Cranberry-Orange Scones

We have been on a little bit of a scone kick lately.  We always buy them at the grocery store cause they look sooooo good.  That's fine and all, but I wanted to find a good recipe and try to make my own.  I found the perfect looking one: Simple Scones.  It's all in the name right?

I read through the comments to see if this was the recipe I wanted to use.  I always start at the negative ones and read the problems that people had with the recipe.  Then I go to the positive ones.  There were a couple negative comments that the scones were too dry, but there were positive ones saying they were very moist.  I figure those cancel each other out.  It was probably the way the people followed the recipe anyway.  So it was in the comments that I found some extras that people had tried.  There was this very yummy sounding glaze:

Orange Glaze
1 cup Confectioner's sugar
1 1/2 - 2 tablespoons orange juice
1 teaspoon almond extract

Mix confectioner's sugar with orange juice until desired glaze consistancy.

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These were very good.  I got very good feedback from everyone that tried them.  The dough was a little crumbly and a little hard to work with, but it was well worth the "trouble".  Next time, I will soak the cranberries, to make them softer, and I will probably skip the glaze (VERY good, but it didn't really need it).

PINK as in...

PINK...

...as in amoxicillin.  Monkey has been sick for about a week now.  He just hasn't been his happy, smiling face lately.  Today was his 9 month check-up, perfect timing.  We got both doctor visits done at once (the check-up and the being sick).  Turns out, little Monkey has ear infections in both ears.  Poor little guy.  That definitely explains all the crying.  I feel bad saying it, but I love how cuddly he is when he's not feeling well.  But, I will be very happy when my smiling Monkey is back.

...as in "oops I forgot to post this at Valentine's Day."  We made chocolate covered everything for Valentine's Day.  I can't believe how much they charge for chocolate strawberries the week of Valentine's.  It's crazy.  We saved a ton of money for about 5 minutes worth of work (3 of those minutes were spent waiting for the chocolate chips to melt).  We bought strawberries, which were a little expensive, but we had the chocolate chips in the pantry.  One bag of chips is way to much for a carton of strawberries.  We searched everywhere for anything we could dip in chocolate.  We ended up dipping strawberries, pretzels, and marshmallows.  Since it was Valentine's we used pink and red sprinkles.  Goose was our official sprinkler.  I think she did a really good job, especially since it was right before naptime.  I wasn't sure the colored sugar was going to work because the chocolate was so dark, but it turned out really nice.  Next time, I'm going to try white chocolate, too. 

Tis the Season for: Pumpkin Pie

I love the idea of making something from scratch. Everything is better when you make it yourself.  It would be great to have a garden with enough vegetables to make homemade spaghetti sauce to last the year.  My dream would be to make my own pesto, I LOVE pesto.  And what's better than that...homemade dessert.
 Last year, we bought 2 pie pumpkins and made real pumpkin pie.  I can't remember where we found the recipe, but I know we used one.  It was really good, but I thought it needed some more spices to give it a more rich pie taste.  A couple months ago, we tried another version.  Once again, we bought 2 pie pumpkins (you think we would have learned the first time, we still have pie filling left over) I followed a family recipe.  I was really pleased with the spice combination of this second recipe.  I just know there is a perfect recipe out there, I'll just keep trying.  I would love to make my own, but I don't know if I am confident enough as a baker for that.  At least the pumpkin pie season runs all the way through the holidays, that means lots of time to perfect the recipe.