I've been playing with this recipe for a few weeks, and here's what I did today (so I don't forget):

• Tripled the recipe, so we have enough for another breakfast
• Substituted fresh ground hulled barley flour for the whole wheat pastry flour, because barley is supposed to help lower cholesterol, and cholesterol is supposed to be connected to the level of inflammation in the body.
  
• Used 1 1/2 cups butter, and 1 1/4 cups coconut oil (I used a little less coconut oil than butter because I've read the substitution rate (coconut oil for butter) is 3/4 to 1).
• Used 4 cups of oats, and attempted to flake them in the blender. It worked okay, but it was really more like a coarse meal (I wonder if that was because I forgot to turn it off? Bingo!).
• Substituted 2 cups finely chopped walnuts for the rest of the oats.
• Used a tablespoon of dried orange zest instead of fresh orange zest.
• For the buttermilk, I used 2 cups of home-frozen pumpkin puree (This was really a way to use up pumpkin, not a way to add nutrition. I figure there should be a generous 2 teaspoons of pumpkin puree in each scone), 3 tablespoons lemon juice, and ~1 1/2 cups whole milk (I should have used more milk. It wasn't easy to handle.)
• Substituted generous 1 1/2 cups chopped California dates for the currants, plus three (finely chopped) Medjool dates.
  
• Soaked the flour according to the WAPF guidelines: mixed the barley flour and oats together, rubbed in the coconut oil by hand, and grated the butter over the top. Stirred in the pumpkin puree, lemon juice, and milk, and let it sit on the counter overnight (room temp: 60 degrees). Next morning, kneaded in the cream of tartar (1 1/2 teaspoons), baking soda (6 teaspoons), chopped walnuts, and chopped dates.
  
• And before I kneaded it in, I added more milk so I could knead it in. Maybe 1/2 to 3/4 cup?...
• No sugar. Hooray!
• They baked for about 25 minutes at 350 before they were done.
• The texture-- sandy, crumbled easily, coarse-grained. The flavor-- I really like dates, and I like them more the more I use them. A little strong with orange-ness. I wanted to use cinnamon, but we were out (I think next time 2 teaspoons of orange zest and 1 teaspoon cinnamon). Keep that in mind for next week.
• Made 36 scones (divided dough into 6 parts, shaped that into rounds and fraction-pie-cut each of those pieces into 6 more pieces)

Emily Dickinson said that 'hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul'. I think hope is the pickup truck that drags us behind it.

Meaning, I suppose, that sometimes it's absolutely exhilarating and sometimes it tears one apart.

I made a happy experiment today: Yorkshire pudding with fruit!

There were three bags of sliced frozen pears in the freezer, about 3 cups total, that I brought in and Momma thawed for me. Then I spread them in a 9x13 pan, and put them in the oven at 425 for about 20 minutes. They were pretty juicy, so I drained the liquid into a sauce pan and put the pears, along with 2 tablespoons each of butter and coconut oil, back into the oven at 500. Then I snipped 1/2 to 2/3 of a cup of dried apricots into the juices, and added a pinch of salt, a couple dashes of balsamic vinegar, generous 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract, and a scant teaspoon of bourbon vanilla extract. Boiled it down till there wasn't much liquid left, turned the heat off and let it cool. Momma mixed the pudding (I think it was 4 eggs, 2 cups of milk, and 2 cups of unbleached flour, plus salt), and I mixed the dried fruit sauce into the batter. Poured the batter over the pears, and baked (at 500) for 30 minutes. I'm excited about it--no sweetener, but a very pleasant dessert! I think it would be good for breakfast, too, with sausages and milk.