Shameless plug, oh and hello again

Hello there, my name is Candace, maybe you don’t remember me, we met once, on the interwebs. I used to write this here blog...

Beh, sorry guys, I’ve been overwhelmed.

You see there was this

And then this became that

And then that started doing this all the time.

She’s the best, she REALLY is. And every day is a new adventure, but it takes up a lot of time and energy.

So anyways, I recently received an email about infoods. I had gone to a food bloggers event through them a while ago (this was before the great writing dearth of 2011/2012) and I was contacted again about writing a bit about their newer products. If I could have reached through the wifi waves and given a big hug I would have. This is exactly the push that I needed, and by exactly the right product. A group of products that I’ve come to rely on.

Kyle and I look at eachother all the time and ask ourselves “Do other people live like this? Do other families struggle like this?” Our week days are a blur of making dinner, preparing dinner for the next night, fighting to feed the beast dinner, and laundry (always laundry). So when I found the incuisin risottos at the grocery store, the company already had a huge soft spot in my heart and I jumped at the chance to try them. Really? Something that’s not made of 60,726 chemicals and doesn’t turn out tasting like a salt bomb? Really? It takes 5.5 minutes? Maybe I’ll take you home little buddy...

My mother tells me that when I was small my mantra was ‘Candace do it’ and I guess I never really grew out of that. So using a prepared product is a little nerve wracking... I mean... Candace DIDN’T do it. But what I found when I tried the incuisin stuff is that while it was solid enough to stand alone as a side, there was definite room to get creative. Dear sausage risottos, and buttery mashed potatoes with spinach and artisanal cheese, welcome back into my life.

And then another time I had a bunch of horrid sad broccoli and a few withering onions and one frozen piece of salmon and one frozen piece of tilapia, and a 1/4 of a bag of frozen roast potato wedges. It seems disgustingly wasteful to throw it all out, but what am I going to do with all of this? With a bag of the incuisin cauliflower puree, 2 eggs, a squeeze of lemon and a cupcake pan they became fish and vegetable croquettes. So while I’m not promoting the use of almost putrid vegetables and abandoned frozen fish, I’m just saying that having the puree already there really saved my bacon... Mmmm bacon.

So my point is, THANK YOU, thank you thank you thank you infoods for making products that are real food, are tasty on their own, but also basic enough that you CAN add your own spin to it without spending all night. Also it’s really nice to be able to even contemplate a cauliflower puree. I was THIS close

(you like my desktop? it’s Olive’s arse) to trying to develop a silencer for my food processor... Actually I’m still considering it — DON’T WAKE THE BABY!

So someday I’ll post about the molecular gastronomy kit that Kyle got me for my birthday and the one blissful afternoon that I got to play with it (ancini di pepe w/ tomato oil & balsamic pearls) but in the meantime I’ll be happily spiking my frozen tomato risotto with caramelized onions and hot Italian sausage and NOT keeling over from exhaustion. And if you get in my way in the frozen section, I’ll guiltlessly elbow you in the face. (I’m all talk, that won’t happen)

Here’s the other night’s dinner. For no reason since I never talked about it. But guess where the risotto comes from.....

Schedule the pumpkin scone intervention!

I have an addiction

The good news is that unlike the people on the A&E show 'Intervention', no one will get hurt from it

It is the Starbucks pumpkin scone and I blame the lovely and talented Alexandra Meikleham for this addiction. She introduced me to this tasty treat and contributed to the downfall of this blogger's waistline (I'm joking... ish)

And because of the seasonal nature of pumpkin scone, and the fact that I'm still getting used to this having a kid thing, I thought I should ferret out the recipe myself.
Fortunately for me, someone else has already done that.

I made a few small adjustments to the recipe, and let me tell you, my loved ones are seriously going to have to con me into a 'documentary' about scones and then tell me how my scone addiction has affected their lives negatively. Also they're going to need to get one of those slings that they transport whales in to get me out of the house one day.

INGREDIENTS:
2 cups all purpose flour
7 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking soda (it was supposed to be baking powder, but I made a mistake, and it worked out)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
3 tablespoons milk
1 large egg
6 tablespoons cold butter

Plain Glaze
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk

Spiced Icing
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons powdered sugar
2 tablespoons whole milk
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Also, a little tip, if you brew your coffee and throw about 1/2 a tsp of pumpkin pie spice in the basket, it's a tasty almost gingerbready flavoured coffee result.


So here goes... ready?
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon cloves, and 1/4 teaspoon ginger in a large bowl.

In a separate medium bowl, whisk together pumpkin, milk, and eggs.
Cut butter into cubes then add it to the dry ingredients. Use a pastry knife or a fork to combine butter with dry ingredients. Continue mixing until no chunks of butter are visible. You can also use a food processor: Pulse butter into dry ingredients until it is the texture of cornmeal or coarse sand. Or until your arm gets tired (if not using a food processor) or until you get fed up.

Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients, then form the dough into a ball. Pat out dough onto a lightly floured surface and form it into a 1 inch thick rectangle that is about 9 inches long and 3 inches wide. Use a large knife or a pizza wheel to slice the dough twice through the width, making three equal portions. Cut those three slices diagonally so that you have 6 triangular slices of dough. That's what the original recipe said, and it's fine, but if you're like me and need at least 1 scone per day, you might want to make them half the size so that you get 12 smaller ones.

Bake for 14 to 16 minutes on a baking sheet that has been lightly oiled. Scones should begin to turn light brown. If you're making 12 smaller ones, start with 9 minutes and then put them in longer if they aren't done yet -- every oven is different...

While scones cool, prepare plain glaze by combining ingredients in a medium bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed (actually a fork works too). Mix until smooth. When scones are cool, use a brush to paint a coating of the glaze over the top of each scone.

As that white glaze firms up, prepare spiced icing by combining ingredients in another medium bowl with an electric mixer (or fork) on medium speed (doesn't your fork have a medium speed? *scoff*). Drizzle this thicker icing over each scone and allow the icing to dry before serving (at least 1 hour). A squirt bottle works great for this, or you can drizzle with a whisk.

And if you can't wait for the scones to cool, skip the plain glaze, just make the spiced one and dip your scones into the bowl as you scarf down the whole batch.
(what? no one else does this?)

And I'll end this post with a picture of the creature -- because I need to prove that there really is a kid, and that I didn't just totally slack on the blog posts because I'm a lazy bum. There she is with Miss Olive - the patron saint of this blog (Saint Olive? that'll be the day)

Okay kids, thank you for joining our cheeseandolive drum circle, come back soon
xo
-Candace.

p.s. Alex, please don't be mad that I linked to your castingcallpro.com profile, it's free publicity :)