Strawberries and Cream Oat Scones & A Simple Salmon Berry Shrub

A couple of nights ago, I looked out the window to see the sky stained twilight blue, the last of the day's glow stubbornly pushing against the coming of night. It was 10 p.m. The days of extended light are stretching out toward their midsummer peak right about now. 

For me, this means one thing: it's berry time.

When it comes to berries of any kind, I am a greedy little child. I am a crazy fool who can't stop stuffing them into her mouth. I am that person whose tongue is stained red, purple and sometimes blue, juices leaking down her chin. And I don't care.

Before I lived in Washington, berries weren't that big of a deal to me. It sounds weird to say that now. But, in Southern California, where I grew up, we had citrus - tangy and bitter kumquats that my grandmother grew, endless supplies of yellow grapefruit from the backyard tree. Oranges and lemons from next door. These were the fruits that sustained me.

Then, we moved to the Pacific Northwest. Berry country. While I still love my citrus fruits, they don't grow here and berries have taken their place front and center.

So this is how it goes around here. First there are the local strawberries at the end of May, which last for about five weeks into June. Then in July, there are the raspberries, which I could eat forever. Then sweet and easy-to-love blueberries arrive and stay on into September.

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Cultivated strawberries from Everson, WA.

Around the same time as the blueberries, the wild blackberries appear growing in unruly thickets along fence lines, trails and streets both wide and narrow.

Himalayan and evergreen blackberry varieties are considered invasive ("class C noxious weeds," according to the state of Washington, for those who insist on the facts). I know people who loathe them because no matter how you beat them back from the edge of your property, they just keep returning.

Maybe it's because I'm not from here that I have to say but wait, wait! Taste them.

There is just something about walking along, plucking the blackberries from their thorny branches. Popping them into your mouth and letting the tart floral juices pool on your tongue for a moment before they trickle down your throat. It's intoxicating.

Not only is this is the closest thing any of us get to grazing like a wild animal. For me, picking wild berries is the closest we'll ever come to knowing what it was like before Adam ate that damned apple, when humankind resided in innocence and perfection.

But wait. There is, of course, more. Between the wild blackberries and local farm-cultivated berries, we have red huckleberries, currants, thimbleberries, wild strawberries and salmon berries throughout the woods and free for the taking.

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Wild salmonberries. They look a bit like raspberries. But also a bit like salmon roe. And, they taste floral and melon-y at the same time.

I'll pick and forage enough berries during these warmer months to make different jams, jellies, vinegar shrubs and baked treats. I'll also definitely freeze some of my loot so that during the long, dark months of winter, our family will have these sweet jewels to fill the short days with light.

This year, Kingston and I started our berry celebration once again at Spring Frog Farm in Everson. After petting their big black farm cat sufficiently (per the three-year-old), we plonked our knees into the dirt and reached our hands under the low-growing plants to pick heaps and heaps of strawberries.

Once we brought them home, we cooked up a batch of Rachel Saunder's Children's Strawberry Jam (our favorite) then baked these tender scones for you.

We hope you'll enjoy every morsel.

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Strawberries and Cream Oat Scones
Because this recipe uses oats along with all-purpose flour, these scones are a bit more fragile that you might typically expect. Using the oats is worth it though because the oats bring the butter flavor even more strongly to the fore than all-purpose flour alone would. (Note: Alice Medrich mentions this in the oat flour chapter of her wonderful book, Flavor Flours.) Just let the scones cool for at least 15 minutes and they will be more willing to be picked up and handled by a hungry eater.  

Makes 8 scones.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cup (180g) all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cup (116 g) old-fashioned oats, divided
2 teaspoons (12 g) ground flax seeds
5 tablespoons (65 g) fine natural cane or granulated sugar
1 tablespoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
6 tablespoons (85 g) cold butter, cut into 1/2 to 3/4-inch pieces
3/4 cup strawberries, hulled 
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream, plus extra for finishing
1 cold large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Demarara or turbinado sugar for sprinkling

Instructions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Place a piece of parchment on a baking sheet. Set aside.

Cut strawberries lengthwise into 1/4-inch slices, then cut crosswise into 1/2-inch pieces. Set aside in small bowl.

Put half of the oats into a blender or mini-processor, whizzing to fine consistency. In a large bowl, combine the ground oats, all-purpose flour, flax seeds, sugar, baking powder and sea salt. Add in the remaining (unprocessed) oats.

Toss butter into the flour mixture, so that all pieces are coated. Putting hands into an offering gesture, place some of the flour and butter into your open-palmed hands. Using your fingers and thumbs, press down on the butter, smearing it into the flour. Allow bits of the mixture to fall back through your fingertips and into the bowl. Repeat until you have worked the butter through most of the flour. You will notice that you can really start smelling the butter, which means that it is warming up and really getting worked in. Toss the strawberries in, using your hands to gently distribute the fruit throughout the mixture.

