Try Mama's Scones this year for Christmas Morning!

SCONES

3 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1//2 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter (cut in small pieces)

Mix all dry ingredients and cut butter into them using 2 knives or pastry blender
Make a well in the center and add 1 cup of buttermilk*
Mix all together and add one of the following:
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup raisins, currents or any chopped dried fruit you desire (dried apricots)
Sprinkle pastry board with flour and pat out dough 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick
Cut out scones with a 2 inch biscuit cutter**
Dip a sugar cube into a small amount of orange juice
Immediately press in the center of the scones one at a time.
Brush top of each scone with milk
Bake in lower rack til golden brown

* substitute for buttermilk-- Add one Tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar to 1 cup of milk

**You may use larger cutter but you wil have fewer scones-- if you use a smaller cutter just use half of a sugar cube on each one.



FAUX CLOTTED CREAM

Whip small carton heavy cream
add 1- 2 Tablespoons of powdered sugar
1/3 cup sour cream fold it in
refrigerate
(will freeze)

Serve with dollops of clotted cream, lemon curd and strawberry preserves. YUMMMMM!

The first bluestockings... It was in the 18th century that the term "bluestocking" was first used widely by educated women, and by men to rebuke those women for neglecting ladylike pursuits to pursue thinking and learning alongside men. Legend attributes the term of "bluestocking" to the attire of one gentleman scholar who frequented the company of intellectually curious women. Not being wealthy enough to afford the fashionable black silk stockings of the day, the man wore plain blue-worsted stockings. The members of the discussion group, hoping to encourage his return, took to dressing in this more "casual" style as well.

Despite the legend, literary-minded women were called "bas bleu" (blue stocking) in France at least 100 years earlier. Still, it was the 18th century English women who broadened the term to mean something more than a woman who read the works of men. Modeling their gatherings after the French literary salons, the conversations of English bluestockings went beyond literature to encompass art, architecture, travel, politics, and the writing and accomplishments of other women.

My New Favorite Book- The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller

I am overwhelmed by my new job, with a raise, in the same facility, on a computer, at a desk, during the day, with week-ends off. I feel like a new woman. And I am overwhelmed at The Prodigal God. Yes, prodigal! It means recklessly extravagant--having spent everything! It seems it was not enough for Him to have paid the debt I owed the Father, He continues to lavish me with all these goodies. Read the book. It's one of those eye-opener, life-changers.