You don’t have to be of Scottish descent to appreciate a decent scone. You do have to catch scones soon after they come out of the oven, though. Otherwise their slightly sweet, tender-crisp character becomes a mess of dense, dry crumbs. No, really. I once tried to eat a scone at the British Museum in London, at about 2pm. Boy did that experiment in ecumenical dining learn me a good lesson.

Scones, as those of you who patronize (or just walk by the picture windows of) modern coffee shops well know, come in all different flavor combinations. As well, most of the scones in America today are approximately the size and mass of a Prius. Happily, the home baker has quite a bit of individual control over both those aspects of sconage (sconerie?).

Cut this in half for groups of four or fewer. Suggested variations given below the main recipe.

Scones

4 cups, 20 oz, all purpose unbleached flour

1/3 cup, 2.35 oz, sugar–flavored sugars like brown, vanilla, lemon and orange are all good here

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

12 TBSP butter, or butter and shortening, or butter and lard, or Earth Balance–cold and cut into little cubes

1 TBSP vinegar

+

15 TBSP milk or cream, or non-dairy alternative (i.e. to make a cup, 8 oz, of liquid)

2 eggs, lightly beaten OR 3 TBSP ground flax meal beaten with 5 TBSP water until goopy and foamy

3/4 cup, 5 oz, currants or raisins

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Whisk dry ingredients through salt together in a largish mixing bowl. Add the fat next and cut it into the flour mixture with a couple of knives, or use your fingers to split and flatten the fat and work the flour into it, or use a food processor and give the ingredients 10 X 1 second pulses.  You want no pieces of fat larger than a green pea when you’re done. Toss your dried fruit with the flour-and-fat mixture. Beat the eggs (or their alternative) into the clabbered milk, cream or what-have you.

Make a well in the dry ingredients. Pour in the wet ingredient mixture all at once. Using a fork, stir the dries into the wet–in as few strokes as possible, lifting from the bottom and the sides to incorporate more of the dry ingredients each time. Before you’ve got all the dry bits worked in, dump your scone dough onto a flat work surface. Knead the rest of the dry ingredients into the dough mass. Pat the dough out into two circles, each about 8″ (20 cm) in diameter. Slice the circles into twelve, or eight, wedges. Place the scones on ungreased cookie sheets, about half an inch (1.25 cm) apart.

Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden brown on the top. Serve at once with whatever you like best.

Scone Variations

Apricot-Ginger:

Add 1 tsp powdered ginger, 1/2 tsp ground cardamom and 3 TBSP chopped crystallized ginger to the dry ingredients

(Add one inch (2.5 cm) grated fresh ginger to the wet ingredients) optional but very effective

Use chopped dried apricots in place of the raisins or currants in the master recipe

Cherry Almond:

Add 1/2 tsp almond extract to the wet ingredients

Use chopped dried tart cherries in place of the raisins or currants in the master recipe

(Press slivered almonds into the tops of the scones before baking) optional

Let’s take a few fer instances.

Do you thrive in primitive living conditions? Many, many WWOOFs don’t have electricity, or have only limited lines of access. Many WWOOFs don’t have running water with a relationship to a toilet or water heater. Some WWOOFs have amazing amenities for their volunteer staff, even beyond a scenic view and the cultural exposure. But if you don’t like spiders or small woodland creatures or assorted reptiles sharing your housing, you may want to find another way to get closer to the land and the practices of sustainable agriculture.

A corollary to the above question is, Can you entertain yourself? Not only might you not have electricity, you might also be the only WWOOFer on the WWOOF site. Or you might spend a fair amount of your volunteer hours working alone. If you’re not comfy by yourself without technological distractions, you may wish to refrain from WWOOFing.

The second corollary is, Can you live without privacy? You may be sharing a tent, cabin or room with one to four people at any given time during your WWOOF. Accommodations vary widely and with little consideration for age, gender or preference.

