I’ve had four tubs of blueberries sitting in the fridge for some time. I had every good intention of turning them into desserts but it’s been hot and humid and the kitchen was the last place I wanted to be. This weekend I had a blueberry scone recipe I’ve been eager try and finally got around to using some of those berries.

The recipe called for one cup of buttermilk. I don’t know about you but I often buy buttermilk for just one recipe, use only half of it; forget it’s in the fridge and end up tossing it. A few months ago I bought some dried buttermilk hoping that would solve the problem. This was my first time using it and saw that for one cup of buttermilk I would need four tablespoons of the mix (which you add to the dry ingredients in the recipe), then in this case, one cup of water. Well, I ended up with a runny scone mixture that definitely couldn’t be rolled out on a floured surface! I hate just dumping a recipe that’s gone wrong so I dropped spoonfuls of the mixture onto a baking sheet and baked them like cookies. They turned out perfectly and I think I stumbled upon a hybrid scone/cookie that I’ve named sconies. I thought about what went wrong and concluded that buttermilk you buy in the dairy aisle is thicker and I shouldn’t have added so much water. You live and learn and the moral of the story even if you have a cooking blooper, don’t waste food. And yes, the sconies were delicious, had one with a cup of tea and one for breakfast!

Also, over the weekend I was skimming through the supermarket flyer and saw a whole page devoted to canning. They must know many of us are growing our own veggies because Ball as a new product called the Ball Canning Discovery Kit. Here’s the Web site www.freshpreserving.com. You can sign up for their newsletter and there’s also a video you can view on how to use the kit, plus a section on how to can.

This week on Budget Smart Girl-A combined Budget Smart Girl newsletter for July and August. In September I’ll be posting the newsletters at the beginning of the month instead of the last. I hope to include some new features like hot buys for the month and what to stock up on. Budget Smart Girl will take a summer break for two weeks starting next week while I begin work on some new book projects. However, there will be the usual Monday blogs.

Have a good week.