The Wife of A Southern Man: Biscuit Update

For even better biscuits, my friend Ann suggested that I try using buttermilk.  After a few tries, I have decided that my biscuit recipe really does deserve a permanent change in this direction.  Since I am a bit on the frugal side I don't use store purchased my husband tells me that "boughten" isn't a real word  buttermilk, but I simply sour my milk as the first step whipping up a batch of biscuits.  It only takes a few seconds and the results are fantastic.  So with out further ado, the mind blowing change to my biscuit recipe is:

Mix 2 TBL lemon juice in 1/2 cup milk and let stand while mixing the dry ingredients.  The acid in the lemon juice will thicken the milk and cause it to clabber some no you didn't just ruin your milk.  Use this soured milk instead of the 3/4 cup regular milk called for in the original recipe.  It makes the biscuits just a bit lighter and improved the flavor. 

And for any doubters, yes Superman approves. 

The Wife of a Southern Man: Biscuits

Growing up, I thought men lived for homemade cinnamon rolls topped with gooey, melt in your mouth caramel.  Imagine my surprise to meet Superman and learn that he didn't even know cinnamon rolls were suppose to have caramel on top, much less be made at home.  It didn't take me long however to discover that what Southern men live for is biscuits.    Like most of his ilk, my husband would eat biscuits with every meal.  Thankfully, biscuits are much quicker to whip up than cinnamon rolls are.  Although I had to call a halt and cut down on biscuit production when we started going through a pound of butter every week.  Can we say heart attack?

Perfect biscuits can be a bit elusive, but once the secret is mastered they can easily be added to almost any meal.  The true secret to biscuits is in the butter.  It must be BUTTER.  Not margarine or shortening or vegetable oil.  Only real, old fashioned, calorie laden butter works.

 Additionally, the butter must be cold.  Don't even think about warming it up to room temperature and creaming it into the dry ingredients.  Instead, use a sharp knife to cut the required butter into 1/8 inch cubes and crumble it into flour and leavening with clean, dry hands. 

Sissy's Southern Style Biscuits

2 cups all purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup cold butter (cubed)
3/4 cup cold milk

Mix together dry ingredients in medium sized bowl.  Crumble in butter until well incorporated (the bowl will look like it is full of pea sized crumbs).  Add milk and knead in lightly to create dough. 

On a floured surface roll out dough into a sheet 1/2 inch thick and cut biscuits out with the mouth of a drinking glass.  For quicker biscuits, omit this step and shape dough into balls by hand then flatten to 1/2 disks.  Just keep in mind that these are what Superman calls "ugly biscuits," but they taste just as good. 

Place shaped biscuits 1 inch apart on an ungreased baking sheet.  Once biscuits are panned, place them in  the refrigerator while the oven pre-heats to 475 degrees.  The cold dough produces light, flakey biscuits. 

Bake at 475 for 12 minutes or until golden brown.  Serve right away (with more butter of course). 

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As much work as I have put into my biscuit recipe, it is not perfect.  That market has long been cornered by Bojangles'.  If I can ever get my hands on their recipe, then I will claim to make perfect Southern style biscuits.  For now, I just make good biscuits. 

Baby's first meal out was at Bojangles': she slept, we ate.

Wonderful White Sauce

White sauce is deliciously simple and should be a staple in any cooks bag of tricks.  Using a little imagination and 20 minutes, one can create restaurant quality meals at home.  It is a great accompaniment to pasta and chicken of course, but also can be used as the base for cheesy dipping sauce or homemade mac and cheese.  Thickened and heavily peppered it is also what many folks call Country Gravy and will transform last night's biscuits from fossilizing hockey pucks into breakfast (wrap the biscuits in a damp paper towel and microwave 30 seconds to soften). 

Besides it's versatility in flavor and use, white sauce is very easy to create in any quantity desired. Really it is more of a formula than a recipe.

1 Tbs Butter -to- 1 Tbs White Flour -to 1 cup milk 

Easy peasy!  That said, I am going to present my first tutorial along with my recipe for Easy Peasy Pasta.   It is a great summer weight pasta that is quick, easy and incredibly tasty. Uncharacteristically, this recipe has no onion or garlic, but derives the majority of it's flavor from the bacon.  As a one dish dinner, this meal feeds 4. 

 

Easy Peasy Pasta

 

2 Tbs butter

2 Tbs white flour

2 cups milk

4 strips turkey bacon

1 cup chopped fresh spinach

1 cup fresh or frozen sweet peas/ English peas

salt and pepper to taste

pasta prepared to package dirrections

 

Melt butter in a large, non-stick pan.

 

Add flour and work into butter using the bottom of the spoon to create a smooth paste.

 

Slowly pour in a small amount of milk and work the same way as the flour. Once a smooth paste is obtained the remaining milk can be stirred in with out worry. 