Do you find satisfaction in undertaking repetitive, fussy work in all-weather conditions? Transplanting seedlings into prepared holes in a light rain when it’s 54°F/12°C is a ready example. Or weeding out tomatoes when it’s 89°F/33°C, and so windy there’s a grit in the air. Or taking many 5 gal/19 l buckets of warm water out to the pigs when it’s 10°F/-13°C. All theses are examples from the temperate zone where the climate is fairly moderate.

Have you got a broad, ready-for-anything palate? Other people don’t eat as you do. Some of them live on white bread and peanut butter. Some of them live on rice and pickled veggies. Some of them live on corn bread and beans. Some of them live on fou-fou and fava. Some of them live on meat, including parts of the animal which in your own body could be donated for transplant should you have an unfortunate occurance.

Are you healthy? Largely free of allergies? Able to carry enough of your necessary prescriptions to see you through your WWOOF? Good health may appear to be an obvious WWOOFing attribute, but I enunciate the question for the obvious reason that WWOOFers sometimes don’t seem to have considered this one question before setting out to labor in the fields/pastures/orchards/barns &tc of the world. If you’re travelling well off the beaten path in your WWOOF, do be certain to have all the right vaccinations and boosters and such before you go. Lack of these may deny you entry to your port of call.

Do you understand the seriousness of your commitment to the WWOOF site, however briefly you’re there? Small diversity farms count on every pair of hands they can find to get the job done. At many WWOOFs, you might spend most of your time doing something which seems simple, not to say tedious, like picking fruit or vegetables. The degree of care given to harvesting produce the right way can increase it’s market value and longevity in storage dramatically. If you’re not that into it, and you allow it to show in the quality of your work effort, you’re actually causing the farm’s income to drop. If you don’t bother to follow the planting instructions for the potatoes exactly, long after you’re gone the farmer you ‘helped’ will be wondering why only one potato in five planted in your row came up. If you don’t take a moment to survey the scene and be certain the lights are off/the gate is latched/ the bin is secured/the tank is full you might even cause an actual disaster. And nobody wants that.

So ask yourself these few questions. Maybe you’ll be able to think of some more as you ponder those above. There are lots of ways to do good in the world. WWOOFing is one of them. But it’s not the only answer by a long shot.

This second year on Buckland Farm was accented by long and short term WWOOFers. We had a spring-into-summer WWOOFer, and a summer WWOOFer, and a fall WWOOFer as anchors to our volunteer/intern program. We again hosted WWOOFers from every time zone in the lower forty-eight. We again hosted WWOOFers from five foreign nations. And we have now hosted WWOOFers ranging from their teen years into their sixth decade. Props to the stalwart staff of Buckland Farm! You all squished an amazing number of bugs. You all weeded and watered and hoed and pruned and harvested and composted to beat the band.

In our second year, WWOOFers became more important to the livestock side of our operations. Our pastured pig herd grew by multiples. We were grateful for the extra pairs of hands when building shelters, laying pasture lines, watering and feeding, and giving bacon rubs. Our flock of chickens grew from eight to fifty. Egg production in our second year peaked around thirty-seven on a good day. I’m anticipating more volume once this spring is fully under way. We said good-bye to our second rooster, too: Purdy was a gentleman and will be missed.

Our second year on the farm brought us many brand new experiences. We processed our pastured turkey flock by hand, and have vowed never to do so again (we’re thinking about a mechanical plucker to speed the pace along). But customer feedback on the turkeys was consistently good. People enjoyed the fine grained texture, the juicy meat and the extraordinary flavor of our Narragansett turkeys. We also saw Fern and Willow, who came to the farm in the first week of April at two months of age, give birth on the fourth of December. Of their twenty piglets, seventeen survive and are healthy and lively to a one.

This second year developed our skills quite a bit. MAP acquired and operates a walk-behind two-wheel tractor, a seeder and  a wheel hoe (with a trenching and a skimming attachment). These allow us to work the garden with more speed, accuracy and flexibility than hand-tools or a full-sized tractor can provide. We processed one of our original hogs right on the farm. He’s yielded up many, many good eats. In addition, his great size allowed us plenty of material to experiment with and refine. Our sausage recipes really are our own. Our bacon is becoming consistent in its finish and salt level. We’re looking forward to constructing a smoker before the year ahead runs out.

