Perfect Biscuits

 

Remember my post on how to make perfect pancakes?   Well, I have a treat for you!  I'd also like to share how to make great biscuits.  Where can you find great biscuits?  www.greatbiscuits.com  The website for the Clinton St. Baking Company - a restaurant in New York City where the talented chef Neil Kleinberg has perfected the art of biscuit baking.

"I think Neil can be called the King of Biscuits."  - Martha Stewart

Can't get to New York City?  Make them at home!  Yes, even you, because if I can do it after about 8 years of failed biscuit making, you can too!  See, I could make beautiful, perfect pie crusts, buttery yeast rolls from scratch, but my biscuits were terrible.  When I was desperate, I would buy frozen ones and when I was even more desperate, I would buy the ones in the can.  But when I tried this recipe, carefully following the directions, voila!  They worked!  And they come out beautiful and fluffy every single time!  Split them with a fork or slice them with a serrated knife, they are always light and fluffy on the inside, with a nice crisp bite on the outside.  You can find this, and more of Neil Kleinberg's superb recipes in this cookbook -

(My copy was a gift from my mother-in-law.  It's one of my very favorite cookbooks.  My husband gets really excited when he sees that I have it out!)  Well, I felt like I really needed to give credit where credit was due, but now on to the recipe:

2 c. all purpose flour (plus more for dusting)
2 Tbs. baking powder
1 1/2 Tbs. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
3 Tbs. unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
3 Tbs. vegetable shortening, chilled and cut into small chunks
3/4 c. buttermilk

Makes 6 biscuits
(I usually double or triple the recipe and it works out just fine in the mixer.)

Preheat the oven to 350*.  Place 2 c. flour and the other dry ingredients in the bowl of your KitchenAid (or other stand mixer).  Mix on low speed with the paddle attachment until combined.  Add the butter and shortening to the bowl and mix on low speed until the dough reaches a crumbly texture.  The butter and shortening should be the size of peas.  Add the buttermilk to the bowl all at once.  Mix very briefly on low speed until the dough just comes together.  (This should take less than 10 seconds.  Yes, I count.)

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and form it into a ball.  Lightly knead the dough two or three times until combined.  Pat out the dough to about 1" thickness.  Shape the dough into a rectangle, making the sides high.  Using a 2" round biscuit cutter, cut out your biscuits.  After you have cut them all out, gently gather the scraps to form a few more biscuits.  Place your biscuits on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper (I use a silpat).

Place the pan in the pre-heated oven for about 17 minutes or until they are golden brown and cooked through.  Serve warm with butter, honey, jam... whatever suits your fancy.

Notes:

• When it comes to biscuit making, the general rule is that the less you handle the dough, the better.  Use a light hand, don't knead more than it takes to have the dough loosely come together, don't roll out too much, etc...
• These biscuits can be prepared and then rested overnight for baking the next day.  Dust a sheet pan and the top of the dough with flour, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight.  Bring the dough back to room temperature for baking.
• You can mix these biscuits by hand, without a mixer. 
• It is a common mistake to twist the biscuit cutter in the dough.  Cut by pushing the cutter directly into the dough and then lifting the cutter.  If you twist the cutter, the biscuits may not rise. 
• My substitutions - I almost always use half whole wheat flour, and instead of shortening, I use only butter.  Due to a dairy allergy in the family, I have used rice milk with a splash of lemon juice instead of buttermilk and it works fine, but my current preference is slightly soured raw milk. 

Want to remember this one for later? 
Pin It

Apple & Pumpkin Muffins

It's Potluck Saturday!!!



This is one of those recipes that I have tweaked beyond recognition, so I feel entitled to claim it as my own. These are YUMMY and rather healthy as muffins go, so slather on the butter, and enjoy a delicious, seasonal treat!

