Hey, look what I found!

So this one time, I wrote down a recipe but forgot to take pictures of it.

This next time, I took pictures but forgot to write down what it was that I cooked. I mean, it's a shepherd's pie. I know that much. I just couldn't tell you exactly how it came into being.

Let's see if we can guess, though.

It appears I was playing with kale, broccoli, zucchini, carrots, and some leafy green vegetable that I never did identify. It appears I added a white sauce and browned ground beef. And then, of course, the mashed potato crust. (Shepherd's pie is generally ground lamb--which I don't like--peas, and carrots. I think. It has been when I've had it in restaurants, anyway.)

So there you go?

Now for my first rounds of playing with our hand-picked berries. These don't exactly count, since they only use one ingredient, but I'm posting them anyway.

Lemon-blueberry pancakes:

1. Make favorite pancake recipe. I like the one in The Joy of Cooking.

2. Add 1 cup fresh blueberries and the grated zest of one lemon to the batter. 

3. That was easy.

4. These were really fantastic. I've had blueberry pancakes plenty of times, but never with lemon. The lemon was a good idea. 

Raspberry-chocolate chip scones:

I love scones. They're deceptively simple. The secret is (as with pie dough) to keep the butter well chilled and don't overwork. My scones take shape in my food processor, same as my pie dough.

Preheat oven to 350 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Sift together 4 cups all-purpose flour, 2 tsp. baking powder, and 2 tbsp. sugar. Or just pulse it all in the food processor like I do.

Cut 2 sticks chilled salted butter (or use unsalted and and 1/2 tsp salt to your flour mixture) into chunks, then add to food processor. Pulse briefly until butter is pea-sized.

At this point, add 1 cup raspberries and 1/2 cup chocolate chips, as well as 1 cup heavy cream. Mix briefly, until mixture just comes together. (I find I have to dump it into a bowl and mash it together by hand a bit, as the food processor isn't great at incorporating everything.)

Form into 12 large or 24 small scones. You could carefully roll out the dough and cut triangles if you wanted, but I usually just go for the free-form biscuit shape shown above, because my kitchen has no counter space.

Bake for about 30 minutes, just until bottoms of scones are browned.

One of the nice things about running the raspberries through the food processor? Breaks up the seeds so they don't get stuck in your teeth! I actually think these might be better without the chocolate chips, but I've been forcing them on people and I seem to be in the minority on that one.