Saturday, November 3, 2012

Time to Myself Fail - Mom Syndrome

There are so many things a Mom SHOULD do when she gets a day to herself. She SHOULD curl up and read one of the many books she has been wanting to read. She SHOULD pamper herself with a pot of tea while she reads. She SHOULD treat herself to a bubble bath complete with candles and relaxing music. The reality is that while lying in the tub she gets grossed out at the state of the bathroom and ends up scrubbing the place top to bottom. As long as she's doing that, she may as well run the vacuum and mop the hardwoods and kitchen. Oh hey, if she's doing the floors in the kitchen she may as well clean that room too. Then it's 'holy shit! The kitchen is clean! I'm going to bake!'  It is called Mom Syndrome and I know many ladies who suffer and don't even know there is a name for it!

It really is a steep hill to slide down. Planning a day of r & r and doing all that. Thank goodness I make a point of NEVER touching the laundry. SIGH.......damn you Mom Syndrome!!!!!!

In case you haven't guessed, I did get the day to myself today. The boys went to Comic Con (they even bought me a shirt!) and I had planned to finish a book and relax in my jammies. That didn't quite happen. Well, staying in my Jammies all day did.

I did however manage to Make some delectable pumpkin scones today. I used this recipe from Taste of Home to use up some leftover pumpkin I had kicking around. I actually did not have any pumpkin pie spice but I used a mixture of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice. Everything turned out delicious.

Pumpkin scones from Taste of Home


  • 4-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  • 4 teaspoons baking powder
  • 3 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (I used a mixture of 2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ginger, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 tsp allspice
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup cold butter
  • 2 eggs
  • 1-1/4 cups canned pumpkin
  • 1/2 cup milk plus 1/4 cup for brushing before baking

Preheat oven to 400 F

In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. Use the large holes on a grater, grate the butter into the dry ingredients and mix to coat the butter with flour. You want a mixture that is crumbly with small pieces if butter throughout.

In another bowl, mix together the wet ingredients until it looks like a mass of gloppy pumpkin.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and start mixing.  You will end up with a mass of messiness.

Turn this messiness onto the counter and press it flat. Fold it over onto itself (the best you can at this point)  and press. Keep folding and pressing until it forms a nice rectangle of scone goodness. This folding is how you get the tasty and flaky layers of buttery goodness.Pat the dough into a long rectangle. Cut into 8 squares then cut each square into 2 triangles so you have 16 wedges.


Transfer the wedges to a baking sheet, brush with milk and bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Transfer to a cooling rack.

Mix together some icing sugar with a small amount of milk to make a glaze to drizzle over the cooled scones. You can even add some pumpkin pie spice to the glaze.

I managed to make enough of these to freeze for breakfasts and snacks this week!

Until next time, stay warm and eat well.   (and rest up!)