Apple & Pumpkin Muffins

3 c. whole wheat flour
1 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
15 oz. can pumpkin puree
1/2 c. oil (I prefer coconut)
1/2 c. applesauce
1 c. honey
1 c. chopped walnuts
2 apples - peel, core & chop

Mix the dry ingredients thoroughly, then add in the wet ingredients and mix. Fold in the walnuts and apples. Prepare your muffin tins with paper liners or be generous greasing them with butter. Spoon into muffin tins. Bake at 350* for about 20 minutes. The tops should be springy when they are done. Let them cool a little bit in the pans before removing them.

*I got 2 1/2 dozen out of this recipe and I have a handy little half size tin I like to use. If you don't, make 2 dozen big ones or 3 dozen small ones.

These would be yummy cut in half with apple butter... or pumpkin butter...

*running off to eat another*

Pin It

Pita Pizzas

A fast and easy lunch or dinner... use pita bread as your crust. Kids love these mini pizzas, especially if you let each child top their own pizza!







What are your favorite pizza toppings? What do your kids like?

What Would You Do With:

5 pounds of matzoh?

:)

Happy Passover by the way!

Kind of like the free Easter ham and the free Thanksgiving turkey, our local grocery store offers a coupon for 5 lbs. of free matzoh every year at Passover. I've never gotten them in the past because... well... we're not Jewish. I decided to just go for it this year, after all, it's free, right? I'm not one to turn down free food. So we pick up our box of matzoh and as we are checking out, the cashier says, "This coupon is for the 5 lb. box." "Oh?" I reply. "Yes, you got the 1 lb. box, but it's ok, I'll have someone go get you the 5 lb. box." "Ok" I reply. The helpful store employee comes trotting up with the GIANT package up there in the picture and I just burst out laughing. "That's a LOT of matzoh!" I say. And it was all free!

Now what to do with it? I have a few ideas. For one, I think they will stand in for saltines rather well, so I plan to try them with peanut butter. I think they will be nice crushed on top of a casserole. I plan to make some salmon patties and roll them in the crushed matzoh.

All Recipes only listed two:
Matzoh Ball Soup - quite traditional
Matzoh Candy - not so traditional

I think I'll try them both. :)

Any other ideas?

Egg Solution

I love finding a solution for a problem! I recently worked out a great one that solves several breakfast time dilemmas.

1. We need protein + carbs for breakfast everyday. The importance of this fuel to 3/4 of us cannot be overstated.
   
2. Our protein of choice is eggs. I buy several cases a week. Right now we eat 7 eggs a day just for breakfast. We could probably eat more, and I think it will be a matter of a couple of months before we are up to 8 a day.
   
3. It is difficult to get a good estimate on how many eggs we need. Some weeks I do more baking than others, and we find ourselves running out of eggs more than any other grocery item.
4. Even during busy mornings, and perhaps even more-so on busy mornings, we need this fuel. See #1.

And one evening, we were expecting a house guest with unknown morning plans. I started thinking I should make some muffins so if he needed to make a quick getaway in the morning, he could grab a couple to go. Then I started thinking perhaps a savory muffin would be better and more sustaining than the usual cake-as-breakfast variety, even though I tend to "healthify" these recipes considerably. So I trolled around on AllRecipes.com and I found this!

These were not muffins... not really. These were more like egg patties. So I started thinking and remembering other blog posts about freezing breakfast sandwiches, and I started working out my own version. I stayed up until midnight, but loved the results, and now we have a freezer full of delicious breakfast sandwiches that solve a multitude of breakfast time problems for us. Now yes, I worked on these for a couple of hours in an evening, but I calculated that it made enough for 5 breakfasts for our family, which is really pretty good all things considered. This could be drastically simplified by buying english muffins ready made or canned biscuits, and I admit they would be much less crumbly. They also wouldn't quite have the taste of homemade biscuits and would cost more, so just do what works for your time and budget.

