Lemon Blueberry Scones

My daughter Molly LOVES the vanilla bean scones from Starbucks (it's our guilty pleasure when we go and shop at Target!) but when you shop at Target as often as I do that $2 bucks starts adding up quickly. So I set out to make my own scones at home.


For the cost of three petite scones at Starbucks, I made a dozen!

Lemon Blueberry Scones


2 1/2 c. flour (you could use 50/50 whole wheat and white if you want)
1/2 c. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 T. butter
3/4 c. half and half
zest of one lemon
1/2 c. blueberries (frozen works best)


In a bowl combine all the dry ingredients; cut in butter until it makes crumbs (like when you make a biscuit). Add half and half, lemon and blueberries.  Mix gently! Put contents on a floured surface and knead lightly until dough comes together. It will be flaky. Pat out until about an inch or so thick. Cut into triangles like a pizza. Bake for 15 minutes or until slightly browned at 375 degrees. These freeze really well too. Freeze on cooking sheet before storing in a freezer bag.

Icing:

1 T. lemon juice

1/2 c. powdered sugar

2 tsp. water (DO NOT USE MILK or you will have buttermilk!)

Mix the water in 1 teaspoon at a time until desired consistency is reached. Spread on scones while still warm.

The Homemade Cinnamon Roll that wasn't....

Homemade Cinnamon Rolls 
Here are the easiest, best homemade cinnamon rolls ever!


I thought I would be bringing you the easiest most wonderful mostly homemade cinnamon roll recipe this morning, but it was a total flop! Of course, we're still eating them, but I didn't like the recipe enough to share. I made up this recipe after buying a HUGE bag of day old bread from the local Discount Bread store. When I say HUGE I mean I had somewhere close to 50 bags of bread for $4!! Now that's frugal!!!! Anyway, I had to come up with some way to use up all that bread. I gave away a lot to my grandparents, my Mom and neighbors. I still had 15 loaves in the freezer and 4 on the counter. I made freezer grilled cheese sandwiches, homemade croutons and Waffle Iron French Toast! Enjoy!

That's my 7 yr. old Molly giving the thumbs up of approval. She's often my guinea pig for recipes.

Waffle Iron French Toast

1 egg

1 cup milk

1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 c. brown sugar

8 slices of bread, your choice

Whisk all this together. Dip bread on both sides. Spray waffle iron with non-stick spray. Place as many slices as your waffle maker will hold; cook about 3-5 minutes. Top with butter and syrup.

Comes out crisp on the outside and soft on the inside! Yum!
These are also a great freezer meal! I put a layer of waffles, a layer of wax paper, etc and freeze. After frozen I put them all into a ziplock bag. Just pull them out and pop them in the toaster when you are ready to eat!

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

I love pumpkin just about anyway you can make it! For years I've been buying this pumpkin bread mix from the grocery store and making it into muffins for my family. It's simple and cheap and we gobble them up. 


About a year ago I stumbled across this great blog called Southern Plate and fell into a familiar world of southern cooking but with new recipes!! Christy Jordan is from North Alabama and writes this great blog full of great stories and wonderful recipes (many of which are now part of my menu rotation!) I got Christy's cookbook (that was born out of her blog) for Christmas and absolutely love it!


Anyway, back to the muffins ;) Did I mention I like pumpkin? So I found this recipe on Christy's blog and knew I had to try it. So first thing this morning before doing my morning post on my other blog I whipped these up and popped them in my oven. Oh my goodness, oh my goodness! I wish we had smell 0 vision! My house smelled wonderful! I was sitting here typing and drooling, the kids were dancing around the kitchen asking if they were ready yet. My oven was singing because of these wonderful muffins! Two ingredients and 1/2 a cup of water! That's it! The box I've been buying all these years takes more than that! This IS the new pumpkin muffin recipe from now until the end of time!

What you need:

1 box of Spice cake mix 

(Carrot will work too, trust me I know because I didn't realize that's what I used until after I dumped it in the bowl!)

1 small can packed Pumpkin

1/2 c. water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Dump it all in a bowl and mix! That's it! Grease 12 ct. muffin tin with shortening or spray. Fill each tin fuller than normal because these hardly rise. I put two heaping spoon fulls. 

What you need for Streusal:

1 c. flour

1 c. brown sugar

1 stick butter/margarine

Mix together using a long tinned fork (that's just fancy talk for using a grown up fork not a kid fork) to mix together all the ingredients until it looks all crumbly.

Top each muffin with a handful of steusal. Don't worry if it doesn't look neat.

 

Ta da! Pumpkin Spice Muffins! Delicious, addictive and simple!

Recipe from Christy Jordan over at Southern Plate.