Baking Savory Scones for Winter Warmth - A Good Appetite THERE'S a dichotomy when it comes to cooking in January, a pull between the wintry urge for rich, hearty foods that warm the body and soothe the soul, and the opposing desire for eating lightly, healthfully and penitently after a holiday season of delightful excess. I have to admit that as much as I contemplate a more enlightened month of juices, salads and smoothies, I generally give in to the primal yen for stews, casseroles and homemade baked goods. January demands creature comforts, food being the most necessary. So I bake, stew, braise and simmer my way through the month, enjoying a cozy kitchen with the stove turned on. Scones are always a part of my January baking repertory. Not only are savory scones a natural with tea, but they also go well with a host of dishes, sopping up the broth from those stews and soups. I like to bake scones before dinner and eat them warm from the oven, then toast the leftovers for breakfast. You can flavor savory scones in myriad ways. You can even create pairings - say, cheddar-jalapeño scones to go with a spicy chili, or dill and black pepper scones to complement a rosy beet borscht. Just be sure to use a light touch when folding in whatever flavorings you choose. If you overwork the dough and cause the little bits of butter to soften into the flour before the scones are baked, they'll end up dense instead of light and flaky. One way to avoid this heavy fate is to freeze the butter, then use the large holes of a box grater to shred the frozen stick directly into the flour. I picked up this trick from Pam Anderson's "Cook Without a Book: Meat-less Meals" (Rodale Books, 2011). The frozen butter held up nicely when I stirred in the caramelized onions, currants and caraway that I added to Ms. Anderson's basic recipe. To get a robust, grainy texture and earthy taste, I also substituted whole-grain rye flour for some of the all-purpose flour. The scones baked up crumbly, buttery, slightly sweet from the browned onions and currants and pleasantly smoky from the caraway seed - a little like a cross between a slice of seeded rye bread and an onion bialy. The rye flour might have even made the scones a little more healthful, too. But that was definitely beside the point.