Comforting Pastries

Recently I haven't had much time to make anything resembling a traditional breakfast. Some yogurt and granola, an apple eaten on the way to class, reheated cabbage soup... Anything I can grab that warms up in a hurry really. I decided to change that today. Simple Spiced Scones

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
• 1 large egg

Mixed all dry ingredients together, mashed in the butter until it was like course meal. I blended the yogurt and egg together before mixing into the dry ingredients. I bashed it around till it was all doughy, pressed the dough out into an 8 inch patty, and cut it into 8 pieces. I sprinkled a bit of sugar on top, and baked at 400 for 15 minutes. Not the pumpkin scones I was aiming for, although the lack of pumpkin in the recipe could have told me that. They were still quite nice, and it's a recipe I'll do again in a heartbeat. Hardly any time to mix the dough at all. Perfect for breakfast! I'm going to experiment with these a little more, with such a quick preparation time, I'll have time to make them at night so they'll be nice and cool for breakfast.

The eye within the storm

Lately, I've been finding that my life has been far too busy to be doing much cooking at all. It's a bit of a shame, as I really wanted this blog to be about home much I love to cook, and all the new things I'm learning while I tackle different recipes and techniques. Alas... Apparently my life decided to be funny and overload my life to the point that cooking has been restricted to a once-a-week endeavor. Lately, I've made french toast in the morning and congratulated myself on the amazing feast at hand. It's been a long couple of weeks. I'm a full time student at George Brown College for Jewelry Methods, and I also work full time at a Starbucks in down-town Toronto. I was busy to the point of breaking down at least every other day, and nothing I could do really fixed it. My solution to the busyness of the world came out of the back of my closet, from a box I hadn't bothered to try to unpack since my move. Knitting. I'd forgotten that the craft was so easy and portable, that I could knit during my breaks at work, find a quiet place in the park to knit after school, or even knit during my more boring lectures IN school. I picked up my knitting again after leaving it behind for so long. Every new project presents a bit of a challenge for me, and most of the times, this is the criteria for a new project! I love to learn new techniques and put them to use in the simplest projects. I love to feel the soft fibers running through my fingers, and know that it's going to create the softest fabric imaginable to shape into something gorgeous. I love to sit down with a ball of yarn and two needles, and be able to create something beautiful that many people would scratch their heads over and exclaim in wonder: "I know someone that can do that!" or "I used to knit, but I gave it up." That's probably the hardest thing for me to hear. It makes me want to hand over my needles, project and all, and say "show me what you know, and I'll show you how to create a world." Knitting takes me into a place of meditative stillness, the only things I need to concentrate on are the intricacies of knits and purls, when to use them, and where their effects would look the best. At the end of the day, when everything seems to have gone wrong, I can count on knitting to be a steady, easy presence. I wish I could show more people how much of a saving grace knitting is to my soul. I wish I could explain the peace that comes to me while I'm working on a project that I mean to gift to a close friend or lover. I wish I could convince people to take up the craft that people have been using for centuries to knit some warmth and beauty into their lives. I wish I could explain the immense satisfaction of being able to create a 3-D object out of a little ball of string. I'm at peace with the maelstrom of my life, simply because I know that at the first opportunity for quiet, I'll content myself with my latest project and the world will simply melt away.