Whole-Wheat Pear and Hazelnut Scones

I told you after my last post that I had pear and hazelnuts on the brain. Please be warned that these scones are unlike any of my previous recipes. I have been on this whole grain, nutty, hearty baked goods kick lately. Not to product drop, but I used the Bob's Red Mill whole wheat flour for these. It doesn't necessarily matter what brand you use, just make sure it is something hearty. These are almost the texture of cornmeal muffins. The bits of diced pear just melt in your mouth and then you get the occasional crunch of hazelnut. Let's just say that I was home alone and ate the entire batch over three days. I liked them, yes I did. 
The dough is much more wet than previous recipes, it needs to be to offset the whole-wheat flour. I used Red Pears, but you could use any kind. I was thinking these would be perfect for Christmas morning if you used both red and green pears. They still feel kind of festive even if you don't. Hope you like them as much as I did.

Morning Glory Muffins

I love the idea of a good hearty muffin for breakfast in the morning. A muffin that will bring you well past lunch, especially if you are someone like me who often looks at the clock to find it is 3:00 p.m. and you still haven't eaten. I always hate that feeling, should I just skip lunch and wait for dinner?
The thing is that a GOOD, hearty muffin is hard to come by. I can't tell you how many terribly dry Morning Glory muffins I have eaten from bakeries across the country. Very rare do you find a place that does them well, or a recipe for that matter. Then there is the whole raisin issue, I'm a bit weird about raisins, for the most part I don't mind them, but some days I really want nothing to do with them. There is nothing worse than biting into a cookie that you thought contained chocolate chips, only to discover it is a raisin cookie.
When I found this recipe for Morning Glory muffins that contained no raisins, but instead apples, I knew I needed to give them a try. They are really great, nice and moist due to the apples. The great thing is that you can trade out ingredients to make them how you like them. You could easily add raisins instead of the nuts, or leave out the coconut. I know there are a lot of coconut haters out there. The apples really are the key, so I wouldn't recommend leaving them out unless you replaced them with something like pears and maybe hazelnuts. Well, that's about enough to send me back to the kitchen. However you make them, I hope they come with a glorious morning.

Moroccan Carrot Salad

Well, I am starting to think about Thanksgiving. It is officially that time of year where everything starts revolving around food. Ok, maybe that is all year for some of us. The thing is that I have only started thinking about it. Thanksgiving is a mere two weeks away and I don't have any recipes bookmarked and no cookbooks piling up. You see, I am not much for tradition. I like to make something different every year.  It all started a few years ago when I decided to make all Mexican dishes including Turkey Mole for Thanksgiving. It is probably one of the tastiest Thanksgiving meals I have ever eaten. This weekend I started to think about what I should do this year. We really like Indian food, so I was leaning towards a curry spiced turkey. Indian food is great for a lot of side items, so I thought that would work well. Then I remembered these carrots. I made this dish for a potluck at the very end of the summer. The great thing about it is that it tastes great at room temperature. A perfect Thanksgiving side dish when the oven and fridge is packed full. A Moroccan Thanksgiving sounds good to me. Do you have any non-traditional Thanksgiving practices? I'd love to hear about them.