So here is what I did:

Sausage Egg Biscuits
- butter
- 2 onions, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 12 oz. sausage
- 18 eggs
- 2 splashes of milk
- salt/pepper to taste
- 24 prepared biscuits (or English muffins)

Saute the onions in about a Tbs. of butter until soft. Add the garlic and cook a few minutes longer. Add the sausage to the pan and crumble it with your spatula while you cook it. Drain the sausage if need be. Crack the eggs into a large bowl and add the milk, salt, and pepper. Scramble with a whisk or a fork. Mix in the sausage. Grease two muffin tins very heavily with the butter. Put about 1/4 c. scoop of egg mixture in each section. Bake at 350* for 15-20 minutes, making sure the eggs are set in the middle. After they have cooled a bit, loosen the edges and remove from the pan. Split each biscuit in half, put an egg patty in the middle, and wrap in foil. (Feel free to add a slice of cheese if it suits you.) Transfer the foil wrapped sandwiches to gallon size freezer bags. Label and freeze.

(We used foil because we plan to put these in the toaster oven. If you plan to microwave them, you can use a paper towel to retain moisture or plastic wrap.)

For my more visual readers, here are some pictures I took during the process:

"Using It Up"

"Use it up, wear it out,
make do, and do without."

- a little saying from the days of The Great Depression

In yesterday's post, I talked about minimizing our food waste. Just thought I would share some resources that have been helpful for me in that regard.

All Recipes: Do an ingredient search for the little bits of food you need to use up. Very handy!

Love Food Hate Waste: A site from the UK that has some really good tips! In the Recipe section, there are little icons of a wide range of foods. Click on the food you need to use up for some ideas. Check out the food storage tips to make your foods last longer.

Remember that unless you are baking something special, recipes are merely suggestions. Feel free to be creative in the kitchen and make substitutions and additions.

Certain dishes are naturally accommodating. These would be: muffins, stir fries, omelets, quiches, soups, and smoothies.

Don't let your bread go stale! Make bread crumbs before it gets moldy. Store breadcrumbs in a ziploc in your freezer and use as needed. Cornbread also makes great breadcrumbs, but you should store it separately as you may want cornbread in some recipes, but not in others. Can you believe I used to buy breadcrumbs? See, I didn't just know all of this stuff. I've been learning as I go too!

Oh-So-Easy Drop Biscuits

ANYONE can make these biscuits! You don't have to practice for years to be able to make biscuits that turn out perfectly light and fluffy, just make these easy drop biscuits instead.

Mix

• 2 c. flour
• 1 Tbs. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt

Add in

• 1/4 c. melted butter
• 1 c. milk

Scoop these out into a 13x9 pan, bake at 450* for 10-12 minutes.

Variations:

• Mix in 1/2 - 1 c. grated cheddar cheese
• Melt 3 Tbs. butter and mix in 1 tsp. parsley flakes, 1/2 tsp. garlic powder, and 1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning. Brush this on top of your biscuits after they bake.
• Use the two above variations AND add in 1/3 c. fresh or canned crab meat and you will get the simply amazing Red Lobster Biscuits at home in your own kitchen! Try not to eat the entire pan in one sitting. ;)
• Melt 3 Tbs. butter and mix in 1 Tbs. honey. Brush on top of your biscuits after they bake.
  

Ok, I've got to stop now or I'm going to DIE if I don't go make some and EAT THEM ALL! :)

(And if you are trying to make this recipe healthier, substituting half white whole wheat flour (King Arthur sells a nice version) will help just a little bit and it tastes just as good. *wink* No one has to know!)

Virtuous Veggies and Legumes

Feasts are a delight, but I'm feeling a deep need for cleansing, simple foods, so that is what I will be (mostly) fixing this week. (Homemade pizza is still on the menu. :) I've been soaking mung bean sprouts for a couple of days in anticipation of this and will throw them in a dish of egg foo young tomorrow evening. Mmmmm...

Items to purchase this week when you go to the grocery store:
1) Black Eyed Peas
2) Your favorite greens (kale, mustard, collards, swiss chard etc...)
3) Cornbread fixings (if you don't already have them)

It's tradition to serve black eyed peas on New Year's Day, which will be Saturday. Growing up, my parents told us that in the coming year, we would get a dollar for every black eyed pea we ate on New Years Day. Of course, this was just an old folk tale, but it did encourage us to eat up!

