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Today is the start of a new week. Unfortunately, they expect it to rain ALL week. The bad part of all of this, besides the rain, is that the humidity will still be around even if it rains this much!

Satoshi needed to buy a book for one of his German language classmates, so I called a bookstore nearby to see if they had it. Since they had the book, I went to pick it up and also browsed and found two new cookbooks for myself.

One is by Sachiko Murakami. This one was quite interesting because she uses vinegar as an ingredient to make different dessert items. Vinegar is thought to help with blood flow and is also thought to help beat natsubate (suffering from the heat of summer). I think I'll give some of these recipes a try. Hopefully I can post about them and share them with you all.

The second one was by Hidemi Sugino. I had seen this pastry chef on television in Japan and seen some of his recipes done on Nordljus' blog. I know that most of the recipes are quite difficult to make but the thing I liked about this book is that it is written in both Japanese and English. Hopefully I'll get up enough courage to try something from here.

Oh, and I found a new scone recipe to try while surfing Tante Marie's Cooking School's website, so I decided to try it out today.

Tante Marie's Scones

Ingredients
3 cups all pupose flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
8 Tbs. (1/2 cup) butter
1-1/2 cups buttermilk
3/4 cup currants (optional)
extra sugar for sprinkling on top

Instructions
Cut the butter into 1/4 inch cubes and place in the freezer for a few minutes
Mix the dry ingredients together into a mixing bowl. Cut in the chilled butter.
When the pieces of butter ar the size of small peas, stir in the buttermilk, being careful not to over mix.
Stir in the currants. Knead briefly to bring together. Press out until about 1 inch thick. Cut with a 3-inch crinkly cutter and place on ungreased baking sheet. (It is important not to reform excess dough--just press together).
Sprinkle the tops of each scone with sugar. Bake in the middle or lower rack of a preheated 450F (230C) oven for 12 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy!

Notes: This scone is very fluffy like a biscuit. I didn't put any currants or fruit in this one or sprinkle the sugar on top. It was very good with the strawberry jam that I made.

Hope you are keeping cool and dry where you are!

Have a nice week!