Whisk together the cream, egg and vanilla. Slowly drizzle it in a spiral motion from the outside in toward the center of your flour-butter mixture. Using a fork, quickly work the wet ingredients in. Take a bit of the dough without any strawberries and squeeze it. If it holds together, it has enough moisture. If it doesn't, add a few drops more cream. Test again by squeezing a bit of dough together. You dough will appear shaggy, but there is no need to fret.

Tip the dough mixture onto a lightly floured surface. Gather it together kneading quickly and lightly. Shape the dough into a 1--inch thick circle. Using a floured knife or pastry scraper, cut in half, then again into quarters. Cut twice more across the circle until you have 8 wedges. (Alternatively, you could use a biscuit cutter and make these into round shapes.) Place wedges on your prepared sheet.

It's best to let your scones rest for 20 minutes, or longer, if you have the time. Place them in the refrigerator or freezer to rest.

When ready, brush some cream onto the tops of the scones. Sprinkle generously with sugar.

Place scones in the middle of oven. Bake for 20-22 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 2 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Keeps in a sealed container for 2-3 days. Reheat them at low heat in the oven if you wish.

Adapted from Tara O'Brady's wonderful new book, Seven Spoons. Go out and buy it already, people. It belongs on your kitchen bookshelf.

Simple Salmon Berry Shrub

Makes about 2 cups.

Ingredients
1 cup salmon berries
1 cup raw unrefined cane sugar
1 cup apple raw (unpasteurized) cider vinegar

Instructions
Give your berries a gentle rinse and drain in a colander.

Place berries in a medium non-reactive bowl. Crush berries lightly with the tines of a fork to release the juices. Pour sugar over the berries, stirring so that all the berries are coated.

Cover mixture and place in the refrigerator for at least several hours and up to a couple of days.

When you uncover the bowl, you'll see that the berries have exuded their juices and combined with the sugar to form a syrup. Scrape berries, syrup and any remaining undissolved sugar into a fine-meshed sieved over a bowl and press through the sieve.

Combine the collected syrup, juices and sugar with the vinegar and pour into a sterilized bottle or large jar with a non-metallic lid. Any remaining undissolved sugar will eventually be dissolved by the acids in the vinegar.

Use right away or allow to age slightly in the fridge. Your shrub will mellow out and the flavors will come together the longer it is allowed to sit, up to one month. Use the shrub in a cocktail or enjoy simply with some soda water and a bit of citrus.

Note: If you can't find any salmon berries, feel free to substitute another type. Raspberries will do just nicely, for example.

Maple Pecan Granola

Oh the pleasures of life with a toddler. Each morning, my husband and I are greeted by a little human climbing into our warm bed who wakes us with a shout of, "Get up! Want go downstairs now."

Sometimes we bargain back. "It's still dark. Wait till there's light..." or, holding up a cell phone, "Wait till it says seven-zero-zero, okay?"

It's always the same: Not happening, mom and dad.

So we tumble out of bed, find our way to the dining table, and out comes the...yep, that ubiquitous (in kid households, at least) box of machine-extruded cereal in the shape of small Os. We go through bowlfuls of the stuff.

My husband sits next to the toddler, who bounces on his chair, shoveling in the cereal, which drips with the local raw milk that's been poured over it.

From as early on as possible, we've been talking to our son about how veggies grow from dirt and fruit from bushes and trees. And, he's always come back with plenty of questions, mostly beginning with the word, "Why?"

"Why the flowers yellow?"

"Why the dog bark like that?"

Why, why, what, where?

"Where Os from?"

That is the question he has inevitably asked. Not sure, I have to answer. From a factory somewhere? A machine at the factory probably pushed out the Os? He looks at me, confused.

We've foraged for huckleberries and blackberries together, gone to a local farm to pick strawberries. Gleaned yellow plums from a friend's overflowing backyard tree. 

We've done things like drive the thirty miles down to visit Thoughtful Food Farm to see where the hog we bought this year was pastured and slaughtered. Farmer Jeff even pulled up a four-pound, end-of-season beet for us to take home (and yes indeed, I did go home and hold it up to our dog's head to take pictures, for size comparison).

Little human and I managed to visit at least four farms this growing season, which I think is pretty good. By now, he has a sense of where food comes from. 

But we haven't yet been to a factory to see how his beloved packaged cereal is made.

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"Real food for everyone!" Shouts the Lego Man.

When you are around a young child who asks so many questions about the world, you might view the job of answering a million-and-one inquiries as tiresome. But what a wonderful thing it is, that natural curiosity!

