I can pretty much guarantee that now that I have discovered the beauty of scones that you will all get sick of them and wish that I would stop posting scone recipes. Please, just indulge me for a bit longer okay? I need to thoroughly explore the world of the scone and I promise to only share the very, very best scones that I make. These fit in that very, very best category.

Bacon. Cheddar cheese. Green onions. Those are a few of my favorite ingredients and each one of them is hidden away inside these delightful little scones. Well, okay, so these weren’t “little” scones. They were big. Big and hearty and filling. They’re perfect for breakfast, but I think they’d go just wonderfully with a bowl of soup for lunch.

These were a bit fussier than my last recipe for Chocolate Chip Scones, but they were so worth the extra effort. We’ve been grabbing scones for breakfast every morning this week! They are quick to reheat in the microwave, but they are even tastier heated up in the oven for a bit.

Just look at these! They’re like a clean, compact little breakfast sandwich! In fact, I think I might go eat one now. For dessert. Don’t even try to stop me.

Bacon and Cheddar Scones
Recipe from The Pastry Queen

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup chilled butter, cut into small cubes
• 1 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese
• 4 green onions, thinly sliced
• 10 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
• 3/4 to 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 1 large egg
• 2 tbsp water

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Fit your mixer with the paddle attachment and add flour, baking powder, salt, and black pepper to the bowl. Mix on the low speed. Slowly add cubes of butter to the flour mixture and keep mixing until it is crumbly and your butter is in small pea sized pieces. Add the grated cheese and mix until blended in.

(If you don’t have a mixer just stir dry ingredients together and cut butter in with a pastry cutter or two knives and then stir in the cheese.)

Add the green onions, bacon, and 3/4 cup of buttermilk to the flour and cheese mixture. Mix by hand until all the ingredients are incorporated. Do not overwork the dough! If the dough is still to dry to hold together, add in more buttermilk 1 tablespoon at a time, until you can form the dough into a ball.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and form it into a ball. Using a well floured rolling pin, flatten the dough into a circle about 8 inches wide (mine was closer to 10 inches) and 1/2 inch thick. Cut the dough into 8 to 10 equal wedges depending on the size of scone you want.

Whisk egg and water together and brush the tops of the scone with the egg wash. I sprinkled a bit of kosher salt on the tops because I’m wild and crazy, but the original recipe didn’t call for this.

Place scones on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 18-20 minutes or until they are golden brown and no longer sticky in the centers. Serve warm!

I’ve had appetizers on the brain lately. These little BLT Stuffed Tomatoes aren’t helping much either. In fact, looking at these pictures makes me sad. I don’t have any left and now I want more!

These are the perfect little finger food, full of creamy sour cream, salty bacon, and a bit of parmesan cheese, all stuffed in a little cherry tomato and sprinkled with green onions. Could there be a tastier combination?

The next time you have a get together I beg you, I implore you, I command you to make these little guys. You won’t believe how quickly they fly off the plate.

These don’t take all that long to prepare and can be made a few hours in advance. You just slice a cherry tomato in half and then scoop out the insides. I use a paring knife and just cut all around the edges of the tomato and flip the insides out, but you can also use a small spoon to scrape the guts out. If you do use a paring knife, be careful! It’s easy to slip through the thin tomato skin and slice off a finger.

You then whip up your filling and either pipe it into the tomatoes or just use a small spoon and scoop it into the empty tomatoes. I prefer to use a spoon myself, but do what works best for you.

These aren’t all that bad for you either if you use light sour cream and turkey bacon. I’ve never used turkey bacon myself, but that doesn’t mean you can’t!

You can count on each person eating at least 3 or 4 of these little guys, so make plenty!

BLT Stuffed Tomatoes

• 8 ounces sour cream (light works great!)
• 4 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
• 1 tbsp parmesan cheese (the powdery kind is fine)
• 2 tsp fresh parsley, chopped (you can substitute dried parsley)
• green onions, for garnish
• salt and pepper, to taste
• about 20 cherry tomatoes

Wash cherry tomatoes and slice them in half. Use a paring knife or spoon to scrape out the insides. Dab the inside of each tomato with a paper towel to dry it and then sprinkle with salt. Mix together the sour cream, bacon pieces, parmesan, parsley, and salt and pepper. Spoon or pipe the filling into each tomato and sprinkle the tops with chopped green onions (or more parsley, if you’re an onion hater).

There are things in this world that most everyone loves and Deviled Eggs and French’s mustard are two of those things.

If you’d like to view my recipe for deviled egg dip and enter a giveaway from French’s, please click HERE.

The other day I was playing around on my iPhone when I came across an app for allrecipe.com’s Dinner Spinner. It is the neatest little app and I am officially in love. I am in the process of reserving a flight for me and the dinner spinner. We are running off together and never coming back. Goodbye forever.

Before I go, I thought I would share a recipe that I discovered while sitting in the car at the grocery store parking lot wondering what the heck I was going to make for dinner that night. Dinner Spinner totally saved the day.