 

Stir sauce frequently while it thickens.  For this recipe the sauce will need to thicken to nearly a gravy consistency to make up for the water that the vegetables will release when they are added.  Salt and pepper to taste.

 

Cook bacon until firm and chop.

 

Add chopped spinach and peas to sauce and heat through.

 

Stir in diced bacon and remove from heat.  Serve immediately over hot pasta.

 

 

 

There it is, easy peasy just like I promised.  This dish is inspired by a fancy $12 dish I ate at a Miami Beach bistro a few years ago.  It lacks nothing in taste compared to the original, but feeds 4 people for right at $3.  For that kind of savings, I will gladly do the dishes myself.  

 

 

 

Go To Goulash

As much as I love slow food and cooking from scratch, with a new baby in the house I find myself relying on quick meals a few nights a week.  This goulash is similar in concept to Hamburger Helper, but is almost homemade and costs merely $1 more for three times the yield.  Not to mention it tastes a whole lot better and has a recognizable ingredient list. 

This happens to be one of Superman's favorite meals and it dresses up enough to serve to last minute dinner guests as well: just add a salad and garlic toast.  Serves 4-6. 

Go To Goulash

1 lb ground chuck
28 oz diced tomatoes with juice
28 oz cut green beans, drained
1/2 cup onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste

1 lb pasta noodles, prepared to package directions

In a large pan, heat olive oil over medium heat.  Add onions and garlic, cook until just tender.  Crumble in ground chuck and cook until no pink remains.  Drain off any excess fat remaining in pan.

Stir in tomatoes and green beans, then cook over low heat to warm through.  Add hot pasta and stir well to incorporate.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Serve hot.   

Let Him Eat Cake

Superman doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, but he does have a weakness for cake.  This past week, I indulged him with a White Sour Cream Cake slathered in Orange Butter Cream Icing.   Uncharacteristically , I followed the cake recipe exactly and used my basic butter cream recipe as a base for the icing.   The humidity was pretty high and started getting to my icing before I could get it in the fridge, but even messy it tastes amazing (if I do say so myself).

Orange Butter Cream Icing

1/2 cup butter (softened)

zest of 1 orange

4 cups powdered sugar

1/4 cup orange juice

 

Using a mixer blend the butter, orange zest, and powdered sugar in a large bowl.  Add orange juice and mix until creamy.  If icing is too dense, add more orange juice 1 tablespoon at a time until desired consistency is reached. 

 

Since I originally planned to use marmalade between the layers of cake, I only made one batch of icing.  When Superman nixed the marmalade idea, I didn't feel like making more so I scrimped on the inside layer.  For best results, when laying and frosting double recipe. 

 

Just Like Grandpa's...

My kitchen is starting to smell like sourdough!

 

Sourdough flap jacks were the comfort food of my childhood.  My grandpa made them every morning for over 50 years and even when he traveled his crock of starter rode along with him in a red Coleman cooler.  I have kept a starter myself off and on most of my adult life and now that I am once again settled in to a domestic existence, I just had to get one going again. 

Growing a starter is a process that to initiate takes 5-7 days.  It also requires adhering to a few simple rules.

1. Use clean, preferably seamless, metal utensils.  The spoon in the photo is NOT ideal because of the rivets and seam that can collect bacteria you wont want added to your starter. 
2. Keep loosely covered.  I use a square of clean, light weight cotton secured with a  rubber band.
3. Don't neglect it.  Feed your starter every evening and stir it down every morning.  If you are not going to be using it at least every other day, store in the refrigerator and remove 12 hours prior to planned use. 
4. Keep the sides of your sourdough crock clean. 

With those few things in mind, the only materials required to get started are a glass jar or crock with a loose covering, a clean metal spoon, flour, and water.  Any kind of flour can be used in a starter, but for the initial week I prefer rye since it is less likely to mold than other varieties.  After the bacteria has taken hold and my starter is going well, I switch over to all purpose white flour. 

Day 1:  Mix 1 cup of rye flour with 1 cup water in your very clean container.  Cover loosely and set aside for 24 hours.

Day 2-6:  Stir down and feed your starter 1/2 cup of flour and 1/2 cup water every evening.  Over the course of this week you will start to notice first a sour smell coming from your starter and then see some bubbling activity.  The consistency of the starter should be like thick pancake batter and the ratio of flour/water can be adjusted to obtain this. 

Day 7: Use 1-2 cups of your starter today!  Stir it down early in the day and remove what you want to use. Good first uses for sourdough include biscuits and bread.  I usually give two weeks before attempting flap jacks. 
Tonight feed your starter as usual, but switch to white flour if you have been using rye. 

 

 

A well cared for starter can live indefinitely and with all the fun recipes to try there is little chance you will grow tired of it's use.