If we could see everything as shiny, new and exciting too, the world might be a different place. Think about it. We might even be altogether different people. The kind who would, unprompted, start dancing around on the sidewalk. Or, jump up and down at the sight of the glowing full moon.

Why is it so important to ask where our food comes from, much less to know, or to know what is in it? Or, even further, to ask who grew it, produced it?

Does it really matter very much? 

As human beings we innately have a need to know the meaning of things. Again, look at the toddler and his bevy of questions. But, it seems we have moved so far away from our natural state of curiosity that have we have become willing to accept as food a machine extruded or compressed item wrapped in cellophane which is then placed in a cardboard box printed with bright letters. 

Nearly all of us accept this as the norm, even at times, our own family. But at least we are conscious of this. I'd like my son to know this kind of "food" exists and even allow him to try it so that he can eventually make his own choices about what to consume. Perhaps by then, the natural state of asking "Why?" or "What is this?" or "Where does this come from?" will be firmly and irrevocably entrenched in him. 

Thankfully, this granola is one of those rare things my son is willing to eat instead of the Os. It's packed with rolled oats, toasted pecans, sunflower seeds, coconut, and maple syrup. No refined sugar. It's a family favorite, a granola we can agree on anytime in our house. We eat it for breakfast and as a snack, with or without milk or yogurt.

While there are many types of granola recipes out there, I like this one for its lack of sugar (other than the maple syrup) and its simplicity. I've adapted it slightly from Kim Boyce's terrific book, Good to the Grain. 

We differ somewhat in our ingredients and cook times, but I've held onto Ms. Boyce's technique of boiling down the maple syrup to concentrate it then adding a bit of butter and kosher salt. The resulting granola has a beautiful, golden sheen and a hint of salty-sweetness. If you are like me and prefer to have a savory edge to your sweet things, then this granola is it. 

You can toss a bit of dried fruit (blueberries, cranberries, raisins, etc.) in at the end as well if you need more sweetness. I don't bother with that. I'm a plain Jane kind of gal when it comes to my granola. But I'm also the first to admit that fruit is a delicious thing. 

Try this out. You might start making it once a week like I do. For the toddler's sake, of course.

P.S. It also just occurred to me that this makes a great holiday gift too! Just pour some into a clear cellophane bag and tie it with a pretty ribbon and...c'est oila!

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Crisp and golden, with a salty-sweet edge. Eat it with your fingers if you like. Or, a spoon.

Maple Pecan Granola

Makes about 8 cups.

Ingredients

Dry Mix:
2 cups pecan halves or pieces
3 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cups unsweetened coconut flakes
1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/2 cup unsalted sunflower seeds

Syrup:
1 cup maple syrup, B-grade, preferably organic
2 ounces (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Instructions:

Heat oven to 325 degrees. 

Spread pecans onto a baking sheet and toast for 12 to 15 minutes until they begin to become fragrant and toasted. 

Prepare two rimmed baking sheets. Butter them or use pieces of parchment paper to line the pan.

Place oat flakes, the two types of coconut and sunflower seeds in a large bowl. Add the toasted pecans (breaking some into halves and smaller pieces). Combine the ingredients with your hands. 

For the syrup:
Measure the maple syrup into a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Place it over medium-high heat for about 8 minutes, until the syrup is reduced to 3/4 cup but no less (granola will lose its sheen). The syrup may bubble up. Reduce heat if needed, to prevent it from boiling over.

Measure the reduced syrup and then pour it back into the saucepan. Add the the butter and salt. Allow butter to melt, swirling the pan to help it along.

As soon as the butter melts, immediately pour the syrup over the oats mixture. Use a spatula to mix and coat every bit of the oat mixture with syrup. This means tossing, scraping and going over the mixture again with your spatula. 

Spread granola in a single layer in each of your prepared baking sheets. The layer will be clumpy. 

Bake for 10 minutes. Remove the sheets, shutting oven door as soon as possible, and scrape the edges of the granola to the center and the center areas to the outer edges. Try not to disturb the mixture too much, so that you retain clumps that will eventually turn delicious, crunchy and golden. 

Rotate the sheets so the one that was on the top goes to the bottom rack and vice versa. This will ensure even cooking. 

Repeat this process a second and third time, in 10 minute intervals, for a total cook time of 30 minutes. If you prefer your granola darker, you may want to leave it in longer, but do keep an eye on it. If you prefer it lighter, take it out 5 minutes before the end of the third bake. 

Take baking pans out of the oven and allow the granola to cool completely so that crunchy clumps can form. Once cooled, you may add dried fruit if you like. If not, transfer to airtight containers.

This granola will keep for at least one week.