Oatmeal Scones with Dried Cranberries and Pecans

These are incredibly easy scones that take less than 30 minutes from start to finish.

Preheat oven to 425° Fahrenheit. Most recipes start with preheat and your oven is heated up long before your recipe is mixed. Not with this, even starting to preheat before you mix one thing, you might have to wait to get to 425.

In a large bowl, mix the following dry ingredients:

• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1 1/2 cup white flour
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries

Combine the following wet ingredients in another bowl. Pour them into the dry. You can make a little well in the dry ingredients to pour the wet in as that makes it just a bit easier to mix.

• 1 egg, beaten until frothy
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 cup of melted butter

Note: This recipe is so forgiving it does not care whether you melt the butter and add it with the milk and egg or if you mix cold butter into the dry mixture by hand until it is crumbly. You can choose. Either method has the same result. It is just slightly easier and faster to melt the butter in the microwave for 45 seconds or so.

Mix the ingredients so all the dry is incorporated. It will be a wet, sticky dough.

Put parchment paper on cookie sheet.

If you are ambitious, you can flour a board and roll it out into two circles about 1/2 thick and cut each circle into 4 pie-size wedges. I think it is just easier to roll out eight balls of dough and press them into 1/2 thick little rounds. Separate them so they are not touching.

Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until risen and browned.

You can serve warm with some butter, jam or cream cheese, but I like them plain with nothing else, warm or cold.

Makes 8 scones.

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Pork Tenderloin with Italian Beans

This pork tenderloin was amazing. I was all set to rub some Earl Grey tea on it before baking, but then I wondered what would happen if I used ground coffee instead. I did some research on coffee rubs and they varied quite a bit, but most of them had a few ingredients consistent from recipe to recipe. For my first coffee rub, I decided to keep it simple and stick with those core ingredients.

• 2 TBSP of coffee beans. I put them in my Magic Bullet and let it go until they were ground fine. Then I added
• 2 TBSP of brown sugar
• 1 tsp of salt
• 1 tsp of chili powder
• 1/2 tsp of pepper

I gave that a couple whirls to mix them up and then spread the rub out on a long piece of cling film. I laid the tenderloin over the rub and rolled it around and rubbed the pieces into the meat. Then I formed it into a snug roll and wrapped it up tight in the cling film and set it in the fridge overnight.

To roast it, I put a cast iron skillet in the oven at 450° Fahrenheit and let the pan heat up in the oven. I removed it from the oven when it reached 450° and put a tbsp of olive oil in the pan and spread it around. I unwrapped the tenderloin and laid it in the pan, I turned the heat down to 400° and put it in the oven for about 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, I turned it over and let it cook 1o more minutes. I checked the doneness with a thermometer, looking for 140°. Then I removed it from the oven and let it rest 10 minutes before slicing across the grain.

It’s an amazing flavor. It actually tastes like a rich sweet bourbon was poured over it.

Makes 8 servings.

Italian Beans.

This was just a quick veggie dish I tossed together. I put 2 cups of frozen Italian beans in a sauce pan with 1 can of diced tomatoes and 1 can of cannellini beans. I added some salt and pepper and one close of garlic (squashed and minced). I heated until done and shaved a bit of Asiago cheese on top.

Makes 4 servings.