Sunday Brunch - Scones

Well, I didn't even get a chance to take a picture of these before they got eaten, but here's the recipe anyways:

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cup Flour
3 tbsp Sugar
2 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Salt
1/3 cup Margarine
1 Egg Replacer
4-5 tbsp Soy Milk

Preheat oven to 400F.

Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Chunk in margarine until the mixture becomes crumbly. Add in egg replacer and 4 tbsp of soy milk, then mix until combined. If the flour does not all get mixed in, add splashes of soy milk until it all mixes in well. Knead a few times and then roll out until about 1 1/2 cm thick (depending on how big you want the scones to get). Cut out circles or other large cookie-cutter shapes. Lay out on lightly oiled pan and lightly brush the tops with oil or margarine, then bake for 10-12 minutes - the tops will be very lightly browned.
Serve out of the oven or warmed.

A Record a Week: The Beatles - 1962-1966

SIDE 1.
LOVE ME DO
PLEASE PLEASE ME
FROM ME TO YOU
SHE LOVES YOU
I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND
ALL MY LOVING
CAN'T BUY ME LOVE

SIDE 2.
A HARD DAY'S NIGHT
AND I LOVE HER
EIGHT DAYS A WEEK
I FEEL FINE
TICKET TO RIDE
YESTERDAY

SIDE 3.
HELP!
YOU'VE GOT TO HIDE YOUR LOVE AWAY
WE CAN WORK IT OUT
DAY TRIPPER
DRIVE MY CAR
NORWEGIAN WOOD

SIDE 4.
NOWHERE MAN
MICHELLE
IN MY LIFE
GIRL
PAPERBACK WRITER
ELEANOR RIGBY
YELLOW SUBMARINE

Have you ever been to a bar where the speakers are at opposite ends of the bar? If you find yourself in that situation, you are going to hope they play the early Beatles songs in mono, not stereo. For some reason, when they decided to remix things from mono to stereo, they panned everything left or right. So if you are sitting near one speaker and the other is far away, you are only going to hear drums and vocals, or guitar and bass (or some incomplete combination of instruments). When stereo came out, this technique was utilized to simulate live performances and how the band members stood on the stage. It wasn't until later that engineers realized that if they're sorting out pans, they shouldn't dial it all the way left or right, leaving at least a bit of the sound to the other side.

Anyhow, this album is a collection of sounds from the first half of the Beatles career. Spanning their fanatical simple rock through various types of ballads and into the early stages of their experimental music. As you listen through the album, you hear both the recording and creative writing processes evolve. Perhaps one enhanced the other. The invention of multi-tracking could have allowed the band to include things they had wanted to include on earlier songs, or perhaps the ability to do so expanded the way which they went about writing them.

I enjoy many of these songs in different ways, but the ending of side 2 onwards is where it really grabs my attention. Songs like 'Ticket to Ride', 'You've got to Hide Your Love Away'(Milton family sing-along), 'Day Tripper', 'Paperback Writer' and 'Eleanor Rigby' rank high amongst my all-time favourite Beatles tracks (Rigby is tops, in my books).

Well, looking forward, I think that marks the end of my Beatles vinyl collection. Next week, onto something new!

Sunday Brunch - Maple Granola Bars

INGREDIENTS:
1 2/3 cups Instant Oatmeal
1/3 Ground Oatmeal or Oat Flour
1 cup Demerara Sugar (or add 2 tbsp melted vegan margarine + 2 tbsp maple syrup)
1/4 cup White or Cane Sugar
dash of Salt
2.5 cups Various ingredients in 1/2 cup qtys (Nuts, Coconut, Dried Fruit, Choc. Chips)
1 tsp Vanilla
1/4 cup Melted Margarine or Veg. Oil
1/4 cup Maple Syrup
1 tbsp Water

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately, then mix together. Lightly grease a large rectangle pan and spread out mixture in pan, making sure it is an even height throughout. Bake until it is golden brown on the edges. Remove from oven and cut into bars, wait until they are cool and remove from pan.

A Record a Week: The Beatles - Ballads

I am very glad of two things: that my wife sleeps in on Saturday morning and that she doesn't read this blog; because she hates The Beatles and there sure have been a lot of them on here recently.



