Easy Peasy Scones

Hello Everyone!

I don't know why but I was under the impression that scones or indian fry bread or whatever you want to call it were pretty much impossibly hard or that they took hours and hours to make...maybe because when you make them on Christmas for your family and there are a million kids, in-laws and grand-kids it WOULD take that long especially if your pan was not big enough and they were each eating four and five and maybe even ten or you used a dough that needed for yeast...not that I'm speaking from personal experience or anything....though I do have memories of scone and chocolate milk induced euphoria.

So, anyway, I have been feeling a lack of this family tradition we had growing up in my own family because of my thinking it was too hard and time consuming to pull off without my ending up covered in flour and exhausted...guess what it REALLY ISN'T hard at all!! And you don't even have to use yeast for this recipe which makes it super easy and quick.... I like easy...I like easy so much that I rarely cook things that are "hard" or that take much skill, I like when it looks delicious, smells delicious and I had to put minimal time and effort into it...yep that is my kind of recipe...so here it is.

OH and by the way if you are wanting to try this recipe with a flour that is different from the "all-purpose" flour (pretty much what all of us have on hand in our kitchens as our basic flour), I did try it with wheat flour - which I am going to now brag that I ground myself in my new wheat grinder - yay! Finally a way that I can use the 1200 million pounds of wheat we were given (that is an obvious exaggeration because if I really had that much wheat I would be sharing it with the hungry and starving and would not be blogging about it). I made this recipe with 2 C wheat and 1 C of white, and it worked, just remember that if you are using a heavier flour than the all purpose stuff you will want to stretch the dough extra thin and flat so that when it cooks and puffs it isn't too thick and heavy to be enjoyable as a scone or to be wrapped around taco ingredients as a taco. I also added maybe 2 Tbsp of water just to make it moist enough to handle because the wheat sucks up a bit more water than a finer flour like white or all purpose would. And because of the large amount of baking powder I didn't have to change the amounts because it is enough "leavening" to still puff up the heavier dough.

Easy Peasy Fry Bread aka Scones aka Deliciousness of Christmas.
***note this recipe made enough scones that we each had a taco or two for dinner (six or seven tacos) and there were enough left overs to eat the next day for breakfast (just warm them in a toaster oven or some form of dry heat so they aren't mushy and chewy like they would be from the microwave)

3 C flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 C milk
4 C oil, lard or crisco (approximate you want enough for frying)

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl, then slowly add the milk. It will look a little dry but keep mixing until everything just sticks together. You don't want it to be too moist or it will be hard to handle. Let it rest for between 5 and 45 minutes.

****..depending on your patience and how long it takes you to get the next step ready.  If you are making tacos, mix this up first while you prepare or re-heat your meat. By the time that the meat is just about done you should be good to go. (for me this entire recipe made for tacos in only an hour. Which I spend in the kitchen when I make tacos with pre-made tortillas anyway

Heat oil (vegetable is best for frying rather than olive oil which has a different smoking point and changes flavor when you heat it that high) turn the heat up slowly until you see the surface of the oil start to "shimmer" it will look like there are teeny waves going across the top of the oil and that is when you know it is hot enough. On my stove that means it was just past med going toward high.

Grab a clump off of the ball of dough and start stretching and pinching by hand (or rolling if you really want to) until the dough is a disc about 1/4 " thick.

Drop those puppies - er discs into your hot oil and watch them turn brown.  If the amount of oil in your pan is only enough to cook one side at a time that is fine, just leave them there until you see the edge start turning golden and flip them over to finish for another couple of minutes.

Set them on a couple of paper towels to cool a bit and then devour...er I mean enjoy them with your family and friends...please don't make these and eat them all by yourself...you will have a tummy ache. ;) (hmm hmm Preston - remember when you ate an entire batch of no-bake cookies in like a day? yeah tummy ache.  )

If you are making them into tacos once they are cool enough to handle drop em' on a plate and pile on your favorite taco toppings: meat, beans, tomatoes, onions, fresh slices of peppers, cheese, more cheese, sour cream, chives (the cute little green onions), salsa, corn - the works!

If you are making scones, well then you get to dress them up with things like powdered sugar (but not too much or you will inhale it and choke on the puff of sugar as you bite into it - tee hee hee - again not from experience at ALL), honey, butter - though you really don't NEED the butter if you are already frying them...talk about a heart attack, jams, jellies, syrup, you name it...they are like a crepe as far as toppings go...hmmm...maybe next time I'll spread a little nutella on top? Maybe  a cup of hot cocoa? or Chocolate milk? Or regular milk in a fancy cup? Or just eat and eat and eat them...but not all at once.


Now that you are all drooling...go, eat, love life and enjoy this recipe!

Love you,
Queen B