Country Pasta with Mozzarella is a delicious little recipe that I need to go make again, right this minute, because my husband ate it all before I could stop him. Doesn’t he know that the pasta is mine and he was supposed to eat all the grilled meat and leave me the girl food? It must be the bacon in this pasta that made him forget the rules.

This recipe is simple and quick. I made it as a side dish with grilled chicken, but it’d be a perfect lunch on it’s own.

First things first, let’s boil up about 8 ounces of pasta. I used farfalle. I love the shape. The original recipe called for rigatoni, but, let’s be honest here, rigatoni is boring.

While the pasta is boiling, chop up two cups of fresh broccoli, eight slices of bacon, and a couple cloves of garlic.

Dump the bacon in a large frying pan and cook until it is almost crispy. Dump in the garlic and broccoli and cook them in the bacon grease for 4 to 5 minutes, until the broccoli loses a bit of the raw crunch. Don’t freak out about the bacon grease either. This is Buns In My Oven, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t love bacon grease.

Dump your al dente pasta right in the pan with the bacon and broccoli (and bacon grease, I SAID don’t freak out!) and top it with 2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese, 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese (I used the powdered stuff, it was delicious), 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper, and 1/4 cup of fresh chopped parsley.

Stir it all up over very low heat and don’t panic. It will be a big gloppy mess. The mozzarella gets all stringy and melty and it isn’t pretty. Pasta doesn’t have to be pretty though, just close your eyes and take a bite. You won’t regret it.

Real quick, let me tell you about all the different ways you could make this dish your own. You could make this a main dish by adding cooked, chopped chicken. You could replace the bacon with the chicken (you’d need to add a tablespoon or two of olive oil to cook the broccoli in) or you could just use the chicken in addition to the bacon. You could substitute asparagus for the broccoli. You could chop up a bell pepper and cook it in with the broccoli. You could chop up a sweet yellow onion and add it while the bacon was cooking, but only do this if you aren’t married to my husband, because he would probably throw a fit about the addition of onion. You could play with the cheeses, adding different varieties or swapping the mozzarella for something else entirely. I’m thinking cream cheese would be beautiful in this dish.

Country Pasta with Mozzarella
Recipe from allrecipes.com

• 8 ounces farfalle pasta
• 8 slices bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces
• 2 cups broccoli florets
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

1. Cook pasta according to package directions and drain.

2. In large skillet, cook the bacon until almost crisp. To the pan, add broccoli and garlic. Cook until the broccoli is slightly tender, stirring often, about 4 to 5 minutes.

3. Pour in the cooked pasta, mozzarella, parmesan, cayenne and parsley. Stir together over very low heat until the cheese is melted.

I don’t want to alarm anyone or anything, but I am married to a very picky eater. He has passed his pickiness onto our 9 year old son and I have a feeling that one day soon our 4 year old daughter is going to start proclaiming that everything except for hot dogs and chocolate is GROSS! It’s a sad life to live, I tell you.

The one vegetable that everyone will eat is corn. Corn on the cob or corn off the cob, it doesn’t matter so long as it is yellow and has a bit of butter and salt on it. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how very boring corn can get after eating it once a day for the past 27 years of my life.

Well, I am through eating boring old corn every single day.

Let’s make corn exciting again, shall we?

First, chop up six slices of bacon into  bite size chunks. Pop them into a pan and let ‘em cook.

While the bacon is frying, dice a couple bunches of green onions. If your family is really picky you can leave these out. You could also use a yellow onion, but there is no way my kids would go for that. As it was, my husband took one bite and said “That green stuff is ONION!” and then he wouldn’t eat anymore. Yes, it’s true. I married a big baby.

After the bacon is nice and crisp remove it from the pan, but leave the drippings. Add in the onion and cook it until it’s nice and soft.

Dump your corn into the pan along with the green onions. I used 2 cans of corn this time, but I normally use one bag of frozen corn. I like the frozen stuff much better than canned. You could also use fresh corn.

Drop in a handful of grated cheddar cheese.

Saute the corn, green onions, and cheese for about 5 minutes, stirring pretty often. Don’t let the cheese burn on the bottom of the pan. You’ll regret it.

After the cheese has melted and the corn is good and hot, go ahead and dump in 1/2 cup of milk, cream, or half and half. I used cream, of course. I’m a bad girl.

Add the bacon back in, give it a stir, and cook over low heat until hot and bubbly.

It’s hard to tell from this picture, but the corn is so creamy and delicious. The cheese just kind of disappears into the background and leaves you wondering just what the heck it is that makes this so yummy. The bacon brings a nice smoky flavor to the sweet corn. What I’m trying to say is, go make this. Now.

Corn with Cheese and Bacon

6 slices bacon
2 bunches green onions
1 bag frozen corn
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream, half and half, or milk
salt and pepper, to taste

Chop bacon into bite sized pieces and fry until crisp. Remove bacon from pan, but leave drippings. Cook diced green onions in bacon drippings until soft, add corn and cheese to pan. Cook over low heat for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add cream and bacon to pan, stir and cook for about 5 more minutes until hot and bubbly.