The year just past we also witnessed something of a minor miracle here on Buckland Farm. We used the kickstarter.com site and raised enough money to put a well in down by the barn so as to have a source of water not drawn from the kitchen during the cold months, and suitable to support sows and piglets all the year round in our farrowing center on the lower level of the barn. We admire the ease of drawing water for our twenty-nine pigs this year, compared to getting water to six pigs last winter.

Once again, we’re in discussion with various commercial kitchens, both catering and restaurant, over our pork and our veggies. We planted 1480 row feet of more than fifteen varieties of garlic. Lots of chefs are casting their eyes upon our projected garlic scapes and even the eventual garlic bulbs themselves. MAP and I are debating with ourselves regarding pastured broiler chickens. We have farmers markets interested in our presence if we can bring the birds.

Here comes a whole ‘nother year everybody!

However, there are those times when I notice the near, but not total, dereliction of the bread box. There are mornings where I want to put a nice calorie load into people but don’t have a lot of  room in the day’s itinerary to do so. There are occasions where folks want a hot breakfast, but using the oven isn’t an option. And that’s where French Toast comes into play.

This recipe for French Toast is quick, easy, and dependent on staple foods in most households. This French Toast recipe still includes a few more ingredients than most. Give this recipe a try and see what your diners have to say about the lovely, hot breakfast it makes.

French Toast Buckland 

6 slices stale bread, cinnamon raisin is special–but when is that ever the bread which gets stale?

2 eggs, beaten

2 TBSP flour

zest and juice of 1/2 orange

2/3 cup, 5.5 oz,  milk

pinch salt

1/3 tsp cinnamon

1 TBSP sugar

2 TBSP grease, for the pan

Heat a griddle on medium. Whisk the eggs, flour, zest, juice, milk and seasonings together in an 8″ X 8″ pan. Soak the bread, one or two pieces at a time so they lay flat in the dish, in the egg mixture, for about a minute on a side. When the griddle is hot, grease it lightly and place a couple slices of the prepared bread on the griddle. Lower the heat slightly. Let the French Toasts cook for 2-3 minutes on the first side, until well browned without being burnt. Turn them and let them have another couple minutes on the heat. Repeat until you run out of ingredients.

Serve French Toast with maple syrup and butter, or apple butter, or powdered sugar and a squeeze of lemon, or hot orange sauce

Hot Orange Sauce

zest of 1/2 orange

1 cup, 8 oz, freshly squeezed orange juice

1/2 cup water

2 TBSP honey or rice syrup, or agave syrup

pinch of salt

1 TBSP cornstarch + 1 TBSP water

2 TBSP unsalted butter

Put the first five ingredients into a smallish sauce pan. Heat them, stirring until they’re all dissolved together. Allow the mixture to come to a boil. Meanwhile, stir the cornstarch and the small amount of water together.  Whisk these into the mixture on the stove until fully incorporated. Turn the heat down slightly as the mixture comes back to the boil. Let it boil moderately for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter. Delicious on the French Toast, or anything really.

The recipe for Lemon Love Notes has been evolving since its appearance in the 1971 edition of the Joy of Cooking. I looked on-line. And I looked in cook books. Ultimately, I found a viable variation in America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. Viable, but still not quite what I was looking for, and still in need of tweaking in light of certain of its instructions. Here’s my finished hybrid. You’ll love it. No, really you will.

Lemon Love Notes

For the crust:

1 1/4 cup, 6 1/4 oz, all purpose unbleached flour

1/2 cup, 2 oz, confectioners sugar

1 pinch of salt

8 TBSP, 4 oz, unsalted butter, melted

For the filling:

4 large eggs + 2 egg yolks

1 cup + 2 TBSP, 7.8 oz, sugar

zest from 3-4 lemons

2/3 cup, 5.7 oz, lemon juice–the juice of 3-4 lemons

4 TBSP butter, cut into 15-20 pieces

1 pinch of salt

1/2 cup cream

confectioners sugar for dusting

Put an aluminum foil sling into an 8′ X 8′ baking dish. Oil the sling. Preheat the oven to 350°. Whisk together the flour, confectioners sugar and salt. Add the melted butter and stir it well in to the sugar-flour mixture. Drop the dough in pieces into the prepared 8″ X 8″ pan. Press the dough gently together, and neaten up the edges. Bake this for 20 minutes until it’s beginning to brown lightly.

