, add additional buttermilk until a cohesive dough forms. The dough should be slightly wet and sticky, but not overly so.

3. On a floured countertop, press dough into a rough 12 X 6 inch rectangle (helpful shaping instruction visuals may be found on my basic scone post here). Spread dried cranberries and candied ginger onto dough, using your hands to press the fruit into the dough. Fold into thirds, letter-style. Press into 12 X 6 rectangle again and fold letter-style again. If any little fruits pop out, just press them back into the dough. Press again into a 12 X 6 rectangle and cut into 16 triangles. Place scones on a lined baking sheet. The scones can be refrigerated, covered, for up to 24 hours.

4. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Carefully brush each wedge with buttermilk or cream and sprinkle turbinado sugar over the top. Bake at 400 for at least 15 minutes. They may need a bit more time, depending on your oven, convection, etc. Scones are ready when they are golden brown on top and bounce back when touched lightly in the center.

Meyer lemon scones with dried blueberries

Scones with Meyer lemon and blueberries. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

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Lemons and blueberries are a natural pairing, and the winter version of this is Meyer lemons, the lemon-orange hybrid available for just a short while, and dried blueberries. Frieda's Specialty Produce sent me a package that included dried blueberries, just as sweet as mid-summer berries at the u-pick orchard. I folded the berries into my favorite buttermilk scone recipe, and freshened the dough with Meyer lemon zest and a glaze made with the juice.

Meyer lemon scones with dried blueberries
My favorite tip for tender scones is to shred chilled butter into the dry ingredients. I just use an ordinary grater, the kind I use for shredding cheddar cheese, and run the chilled stick of butter across it. The resulting butter curls are uniform and perfect for blending into the flour mixture.

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup unsalted butter, frozen
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
Zest of one Meyer (or other) lemon
Juice of one-half Meyer (or other) lemon
1/2 cup dried blueberries
Milk or cream for glazing
Turbinado, demerara or sparkle sugar for glazing

1. In a batter bowl, mix dry ingredients together. Using a regular grater, shred the chilled butter and with a light hand, gently mix the shavings into the dry ingredients. Using your hands and a gentle, quick touch, make sure the butter is evenly distributed throughout the flour mixture.

2. Pour in the buttermilk and stir gently with either a wooden spoon or my instrument of choice, a silicone spatula. Add lemon juice and zest. If mixture seems dry, add additional buttermilk until a cohesive dough forms. The dough should be slightly wet and sticky, but not overly so.

3. On a floured countertop, press dough into a rough 12 X 6 inch rectangle (helpful shaping instruction visuals may be found on my basic scone post  here). Spread dried blueberries onto dough, using your hands to press the fruit into the dough. Fold into thirds, letter-style. Press into 12 X 6 rectangle again and fold letter-style again. If any little fruits pop out, just press them back into the dough. Press again into a 12 X 6 rectangle and cut into 16 triangles. Place scones on a lined baking sheet. The scones can be refrigerated, covered, for up to 24 hours.

4. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Carefully brush each wedge with buttermilk or cream and sprinkle turbinado sugar over the top. Bake at 400 for at least 15 minutes. They may need a bit more time, depending on your oven, convection, etc. Scones are ready when they are golden brown on top and bounce back when touched lightly in the center.

Fresh Squoze Orange Juice (and Lewis Grizzard)

Fresh tangerines and juice. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

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The name Lewis Grizzard probably doesn't mean much to readers from outside of Georgia these days, but in his lifetime he was the most popular writer in my home state and throughout the Southeast. He was only 47 when he died of complications from heart surgery in 1994, but produced 25 books of Southern humor, mostly culled from his Atlanta Journal columns.
 
Grizzard was a master of the one-liner, many of which became his book titles  - "Don't Bend Over in the Garden, Granny, Don't You Know Them Taters Got Eyes," "My Daddy was  Pistol and I'm a Son of a Gun," "Shoot Low Boys, They're Ridin' Shetland Ponies," "When My Love Returns from the Ladies Room, Will I be Too Old to Care?" and "Elvis is Dead and I Don't Feels So Good Myself."

