More Food Glamour!

Tray Chic, no?

The gorgeous photography is (c) Steve Aja

I'll be serving some of these pretty little things at A Cheap Date with the Frugal Foodie: A Benefit for the Marin Community Food Bank- will you be there?

They grow so fast....

Remember when I said you could re-grow your green onions? Well I wasn't kidding - just look at mine now!

They looked like this just a couple of weeks ago

I told the boy that with the exception of him, this is the most successful I've ever been at growing something!

"Bribe 'em With Baked Goods," I Always Say....

Now don't those look yummy? A few months ago the fabulously talented Steve Aja came over and took some glamour shots of some of the recipes from the Frugal Foodie Cookbook - and boy did he make the food look good!

I made these Oatmeal Raisin Scones again this weekend to bring to an all-day department meeting tomorrow. I'm still getting to know my colleagues, and they're still getting to know me, and I'm not at all above blatant attempts to win their friendship through baked goods.

These scones freeze like a dream, so you can bake a batch and then pop one in a toaster over for a few minutes and have a warm, crunchy scone ready to ride with you to work on a moment's notice.

2 cups flour
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/3 cup light brown sugar
2½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1½ sticks unsalted butter, chilled
¾ cup raisins
1 cup + 1 tablespoon milk, divided
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Put the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in the
bowl of a food processor. Pulse 10–12 times. Cut the butter into 1 tablespoon
pieces and distribute over the dry ingredients. Pulse until the mixture resembles
coarse meal. Transfer to a bowl and mix in the raisins.

Add 1 cup milk and mix until blended. Gather into a ball with floured hands and
divide in half. On a floured surface, pat half of the dough into an 8-inch round.
Cut into 8 wedges. Repeat with the remaining dough.

Transfer the wedges to a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake for 12–15 minutes,
until scones are firm to the touch and golden.

While the scones are baking, mix 1 tablespoon milk with the granulated sugar
and the cinnamon. Remove the scones from the oven and brush them with the
glaze while still hot.

Serve warm or at room temperature. To freeze, cool completely and store in a
heavy-duty freezer bag, or wrap in plastic wrap and foil.

Makes 16 scones.

Veggies Grown by Wookies are Chewie

Yours truly has been invited to Skywalker Ranch to be a guest chef at their weekly BBQ lunch. The talented, generous, handsome and brilliant Steve Simmons and his staff will be cooking recipes from The Frugal Foodie cookbook, and I'll be set up at a table signing books, shaking hands and kissing babies.

To say I am honored is an understatement, and how lucky was I that I got to do a recon mission at the ranch last week? The place lives up to its legend. You drive past the 3-acre organic farm, past the "if you build it they will come" baseball field, past the vineyard and several "they make movie magic in there" buildings to get to the main house. The huge, fancy, beautiful main house. Steve gave me a tour of the joint and it is impressive on every level. Since I'm not much of a Star Wars geek, I was only mildly interested in the memorabilia case. But since I am a book geek, I was thrilled to see a genuine copy of GOAT in the library. And because I am a food geek, was tickled to be able to buy a big bag of organic produce on my way out.

Ranch rules dictate that you must be in any photos you take there, so I can't show you the right-out-of-a-movie-adorable farm stand, but take my word for it - it was precious. And the veggies - delish!

Sangria Basura Blanca

OK, so there are foodies and then there are foodies. I love fancy food, fresh organic produce, expensive stinky cheeses and unpronounceable brands of chocolate. I also have plenty of soft spots in my tummy for what a friend of mine calls "bad yummies." Food you know is kinda gross, but you love it anyway.

And, I have almost no palate for wine. Unless its really, really bad - like Manischewitz bad - wine pretty much tastes to me like, wine.

So given all this, I'm not at all above concocting a cocktail from less than top shelf ingredients. Mine comes from the bottom drawer.

One of my summer mainstays is White Trash Spritzer. The recipe is simple:

White Trash Spritzer

1/3 part Lemonade Chrystal Light
1/3 part Fresca
1/3 part Two Buck Chuck Chardonnay

Light, fruity, sparking, refreshing - perfect for a hot summer night.

Tonight the Boy Wonder was invited out to dinner and a movie by a pal (Thanks Monica!) So the Mr. and I had the evening to ourselves and I decided to whoop it up and have an adult beverage. I didn't have ingredients for a WTS, but I was able to make:

Sangria Basura Blanca

1/3 part Mixed Berry Chrystal Light
1/3 part Diet Sierra Mist
1/3 part Forrestville Cab

Very tasty on a chilly evening.

Bottom's Up!

I need a biscuit, baby!

Did you and your friends make up silly songs/rhymes/phrases when you were a kid? Me and mine did. And one that has stuck in my head since I was in 4th or 5th grade is:

I need a biscuit, baby
I need a biscuit, baby
If you don't give me a biscuit
I won't eat the dinner you made me!

I have no idea how or why we came up with that one - and it's not like I grew up in the south were biscuits abound, I was in the Beverly/Fairfax neighborhood of LA where bagels (or even tortillas) are much more common.

But this morning I did indeed need a biscuit, so I made some from the handy bag of Eye-Opener Mix I keep in the freezer:

3-in-1 Eye-Opener Mix (aka Your Own Personal Bisquick )

8 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup baking powder
1 tablespoon kosher salt
3 tablespoons sugar
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter

Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a large bowl with a wire whisk.

Cut the butter into small chunks and add them to the dry mixture.

Toss the butter around to coat, and then use a pastry cutter or slash two knives across each other to cut the butter chunks into smaller pieces. Keep cutting until the mixture is sandy in consistency. You can also use a stand mixer with the paddle attachment for this step.

Store the mix in the freezer for up to 6 months.

Makes about 9 cups of mix.

For Biscuits:

2 cups Eye-Opener Mix
1 cup milk, sourmilk*, or buttermilk

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Grease a muffin tin with vegetable oil spray.

In a large bowl, mix the milk and Eye-Opener Mix with a wooden spoon until
combined.

Then beat the dough briskly with the wooden spoon for 30 seconds.

Using 2 spoons, drop ¼ cup dough into each muffin cup.

Bake for 12 minutes.

Remove biscuits from the oven and serve warm, slathered with butter.

You can also cut them in half and toast them if you want them extra crunchy.

*To sour milk, put 1 tablespoon of white vinegar in a measuring cup, then fill with milk to equal 1 cup.

For CiniMinis:

Add 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon to the dry mix.

Fill mini muffin pans about 1/2 full.

Brush the tops with melted butter, then sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

Makes 24.

Rice, Rice Baby

Sometimes it's fun to play with your food. I played with rice & food coloring and made some cute craft projects.

Put one teaspoon of water and 10 drops of food coloring in a baggie - I used these nifty neon colors



Add 1/2 cup of rice to the bag and mush it around until the rice is completely colored



Spread the rice onto a wax paper-lined baking sheet and let it dry completely, it'll take about an hour or so (or much less if you put it outside on a hot, hot day like I did)



Brush a picture frame, box, foam ball - whatever you've got - with some white glue. Cover the glue with the rice (sprinkle it on or dip the surface in)



Et Voila! You've got some cute projects and a fun activity for pennies