The best cook ya ever had.

[reddragdiva]

I had a job interview by phone on Thursday and will be attending the second interview in fucking Reading on Monday. Looks like an interesting job. I'll be practicing sleeping on planes, I can see.

We didn't go to B-Movie, due to poverty and illness. redcountess has been notably unwell lately, although she does seem to be improving a bit.

It's been a quiet and domestic few days. Liz repotted the largest plant at last and had fun hacking away at the garden, clearing a bush away from the lounge window yesterday morning, which left her utterly exhausted but greatly cheered. arkady came over to play and successfully used her 'l33t haxx0r sk1llz to remove a particularly evil bastard plant (which we think is responsible for water leaking into the bedroom) from the front yard.

Arkady made some very cheap, quick and nice scones. These are imperial scones, note — Americans should take care with their weirdly deficient pints. We expect to be living on these as soon as I get the knack.

8 oz self-raising flour
2 tablespoons butter/margarine
A tablespoon of sugar
1 egg
Somewhere under 1/4 pint of milk

Preheat the oven to 300–350°F. Rub the butter and flour together in a mixing bowl until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in your sugar. Put the egg in a separate measuring jug and pour in enough milk to make it up to a quarter pint; whisk together. Pour this into your butter and flour mix and stir thoroughly until it forms a single lump of dough. Knead it thoroughly, get that air in. Form into twelve lumps of dough and put them on a baking tray. Bake for ten minutes or so (ours took fifteen) at about 300–350°F. If you have a crappy gas oven like ours, keep an eye on them and turn the tray in the oven to account for hot and cold spots. Eat with butter and maybe jam. Everyone will eat all of them immediately.

Variations: Use olive oil instead of butter and leave out the milk; this results in more savoury scones. Use whole-wheat flour, then they end up brown. Couple of ounces of cheese and they end up more savoury cheese scones. Add a couple of ounces of dried fruit for fruit scones; toss them separately in flour before adding them to the butter and flour mix or they'll all sink to the bottom.

(Translations: 225 grams, 50-60 grams, 25-30 grams, 1 egg, somewhere under 140mL, 200°C.)

I shall be meeting mjg59 at the Porterhouse at 4:30pm to see what we can do about the laptop.

Comments

[zey.livejournal.com]

We expect to be living on these as soon as I get the knack.

If you're seriously getting that hard up on the income front, I can recommend ANZAC biscuits as a last resort.

There are recipes all over the web, but, I found they were best when removing most of the sugar, using honey instead and adding cocoa, a few of your favourite nuts and coffee powder. Makes a brilliant breckie-on-the-go for next to nothing and they provide a nice low-burning fuel for the whole day. They store well for ages and ages in an air-tight container. They're also outside-friendly: unlike two minute noodles or other poverty kibble, nobody's going to question your munching on home-made bickies every day :-).

[reddragdiva]

Oooooooh yes. We like ANZAC biscuits. Will have to work on these.

[satsumagirl]

You can also leave the egg out if you don't have any, and add 1/2 tsp of baking powder to the flour to make them nice and light. I am going to make some bread pudding tonight as I am sick of throwing out stale bread, and I love bread pudding. My dad makes it, and it is also really cheap.

[megabitch.livejournal.com]

I'm baking pretty much every night right now. But that's because I'm catering m-i-l's 60th birthday bash here in 4 weeks. So lots of baking/preparation of stuff to be frozen now.

My very first attempt at lamingtons is under way - the sponge is in the oven, will see how it turns out. Will cut into squares and ice/coconut them tomorrow.

When money has been very tight I've lived on weetabix and sardines on toast - not together though.

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

Good luck with the interviews.

Sleeping on planes? Does the job involve a lot of travel?

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

Recipes which inspire me to which a slow, lingering death through misweighed cookery to people who use volumetric measures for loose dry ingredients :)

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

What actually edible food substance would you recommend replacing the coconut with? Dessicated coconut != food.

[arkady.livejournal.com]

The flour is self-raising so it already has baking powder - excess is likely to make them very dry.

[zey.livejournal.com]

Personally, I quite like coconut, so it's not an issue for me. But if you want/need a substitute, any coarsely ground or shredded nut should provide a similar enough consistency. Ground brazil nuts would probably work well, if a little on the expensive side.

[satsumagirl]

I don't find that to be honest with mine.