I make my black eyed peas just like I describe here: Cooking with Dried Beans. We like to season them with cajun seasoning, Frank's Red Hot sauce, and eat them with greens and cornbread. 1 pound of dried beans will feed about 6 people.

My favorite greens are mustard greens while my husband prefers kale. We both enjoy them cooked in this way: Trim two large handfuls of greens and chiffonade them. In a large skillet, heat a couple of Tbs. olive oil or coconut oil and saute a diced onion. Add a clove of minced garlic. Cook the onion and garlic until it is golden brown. Add the greens and toss them around in the pan a bit. They will wilt a lot. Add about 1/2 cup of broth, some salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Boil, then reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook for about 10 minutes or until they are soft. This will make about 6 servings.

Finally, to make some good southern style corn bread, I give you my favorite recipe:
- 1 1/2 c. yellow cornmeal
- 1/2 c. flour
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. sugar
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1 1/2 c. buttermilk
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 c. butter or bacon grease
Preheat oven to 450*. Melt the butter or bacon grease in a 10-12" cast iron skillet. Mix all of the other ingredients, then add in the melted fat and mix again. Pour into the skillet and bake for about 20 minutes.

I make this for people with food allergies fairly frequently, so here are the variations that have been really successful:
Dairy free: If you just can't stomach the bacon grease, use Fleishmann's unsalted margarine. Instead of the buttermilk, use plain rice milk with a splash of lemon juice OR if your dairy intolerant person can have it, goats milk (I most often use powdered) works very well.
Gluten free: Instead of the all purpose flour, use Bob's Red Mill gluten free mix. It works best to increase the fat to 1/2 c. to make it less crumbly.
Southwestern Style: Add a cup or two of grated cheddar and a small can of green chilies.

I love leftover cornbread slathered in butter for breakfast. My grandfather used to eat cornbread crumbled up in a glass of buttermilk. It's good eating!

Don't forget to start soaking your beans on Thursday!

Ms. Clara's Butter Rolls

This recipe was passed on to me and it passes my test for rolls... puffy, yeasty, lightly fluffy inside and crispy outside... just like Grandma used to make! Mmmmm... This recipe is a WINNER! Just don't make the mistake that I always make and forget that they need 3 HOURS to rise + baking time! Plan ahead for these!

Ms. Clara's Butter Rolls
(they are called this because they are soaked in so much butter!)
2 c. warm water
2 tsp. yeast
2 tsp. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 c. vegetable oil
1 egg
7-7 1/2 cups of flour
2 or 3 sticks of butter

Combine water, yeast, sugar, salt, and oil. Mix until smooth. Add the egg and mix. Add 3 cups of flour and mix well. Work in another 4 cups or so of flour, stopping just when it is no longer sticky. (I do this in my KitchenAid with the dough hook, then I knead it a bit by hand.)



Ms. Clara's technique: (using 3 sticks of butter) Divide into 3 pieces - roll out into a rectangle (a little smaller than a cookie sheet). Cover each rectangle with 1/3 c. softened butter and roll up like a jelly roll. Cut in 1 inch pieces and arrange in two 13x9 pans. Pour 1 stick of melted butter over each pan of rolls. Cover and let rise at least 3 hours. Make sure that they are not moved around much or they will fall. Bake at 400*. Start checking after 20 minutes of baking every few minutes and take out when nicely browned.

Church Mouse's technique: (using 2 sticks of butter) Divide dough in half. Pull off pieces about the size of a golf ball and roll gently. Set each ball into a 13x9 pan. Pour 1 stick of melted butter over each pan of rolls. Cover and let rise at least 3 hours. Make sure that they are not moved around much or they will fall. I try to bake them at 400*, but I often have them in the oven with another dish, so I have baked them at any temperature between 350* and 400*. I just check them from time to time and take them out when they are nice and brown.