Meanwhile, beat the eggs and yolks in a medium saucepan. Add the sugar and beat it well in. Add the lemon zest, juice and the pinch of salt. Place the pan over medium to medium low heat. Stir it gently and constantly. After the curd reaches 130°, it will shortly begin to boil. Pull the pan immediately from the heat and strain it into a medium sized bowl. Stir in the cream, then pour the filling on top of the baked short crust. Put the pan back into the oven for 12-15 minutes, turning it once. The Lemon Love Notes are done when the topping is jiggly and opaque.

Allow them to cool for two hours in the pan, set on a wire rack. At the end of that time, use the sling to de-pan the Lemon Love Notes. They’re very rich, so don’t be shy about cutting them pretty small. They will only last three days stored in a tin at room temperature. But they always get eaten before their time is up!

Ginger Lemon Love Notes

1 TBSP fresh ginger, grated

Add this to the curd ingredients before beginning to heat them. Mmmmm-mmm!

Just last week a visitor and I harvested our final crop of succession  onions. Though I found the tag end of a scallion and long red onion bed yesterday and brought them out of the ground in fairly good shape all around. No, I didn’t hand pull them. I snatched up a fork and went at my work in a civilized fashion.

The scallions were just by a serendipitous bed of Yellowstone Carrots. I recognized them by their, now flattened, distinctive tops. And are those carrots ever sweet after so much frost! The carrot bed is west of a batch of Touchstone Gold baby beets. Planted east of the lovely baby beets are three kinds of lettuce: Red Sails, Jericho (a Romaine), and Amish Speckled Bibb. I’ve been feeding enormous bowls of fresh greens to our sows in the barn, since they’re lactating and need every vitamin and scrap of fiber they can wrap their jaws around. I finished cutting the Jericho just two days ago. The weather’s been catching up to it. I’m working my way steadily through the Red Sails, which is beginning to look pretty rough. But the Speckled Bibb is trucking along, small and sturdy and ever-so flavorful.

South of the lettuces is a large bed of mixed Brassicas. We have cabbages forming in slow motion. We have collards, at a Lilliputian size and amazing flavor profile. We have broccoli in a state of nearly arrested development. But none of those plants has given up on living. And they’re all growing, albeit not quickly. near these are the remnants of our final planting of Detroit Red beets. Like the Touchstone, the beets are all less than an inch in diameter. But heavens they’re tasty!

In the garden by the house, we have several rows of leeks. They’re mostly Lincoln with some King Siegfried. We also have a double row of turnips. They’re great in soups and stews and mash nicely with an apple and some butter and salt. There are still shreds of spinach and rainbow chard in the garden as well. Periodically, I cull through those patches to put together a green alternative for the ladies in the barn (who are a little restless being confined–where confined is half the lower barn and the outdoor area on its west side–with their young).

The kale and the collards, planted closest to the drive, are still going strong. The kale, Rainbow Lacinato, was planted in late April. We’ve been harvesting from the plants for months (and months). Now the plants look like exotically colored Bonsai palm trees. The collards are less visually stunning, but at this time of year they’re so tasty no one cares. They too have been in service since the beginning of the 2011 growing season. I wonder how much farther our garden will continue to go?

And I’m not just saying all this ’cause I have more than fifty pounds of Lard rendered already and at least that much more to go. I’m saying this ’cause I use the least grades of Lard I render when I’m sautéing and frying. I use the medium grades of Lard for glossing my potatoes when they go into the oven to bake, for basting my meats, and as the foundation of my roux. And I use the leaf Lard, a glowing church-candle white, for my baking and pastry dough.

