I’m going to join my friend Audrey for her new inspired-by linky today with a recipe for scones that I made up slash adapted. I’m never sure with recipes how much you have to change before you can call it YOUR recipe. I mean, all baking is just science and math with proportions of wet to dry ingredients, so no matter how original your recipe for bread or cake or cookies or whatever is, there’s a good chance someone else has a nearly identical recipe somewhere.

I was inspired by these Cheddar-Chive Scones I found on Epicurious. (Sidenote: I am OBSESSED with Epicurious.) Wait, no, scratch that. I started with these Jalapeno-Cheddar scones from smitten kitchen my friend Sarah suggested more than a year ago. I made them, I ate them, I was underwhelmed. But in my MIND they were totally delicious and I’ve been thinking about finding a new scone recipe ever since. Scones sound fancy and you can put almost anything into them – sweet, savory, salty, cheesy, fruit, herbs, vegetables, whatever. I wanted to make the Cheddar Chive scones from Epicurious to bring to Easter dinner but I didn’t have any chives (and am too lazy to go to the store). So I replaced the chives with rosemary, the cheddar with Parmesan and added a little lemon peel to make them spring-like. Then I adjusted the rest of the ingredients to make it work (tm Tim Gunn).

Brunchy Lemon Rosemary Parmesan Scones

3 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh lemon peel, grated
1 cup Parmesan cheese
2 cups heavy cream plus extra to brush on top

Preheat oven to 400. In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients except for cream. Add in the cream 1 cup at a time, making sure to stir up everything from the bottom until you have a sticky dough. (You could use a mixer if you want but I did it with a spatula and it was easy.) Turn out dough onto a floured surface and kneed approximated 10 times. Divide dough in half, roll out each half, flatten into a long rectangle and cut into wedges.

Place on an ungreased cookie sheet, brush the top of each scone with a little heavy cream and bake for 20 minutes until golden brown. Delicious warm but travel well.

Notes:
1. I used the cheap Kraft cheese in the green container because I didn’t have any real Parmesan and *I* thought they turned out a little on the salty side. None of my taste testers were bothered by it, but you could probably use half as much salt.
2. I actually ran out of regular flour and used whole wheat for the last 1/2 cup. You couldn’t tell at all, so if you wanted to use more whole wheat – say 1 1/2 cups – I don’t think anyone would know, PLUS you could call them healthy! Just don’t mention the cream.

Happy Baking!

This will probably be the last What’s for Dinner post for a while because this week I’ve found myself repeating stuff I’ve made during the last 4 installments. So if none of this week’s meals look good, go back and check out volumes 1, 2, 3, or 4 to get some home-cooked inspiration.

1. Angel Sugar Cookies – The Pioneer Woman (DANGER: IMPOSSIBLE TO STOP EATING)
2. Marlboro Man’s Favorite Sandwich – The Pioneer Woman
3. Lemony Crispy Chicken Cutlets and Roasted Tomato Salad – Rachel Ray 365: No Repeats
4. Penne a la Betsy – The Pioneer Woman

5. Spicy Shrimp & Noodle Soup – Soup or Salad Blog
6. Pan-Roasted Garlic and Herb Chicken Breasts with Chopped Salad and Creamy Caper Dressing – Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats (This salad is so delicious I eat practically the whole 4 servings myself every time. I am extremely sorry Rachael doesn’t have it on her website.)
7. Couple-of-Minute Steaks and Potato Ragout – Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats
8. Chef Salad Bar – Inspired by Soup or Salad Blog

My favorites from the week were definitely the cookies, the spicy soup and the salad bar. I ate way too much those days, especially the salad bar – I should NOT have bought three different kinds of cheese plus my favorite Caesar dressing. It makes salad so delicious and soooooo not really salad anymore. Also, while I was writing this post my craving for more sugar cookies has gotten entirely out of control. I’ll be making those again soon. Or now.

This is half Rachael Ray’s Thai Chicken Pizza and half California Pizza Kitchen Thai Chicken Pizza with a dash of “oh crap I don’t have that in my fridge, what can I use instead?” I never get tired of making or eating it, and it’s the perfect meal to share with a toddler – lots of nice little bite sized things. Just watch out for the peanuts.

Suzanne’s Thai Chicken Pizza

1 store-bought thin crust pizza crust
1 bottle duck or plum sauce
Sprinkle red pepper flakes
2 cups Monterey Jack cheese
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 tablespoons peanut butter (we only ever have crunchy)
A couple of good dashes of Tabasco
A couple of good dashes of grill seasoning (whatever you happen to have in the pantry)
3-4 thin cut chicken breasts
2 tablespoons apricot preserves (honey works too)
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 cup shredded carrots
1 cup mung bean sprouts (they’re next to the tofu at my Stop & Shop)
4-5 scallions
Cilantro
Peanuts

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Put the pizza crust on a rectangular cookie sheet and stretch it so it fits exactly. Pour the bottle of duck/plum sauce over the crust like it’s tomato sauce. Sprinkle with the red pepper flakes and then the cheese. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the cheese is bubbly and starting to brown.

In a medium sized bowl or dish, mix the vegetable oil, peanut butter, Tabasco, and grill seasoning. Toss in the chicken and stir it all around to coat well. Heat up a grill pan (I just use the thing I use for grilled cheese)(I cannot remember what that kind of pan is called) to medium-high heat. Cook the chicken for a couple of minutes on each side. This is the reason I use the thin sliced chicken – it doesn’t take very long and it’s hard to accidentally leave a raw spot in the center. When it’s cooked, slice it up into bit sized pieces.

