Chocolate Chip Scones

Realization: I need a pastry cutter!!

3 cups of flour
1/3 cup sugar
2.5 teaspoons of baking powder
0.5 teaspoon of baking soda
3/4 teasspoon of salt
1.5 sticks of butter (cold)
1 tablespoon of grated orange or lemon zest
1 cup of buttermilk (1 tablespoon of vinegar+complete it to a cup with milk)
Dried cranberries and/or other dry things (such as chocolate chips!)

The directions:

Scones are very sensitive, and this was my lesson today. So if the recipe calls for cold butter, cut with pastry cutter, you should not half-melt the butter, thinking that you are smarter! Don’t worry though, I am only going to write here the actual, and fantastic scone recipe by Amy! Amy taught me a lot of things today, one of them being: baking soda and baking powder are not the same! They have different functions, so -lesson 2- you cannot and should not substitute one for the other. Last lesson of the day: if you don’t have buttermilk at home (I don’t remember if I ever had buttermilk at home!) you can mix a tablespoon of vinegar with milk, and there you go!

After this long -but informative, no?- intro, here is the brief directions:
Preheat the oven to 425 F. Cut butter into flour, and mix it with pastry cutter (I used mixer, and worked out fine) until the butter pieces are smaller than pea, and the mixture looks crumbly. Then put rest of the dry ingredients. Lastly, pour the buttermilk or approximate-buttermilk. Stir with a spoon (you should not touch the mixture, because of your skin temperature) and put it on a baking sheet in the form of a disk. With a long knife, slice it (see the picture). Bake for about 20 minutes, and let it cool before you separate the pieces and enjoy :)

Shrimp Quesedillas

(Shrimp) Quesedillas for a Monday night :) 

Are all Mondays doomed to be so long? Anyway, after a particularly long one, this simple but very yummy dinner was like a feast!

Ingredients (2 servings for 2 very hungry people)

8 oz shrimp

1 onion (white onion is the best, but any will do)

2 green peppers

Half a lime juice

Two handful of white button mushrooms

Grated cheese -colby jack, cheddar

Half a bunch cilantro

Tortillas (I like the uncooked ones)

Spices: paprika, cumin, pepper, salt

(And some margaritas, to accompany the process :) )

Directions

Marinade the shrimp with half lime juice, paprika, cilantro, salt and pepper.  

Cut the onions and peppers into half rings. Heat a pan with some vegetable oil, and caramelize the onions and peppers. It takes about 10-15 minutes. Put them aside.

Sautee the mushrooms for a few minutes over high heat. Put aside.

In the same pan, sautee the shrimp for about 4-5 minutes (if they are cooked, longer otherwise).

Then the fun part: put the cheese, shrimps, caramelized onion+peppers, mushrooms and cilantro in the tortillas then cook it over medium heat. Yum!