For me, cooking is often laced with politics. As I grow and learn and become, my take on the politics shifts. When I cooked for a vegan caterer, I educated myself about vegan concerns in order to be able to work with confidence and correctness when I constructed new recipes and full menus. Now I’m a pig farmer. And I have been educating myself about the uses of the amazing Lard we generate with every round of pork we bring back from the butcher.

As a locavore, one of the most appealing facets of Lard’s contribution to my diet is its carbon footprint. It’s the only local fat in real volume to which I have access. I won’t rule out acquiring the machinery and learning to harvest and press wild nuts for their oil. But I will remind everyone nut oil is extremely volatile. It won’t stay fresh without special handling as it’s pressed and stored. And it requires refrigeration to keep from breaking down within a matter of weeks from its pressing. Mandatory refrigeration plays Merry Hob with the carbon footprint of any food stuff. Lard is happy enough to be properly decanted and stored in a coolish, darkish place. Like the basement, or the garage.

Beyond the indisputable environmental advantages of using Lard, there’s the matter of taste and texture. Oh boy is there ever. Lard adds a tenderness to the interiors of baked goods and a light crispness to their exteriors. Lard gives a melting quality to sweets. Lard adds depth to savory foods. And fresh Lard does all this without being intrusive. Those oatmeal cookies I made last week? Half the fat was Lard. No one cared. Everyone ate too many. And nobody could understand how the same old recipe we always use (on the box top of the container with the nice man of peaceful religious convictions) tastes so much better these days. Go ahead, get some and learn to praise the Lard with me!

In the meantime, we have already put up about 136 pounds of sausage. And we’re going to undertake to create another 170 pounds of sausage with him over the next few days. Really. The formulae below scale up, or down, very satisfactorily. I know this because we’ve been making sausage in twenty-five to fifty pound batches.

Polish Seasoning

For 2 lbs of ground pork (70/30, the shoulder has the ideal ratio):

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp sugar

1 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp marjoram

1/2 tsp thyme

1/4 tsp basil

1/4 tsp garlic powder (fresh garlic is not as nice a substitute as one might think here)

1/4 tsp mustard seeds, ground

For optimal flavor, cut your meat and fat into smallish cubes, no bigger than 1″ on a side. Toss the seasonings together. Then sprinkle them over the meat and work them well in. Allow this to marinate overnight refrigerated. You may grind the sausage the next day. Use or freeze within five days.

Chaurice Seasoning

For three pounds pork (70/30, the shoulder has the ideal ratio):

1 c minced onion

2 1/2 TBSP minced fresh parsley

4 tsp salt

2-4 tsp minced fresh hot pepper (you decide how hot and how much of it). I used mini cherry bomb peppers at the larger proportion

2 tsp minced fresh garlic

1 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp juniper berries, ground

3/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1/4 tsp oregano

1/4 tsp whole allspice, ground

Combine all your seasonings. Cut your meat and fat into cubes no larger than 1″ square. Toss the seasonings with the pork thoroughly. Marinate refrigerated overnight. You may grind your sausage the next day. Use or freeze within seven days.

There’s a chunk of prep at the front of this recipe, but you could make the sofrito well ahead of time (and even cook the beans the night before if you were using dry instead of canned), and then the whole project is a whole lot less of a project. And it won’t compromise the finished flavor of your stew either.

Bumpin’ Bean Stew

For the Sofrito:

2 leeks, white and pale green parts only, carefully cleaned and cut into coarse chunks

1 medium, or 3 small onions, peeled and cut into coarse chunks

1 bulb of garlic, peeled and trimmed of woody clove tops

2 stalks of celery, include the leafy bits (and choose for extra leafy bits if you can) coarsely chopped

6-8 medium-hot peppers, like jalapeno or cherry bomb, or 2 small red bell peppers if you don’t want the heat

1/2 bunch fresh basil, or 2 TBSP dried

For the Stew:

1 lb dried beans, cannellini or great northern or kidney or jacob’s cattle or pink or pinto, rinsed well and soaked overnight with a bay leaf in the water–or soaked for an hour with a kettle of boiling water poured over them (don’t forget the bay leaf), then drained and simmered in water to cover until they’re tender