SIDE 1.
YESTERDAY
NORWEGIAN WOOD
DO YOU WANT TO KNOW A SECRET
FOR NO ONE
MICHELLE
NOWHERE MAN
YOU'VE GOT TO HIDE YOUR LOVE AWAY
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
ALL MY LOVING
HEY JUDE

SIDE 2.
SOMETHING
THE FOOL ON THE HILL
TILL THERE WAS YOU
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD
HERE COMES THE SUN
BLACKBIRD
AND I LOVE HER
SHE'S LEAVING HOME
HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE
LET IT BE

This album really has a taste of everything Beatles from start to finish. The songs written in the later years have a distinct feel of what each member's work would sound like, while the earlier songs contain a more blended feel.

To me, some of the ballads come across a bit dull for a band that can get fairly intricate. However, songs like Let it Be, Hey Jude and Yesterday have become iconic and with good reason. Blackbird and Across the Universe created two of my favourite cover versions of all time, by Sarah McLachlan and Rufus Wainwright, respectively. You've Got to Hide Your Love Away is a song that my family has been playing for years; so much that the original version sounds almost foreign to me.

Although I enjoy some collection records, they can never quite have the flow that an original album can. They don't always vary in style and the song order is not necessarily chosen by the band members themselves.

Sunday Brunch - Tropical Muffins

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
1 cup Sugar (1/2 brown 1/2 white)
3/4 cup Margarine, melted
1 or 2 Very Ripe Bananas
1/4 Large Papaya (approx. 1 small)
2 Kiwis
1/2 cup Flaked Coconut
2 Egg Replacers
1 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Vanilla
1/2 tsp Salt

Preheat oven to 375. Mix together flour, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Mash banana in a separate bowl and blend together kiwi and papaya until mostly smooth. Add together all fruits with margarine, sugar, egg replacer and vanilla. Add that entire mixture to the dry ingredient bowl and combine until just mixed. Add in Coconut. Scoop mixture into lined or lightly oiled muffin tins, up about halfway of the cup. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until fork comes out clean!

*optional - I didn't have any, but top with, or add in a 1/2 cup of crushed macadamia nuts for a real tropical feel.

A Record a Week: The Beatles - Abbey Road

SIDE 1.
COME TOGETHER
SOMETHING
MAXWELL'S SILVER HAMMER
OH! DARLING
OCTOPUS'S GARDEN
I WANT YOU (She's So Heavy)

SIDE 2.
HERE COMES THE SUN
BECAUSE
YOU NEVER GIVE ME YOUR MONEY
SUN KING
MEAN MR. MUSTARD
POLYTHENE PAM
SHE CAME IN THROUGH THE BATHROOM WINDOW
GOLDEN SLUMBERS
CARRY THAT WEIGHT
THE END

Released before, but recorded after most of their final album 'Let it Be'; Abbey Road was the last fully recorded studio album by The Beatles. The cover art has been reproduced with various characters for various purposes (other album covers, tv shows, etc.)

After a contentious while, the band agreed to get together to record an album without distractions. The first side is a collection of individual songs that truly encompasses a taste of everything previous and some of what music would be moving forward. It contains songs composed by each of the four members, each with a distinct maturity to them. Even 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer', though in Paul's typical style, is not as simplistic as some of his earlier pieces. The side ends out with 'I Want You', which is their longest song (other than barely-song 'Revolution 9') and probably one of their darkest also. The guitar riff that is repeated throughout the song is very much in the style of rock music in the 70's.

The second side starts off with what is arguably Harrison's best and probably most famous song, 'Here Comes the Sun'. Following that is 'Because', which is a complete Beatles effort. Lennon composed, Harrison played the organ and the three front men sang 3 part harmonies. The rest of the songs are really a mash of ideas blended together into one long song, culminating with aptly named, 'The End'. This song marked the end of the album; and had the albums been released chronologically, would've been the end of their entire catalogue.

This album contains some spectacular songs, but the short segment of Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight are among my favourite of their work. 'You Never Give me Your Money' evokes a funny memory I have from childhood. If you've ever been to a Milton family event, you'll know that for years when we were jamming on the guitar, we stuck to playing songs that only had the chords G, C and D (and maybe an F/A/Am if we were feeling adventurous). I'll admit that this tactic maximizes the amount of players you have on any given song, since those are really easy chords to play along with. However, limiting yourself can prove defeating when you are trying to branch out with songs containing other chords. This one time my dad was trying to play 'You Never Give Me Your Money', which contains a few weird chord changes from Am7 to Dm9 and so on. But he refused to give up and there was a string of attempts at different chords that might be the one. This provided a loop of 'I never give you my number, I only gave you my situation and in the middle of investigat....investi...investi...' and when he couldn't find the chord mid-verse, he would revert to the beginning to try a running start: 'You never give me your money...'. Now I will forever think of that when I hear this song.