In another bowl, mix the cider vinegar and apricot preserves. Add the shredded carrots and toss it all together so they absorb some of the liquid.

Now chop up your scallions and cilantro. I love scallions so I tend to use a LOT and I don’t chop them up super small.

Once the pizza is done, top it with the chicken, then the carrots and mung beans, then the scallions, cilantro and peanuts.

The original recipe claims it feeds 4 people but E and I usually eat all but one or two small pieces, especially now that Little Evan can eat a whole piece on his own. A lot of the toppings tend to fall off during the hand-to-mouth transfer so keep a fork handy to shovel them back on. Enjoy!

These are actually meals from the last 2 1/2 weeks, because even though they were all PLANNED for one week there were several nights I was sick/didn’t feel like cooking so we had take-out. And by take-out I mean fast food. But doesn’t “take-out” sound so much nicer? Like maybe it was stir fried veggies over brown rice instead of cheeseburgers and fries.

It’s always cheeseburgers and fries.

All my recipes this week came from Rachael Ray’s Express Lane Meals. Despite not being able to stand RR’s voice on TV for more than 20 seconds and her super annoying habit of calling things like PB&J “American nut spread with fresh fruit preserves on a sliced whole grain loaf”, her recipes really are both fast and easy and written for someone who isn’t very confident in the kitchen. I’ve had and liked this cookbook since college, but hadn’t made any of these before (besides the pizza, which I don’t even use the book for because I’ve made so many changes. Recipe coming on Friday!)

1. Steak, Fried Onions, and Potatoes Salad Bowl with Blue Cheese Vinaigrette (I substituted some homemade rosemary potatoes for the potato sticks in the salad)
2. Inside-out Pizza-dilla Margerita (see what I mean about the fancy names?)
3. Taco Salad – Our easiest favorite meal. Make taco meat as directed on envelope of taco seasoning. Dump over Fritos. Add various taco toppings. Eat too much.

4. Teriyaki Chicken with Warm Ginger-Carrot Slaw
5. Spinach-Artichoke Cheesy Tortellini – That’s not QUITE the recipe from the book but it’s close. I also discovered I still hate tortellini from a Very Traumatic Childhood Experience and if I make this again it will be over ravioli instead.
6. Pasta with Broccoli and Sausage with a Ricotta Surprise
7. Thai Chicken Pizza – Linked to Rachael’s recipe, but mine is WAY better

After seeing the total lack of veggies in my Volume 3 set of recipes, I decided to make more of an effort this week. Since there is at least one veggie in every meal (as long as I can count tomatoes) and toddler ate both the carrot-ginger salad and the spinach from the tortellini I consider it a success. Plus I totally ate the broccoli, even though I HATE broccoli. Turns out broccoli cooked in sausage fat is much better than steamed broccoli. WHO KNEW?

TMae from Life v. 2.0 claims she’s going to use my shopping list from my iPhone photo post to buy all the ingredients to make these. Which you could, in theory. I’m just impressed anyone can READ that list.

1. Herb Cheese Crusted Salmon (recipe below) served with couscous
2. Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies – Tasty Kitchen (made with butterscotch chips)
3. Drip Beef Sandwiches – The Pioneer Woman
4. Pasta el Pomodoro – The Kitchn (I used canned tomatoes and stretched it to feed four with extra canned sauce)

5. Sour Cream Enchiladas – The Pioneer Woman  (I added shredded chicken)
6. Chicken Bacon Ranch Macaroni and Cheese – Tasty Kitchen (not as good as it sounds)
7. Chicken Crescent Rolls – Tasty Kitchen (DEFINITELY my favorite from the week)
8. Beer Braised Beef with Onions – Tasty Kitchen (also not as good as it sounds)

And on the 8th day, she rested:

Don't be fooled by the picture - this was just my first helping.

Takeout pizza from Engine 6 Pizza Company

It looks like 8 meals but was only 7 because one is cookies. But I also baked the Carrot Apple Muffins this week, so when you put it all together I did a LOT of cooking. I didn’t really have to, because every meal created leftovers that are currently still in the fridge (and will probably be fed to the dog)(Except for the enchilada, I ate those for lunch)(Oh and the spaghetti, we had people over for dinner so it fed 4 easily), so if we were a leftover-eating family we could have had those at least twice. What did you have for dinner this week?

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Herbed Cheese Crusted Salmon

4 6 to 8 oz salmon fillets (skin or no skin, it’s your preference)
2 tablespoon lemon zest
1 5.2 oz container semisoft cheese with garlic and herbs (I use Allouette)
Sea salt or salt
1 cup breadcrumbs
1/3 cup freshly shredded Parmesan cheese
¼ cup butter, melted
2 Tbsp. pine nuts, toasted

1. Rinse fish; pat dry. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.  In a small bowl combine semisoft cheese and lemon peel. Cut each fillet almost in half to make a pocket, but be careful not to cut all the way through. Spoon cheese mixture into pockets. Season fish with salt. Place in a shallow baking pan.

2. In a small bowl combine bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, butter, and pine nuts; sprinkle over fillets, pressing lightly. Bake, uncovered, about 20 minutes or until salmon flakes when tested with a fork.