Video debut: Lime Cardamom Scones

Could I possibly look MORE like I've just been goosed? Well, as promised (or warned) here is my very first recipe video: Lime Cardamom Scones. You can see my teaching approach is very "free form" and a little unorganized but, and I hope you'll agree, entertaining and somewhat informative. Hey, I'm no professional! But I had a wonderful time and this will be the first of hopefully many more videos to come.

For clarification, the recipe shown in the video is a little off. Mainly because I was winging it and was relying on my failing memory. So please follow the recipe below. Also, where I say "2 1/3 cups of dried cranberries"...uh, that's WAY off. It's 2/3 cup. If you need any further clarification don't hesitate to drop me a line. Good luck!

LIME CARDAMOM SCONES

DRY
3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup pastry flour
6 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
6 TB sugar
3 tsp lime zest
3 tsp cardamom
2/3 cup craisins

WET
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup oil
2 tsp vanilla
2 TB lime juice

Preheat oven to 400˚.

In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients together with a whisk. Then whisk wet ingredients together and add to the dry ingredients. With a rubber spatula gently mix everything together. If dough seems too dry to hold together, squeeze about 2-3 tablespoon of lime juice into the dough and continue folding and mixing until dough holds together, pressing the dough into the dry bits at the bottom of the bowl until it becomes one cohesive mass.

Gently press into an 8” circle and cut into 6 wedges. Line a baking try with parchment paper and set each wedge about 2-3 inches apart. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until pale brown on the edges. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. When nearly completely cool you can go ahead and drizzle on the glaze. Let the glaze dry for about ten minutes before serving.

GLAZE

1 cup icing sugar (or more if needed for thickness)

2 TB lime juice
1 tsp grated lime zest

With a small whisk or fork, mix together the icing sugar, zest and lime juice until thick but pourable.

It's break time...

Hey folks, I'm taking time off from Hearth & Larder for a little while. But I will return all refreshed and ready for next year. Thank you all for your kind support. Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season and a very Happy New Year!

I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille

Is it true the camera adds ten pounds? Baking scones and other fine fare sure does. It's an occupational hazard. Thankfully I had plenty of help getting rid of the evidence last weekend on the set of Smells like Sunday, an online cooking site created by chef Keith Severson.

As my passions have led me by the nose all my life, so it has for film maker, Robert Ellenwood of 500 mph films. Robert and his wife Marilyn have been close friends of mine for over 20 years now and as our lives have crossed paths in the past in music it's making it's convergence again in food with the filming of my first "webisode" of Hearth & Larder videos. To be honest, this is a work-in-progress and I really don't have a title for what I'm doing exactly. It will evolve, though, and hopefully prove to be entertaining at least!



I'm anything but conventional so there's no way I could stick to any formulated script. I just said, "What you goin' play now? Bobby, I don't know....but what's in EVER I play it's got to be funky". Ha! Just kidding. But seriously, I said, "just let the camera roll and whatever happens happens." We'll fix it in the mix. We shot two recipes of scones; Lemon-Blueberry and Lime-Cardamom. I referred to my failing memory for the recipes but I've made them so many times now I think I managed to reproduce them correctly. With the "camera crew" as my audience, I began blathering about scones and other non-related subjects; their grins and muffled laughter egging me on. The perseption of elapsed time is definitely subjective. Pauses in my speech that seemed WAY too long were actually quite short (thank god). Good to know for next time as they are helpful in giving the performance a little ebb and flow. Needless to say, the raw footage proved to be highly entertaining with eruptions of riotous laughter...all at my expense. So strange to see oneself on film let alone hear your own voice on a recording. I had no idea I was so animated and goofy - good times.

Here's Keith on set with camera man, Robert, and his lovely assistant (and wife), Marilyn. Marilyn's love of Mexican folk art is passionate, to say the least, and her artful vignettes are ubiquitous around their home. The bright, bold colors make an excellent backdrop for film.

At the moment, Robert is busy editing all the raw footage (hope he has something usable!!). So, stay tuned, kiddies, for a brand new video of yours truly fumbling about with sharp objects, gesticulating spasmodically, and flinging flour every which way. You get TWO recipes absolutely FREE of charge! Yes, that's right, with no obligation to you, you get not one, not two, but TWO scone recipes to use and reuse as you see fit. (By the way, Hearth & Larder claims no responsibility if you think these recipes are terrible. Hey, what do you expect? They're free.)

Norma's pie crust recipe: Just a wee bit of lard!

