Homemade Scones and having a well-stocked kitchen

Even though they are almost exactly like muffins, which I make all the time, scones always seemed like the kind of thing I buy, not make. I have, until recently, felt this way about a whole slew of things that I now make, including pickles and barbeque sauce. This morning, the last friday before I start my last semester of grad school (woohoo!), I wanted to make breakfast. But because we crib most of our recipes off the internet and keep them in a stack of disorganized papers crammed in between copies of Veganomicon and the Joy of Cooking, I couldn't find our usual muffin recipe. So, scones. I scanned a few of our cookbooks, including Beard on Bread and the back-to-basics How it All Vegan. I found what I was looking for in the New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook--a classic scone recipe, dense and slightly sweet and easily adaptable to whatever fruit or chocolate goodness you want to put in there. I adapted the recipe slightly (more oil so they would be thicker) and used blueberries instead of raisins. 4 C unbleached flour 1/4 c sugar 3 1/2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp. salt 1 1/2 C soy milk 1/2 C oil 1 C blueberries (thawed in sink if frozen, you don't want them to release too much water and thin out the scone) Preheat over to 400 degrees. Sift dry ingredients together. Make a well in the middle and add in wet ingredients and blueberries. You may have to knead with your hands a little, because scones form more of a dough than a batter. You can just spoon them onto a cookie sheet if you're feeling casual, or if you want something a little more presentable, roll out the dough so it is 1/2" thick and cut into wedges. The original instructions said to bake them at 450 degrees for 10-15 minutes, but it seemed like my scones were going to burn on the outside before being completely cooked on the inside if I did that, so I lowered the temperature and ended up cooking them for about 20-25 minutes. They were perfectly cooked: dense on the inside and brown on the bottoms. Making these scones this morning also reminded me what a pleasure it is to have a well-stocked kitchen. I didn't have to run to the store for flour, sugar, or baking powder. We had blueberries in the freezer, ready for impromptu breakfasts. There was once a time when I would have bought flour and sugar in small quantities for very specific recipes, and each time it made cooking seem like a chore and it made it feel more expensive than going to the coffee shop and forking over $2.50 for a scone. Now, when I run out of flour, I buy more, and the same goes for sugar, vanilla, and a whole range of other ingredients for simple dinners, like beans, rice, pasta, canned tomatoes, coconut milk, etc. Being able to open your cabinets and throw something together makes cooking a pleasure, and saves me the cost of running down to the overpriced "organic" corner store to purchase $5 tempeh or $4 boxes of pasta.