OR

2 14 oz cans of any of the beans listed above

1 lb fresh chorizo sausage, or any loose spicy sausage you may prefer [optional]

OR

1 lb pork stew meat, cut into small cubes and cooked with the beans above [optional]

OR

1 lb good quality vegetarian sausage (if you like/want it) [optional]

3 TBSP olive oil or drippings

1 batch Sofrito

4 TBSP tomato paste

1 1/2 tsp cumin

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 TBSP soy sauce

4-5 cups stock, vegetable or chicken

salt and pepper to taste

Put all the sofrito ingredients into a food processor or a blender. Whirl them around until you have a juicy, textured paste. You may store this in the fridge for two days.

Heat a large, heavy-bottomed stew pan over medium low. If you’re using the sausage, start it in the heated pan. You want the sausage broken down as far as possible, so stir it and mash it as you cook it. If you’re using a flesh-based sausage, you may not need to add much oil in the pan for your next step. Otherwise, add the oil or drippings and then the sofrito when the oil is hot. Stir the sofrito as it begins cooking. You want it to lose moisture and darken in color. After 8 minutes, add the tomato paste, spices and Worcestershire sauce. Continue to stir occasionally.

Now add in the beans, the stock and the soy sauce. Let the stew come to a simmer and lower the heat. Allow the bean stew to cook for 20 minutes, or as long as is convenient. If you let it go for very much longer, you may wish to add more stock to loosen it up. Check the seasonings and correct with salt and pepper to taste before service.

Scale this back, or scale this up–you’ll find this butternut squash soup tasty however much (or little) you make.

Butternut Squash Soup

For the Stock:

3 leeks, tops only–save the white and pale green parts for the soup

1 large onion, peeled

1 bulb of garlic, loose outer papers removed

1 carrot, broken into four pieces

1 stalk of celery, broken into four pieces

1 bay leaf, or six juniper berries

10 whole black peppercorns

10 stems of mushrooms, if you have them on hand

For the Soup:

3 TBSP olive oil, or walnut oil

3 leeks, whites and pale green parts, chopped small

1 large onion, peeled and chopped small

1 carrot, peeled and chopped small

2 stalks of celery, chopped small

6 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced with

1 1/2 tsp salt

4 lbs butternut squash, peeled and cut into half inch dice

2 small tart apples, peeled and chopped small

2 jalapeno (red if possible) peppers, chopped small [optional]

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 cup apple cider

stock from above

1 tsp rubbed sage

1 1/2 tsp dried thyme

salt and black pepper to taste

Fancy topping for service after soup instructions

Put the stock ingredients into a three or four quart pot over medium high flame. Add water until the ingredients are floating. Turn the heat to medium high. Once the stock comes to the boil, reduce it to a gentle ‘seethe’, with slight motion detectable just beneath the surface of the liquid. Let this go for 30-40 minutes, until all vegetables are cooked through.

In a five to seven quart heavy-bottomed pot, heat the oil over medium low flame. Once the oil is very runny, add the leeks, onions and carrots. Let these cook together for five minutes. Add the celery, garlic, butternut squash, apples and peppers, if using. Cook these, stirring occasionally, for about eight minutes. Now add the Worcestershire sauce, cider and stock. Lower the heat under the soup and allow it to cook for 30-40 minutes. Add the herbs to the pot.

In batches, puree the soup in a blender, with a stick blender, or in the food processor. You might also run the soup through a food mill if you didn’t have the plug-in options. Return the soup to low heat. Add salt and pepper to taste, or soy sauce if you prefer.

This soup is ready to serve. But you may also stir in a cup of heavy cream before ladling it out. Or you might garnish each bowl or mug with this:

Cider-Sour Cream Topping

1 1/4 cup apple cider

1 1/2 cup sour cream

Reduce the cider over medium high heat to half its original volume. Drizzle a small amount of the reduced cider into the sour cream, stirring vigorously. Continue to pour and stir until you’ve got the two fully incorporated. Use a generous spoonful of this for every serving.