I'm standing next to Norma Barnes; a kindred soul and one heck of a gardener and homemaker. She's the mother of a close friend of my husband and, in fact, has claimed him as her own as well. I should be so lucky! Born in Irland, Norma came to Canada over 40 years ago and she and her husband, Alan, have always had a kitchen garden. It's actually the same garden I was lucky enough to pillage through and collect such a bounty I have in my arms here. A plethora of fresh herbs - coriander seeds (which I plan to dry and use in my Indian and Mexican recipes), French tarragon, basil, thyme, rosemary, oregano, parsley and gorgeous beefsteak and Roma tomatoes. Heaven!

Norma promised we'd make something together and that's just what we did. Fresh blueberry pie!

Free Blackberries!

So, I go to the Farmer's Market on Saturday and buy $10 worth of farmed blackberries; big, flavorless, blackberries. On my way home I noticed the blackberry brambles, which are considered more of a weed here in Vancouver, are sporting deep black, small berries which are finally getting ripe and...sweet! I started picking and soon ended up with about 2 lbs of berries. Naturally, I put them in the bag with the cherries (which was perforated) in my cloth reusable bag leaving a trail of black juice as I walked the rest of the way home, into our building, in the elevator and through the kitchen. A minor inconvenience for what insanely delicious concoctions the dripping mass was soon to become.

Super cute fluffy kittens!!!

Okay, so they're not exactly fluffy...
But super cute, right? Admittedly, this blog post is a bit of a "filler" one. I've just been taking a little break from blogging the last two weeks so I resorted to trickery to get your attention. I know; lame. But now that you're here why not stick around! I'll even throw in a recipe. But you have to read through to the bottom to get it. We cool? Cool.

Anyway...
So, now that I have a few Saturday's off from selling my stuff I headed over to the Trout Lake Farmer's Market here in East Vancouver last Saturday to buy some other people's stuff. It's about a five minute drive from my house which is most convenient...and most excellent. Not surprisingly, but not entirely expected, it was absolutely PACKED! But it was a gorgeous sunny day so what could be better? Umm....a million dollars? Well, considering the crappy summer we've had, I think the sun is a fair trade off.

Normally, I tend to only get specific things at Farmer's Market. I mean, it's easy to spend $50 on groceries and I just don't have that kind of cash lining my wallet. But this time I decided to splurge and just picked up what I wanted. I couldn't believe how beautiful the apricots were! Small with a gorgeous blush of red and quite good. I also bought three kinds of new potatoes, kale, farm fresh eggs, sweet golden beets, heirloom tomatoes of all colors, corn and some garlic. And speaking of garlic...

HARK! Are those sleigh-bells I hear?

I know it seems a tad early to be bringing up the holiday season now. I mean, we finally have some summer weather here in the Pacific Northwest, but after August 6th (this coming Saturday) Hearth & Larder will be taking two months off the whole market thing. However, I'll be back in the Fall beginning October 1st. And right around the corner are the Holidays and you know what THAT means...HOLIDAY BAKING!!! So, from November 26th through December 31st I will be making holiday items: Sourdough Stollen Rolls (pictured above), Lebkuchen (German Christmas Cookies), Snowballs and a few TBA items.

In the mean time...here are the scheduled Fall market dates for Hearth & Larder:

Number One!

Top Members this Week - Dreamers Into Doers
- Hearth & Larder

Hey, would you look at that! Hearth & Larder is ranked No. 1 this week! That is cooly shmooly.

Gone fishin' for a week (I wish)

Hi folks, just a quick note. I will be out of town this Thursday, July 21st until Sunday, July 24th. I will resume filling orders on Monday. Until then have a great week and weekend!

Also, there's two more dates left at the Tri-Cities Baker's Community Market: this Saturday (which I'm missing, sadly) and the last one August 6th where I will be offering yet another flavor preserve - Pomelo-Lime Marmalade (very limited quantities...like 4 jars) It's delicious with a hint of real vanilla bean.

So please spread the love and visit the market and help support these local small home-based businesses and indulge in some fantastic homemade baked goods! See you there!

TRI-CITIES BAKER'S MARKET: New products!

Are you a collector of conserves? Is your refrigerator jammed with jams or, dare I say, packed with preserves? Well, here's five more you can add to the clutter without causing an avalanche. Cute little 1.5 oz jars filled with artisan preserves all wrapped in a nice little package. They make great gifts, basket stuffers, wedding favors: the perfect size to pack with your lunch or take on a picnic. 

This coming Tri-Cities Baker's Community Market on July 9th I'll be offering these pygmy preserves along with a new scone flavor and a new jam flavor featuring summer's first harvest: STRAWBERRIES!