He was of a certain breed of Southern male true to his post-war generation. He was a good ol' boy faithful to his almost-alma mater, the University of Georgia, and a bit of a misogynist. Even in his heyday in the 1980s, his opinions on women seemed crazy outdated. Maybe that's why he was married four times. Maybe what's crazy is that a lot of female readers loved him anyway. You see, Lewis Grizzard was most of all a mama's boy, disparaging his ex-wives in his columns, but always putting his mama on a pedestal. After she passed, he collected those columns in a book titled "Don't Forget to Call Your Momma - I Wish I Could Call Mine." (a line that my mama reminds me was borrowed from Bear Bryant)

Lewis' mama babied her little boy, making him breakfast with fresh-squoze orange juice every day. And that's what I think about when I see three-pound bags of tangerines on sale for 49 cents apiece - fresh-squoze orange juice for my little girls. I used my hand-juicer and squoze every last one of those luscious fruit for the sweetest juice for my babies' breakfast.

My eldest daughter, the read-a-holic, pulled Grizzard's "If Love Were Oil, I'd Be a Quart Low" off the shelf a few months ago and recounted all of Lewis' stories of love and marriage gone wrong. We laughed about the stories, and I told her it's ok to laugh, but be careful of Mama's Boys - they will break your heart.

Make your babies some fresh-squoze o.j. now that citrus is cheap and plentiful. I found the 49 cent bags of tangerines at Aldi, my favorite shop for produce deals. It's super-easy to juice fruit and you don't need expensive equipment, although electric juicers are nice to have around. 

Fresh Squoze Orange Juice (or other citrus)
 in memory of Lewis Grizzard

Fresh citrus such as oranges or tangerines, sliced in half

1. Using a juicer, either a hand-press or electric model, squeeze the fruit. If doing this by hand, be sure to pick out the seeds or use a sieve set over a bowl. Store in a sealed container in the fridge until ready to use. No need to add sugar or other sweetener - your kids will be amazed at how sweet fresh-squoze fruit can be.

To learn more about Lewis Grizzard, check out his official website, Lewis Grizzard.com.  . 


Are you a Grizzard fan? Did you ever have a chance to meet him ( I had a couple of encounters that I'll write about soon)? I often think about what he would say about politics and popular culture in the 21st century. Did your mama make fresh squoze juice for you? Let me know in the comments.

Pasta with arugula pesto recipe

Pasta with arugula pesto and pine nuts. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

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I have to hide the pine nuts when they come into my house. It seems like everyone wants to nibble on these little guys - they're rich and flavorful and as the saying goes, you can't eat just one (handful).

Pine nuts. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

The good folks at Frieda's Specialty Produce sent me a goody package last month that included pine nuts. I nibbled on them for a bit, and then hid them in a succession of places - the pantry, the cabinet, the freezer, and doling them out in dishes like my New Year's greens with pine nuts and raisins.

Pine nuts from Frieda's. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

And then my neighbor gave me some arugula from her CSA box and I knew it was time for Arugula Pesto Pasta, the wintertime version of summer's best dish, Basil Pesto Pasta. Arugula is an acquired taste, I think. It can be peppery and strong, but I love it. I'm just saying that this dish is probably not going to win any fans under the age of 12. As we say in our house, that's just more for me.

Arugula. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Arugula pesto with pine nuts. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Arugula Pesto

4 cups packed arugula leaves, cleaned and stemmed

1/4 cups toasted pine nuts

1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

1/4 olive oil
 
Salt and pepper to taste

1 pound pasta such as spaghetti or rotini or farfalle, cooked according to package directions

More pine nuts for garnish


1. In a food processor, blitz the arugula leaves. Add cheese and pine nuts and process again for 15 seconds. With food processor running, add olive oil in a stream through the feeding tube. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper. Serve pesto over cooked pasta and garnish with additional pine nuts. Serve immediately. Store leftover pesto in an airtight container in the refrigerator, although it is best eaten when freshly prepared.

(recipe adapted from Epicurious.com)

Rotini with arugula pesto. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Text and images copyright Lucy Mercer, 2012.