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. 

Miles From Where We Started

Downtown Miles City, MT after Monday's snowfall.

 

Let the adventures in homemaking commence once again!  It's been a long few months, but we are now relocated and settled in Miles City, MT.  There are still a few loose ends to tie up, but we are unpacked and getting into a new routine.  Superman is now working days, so we are also loosing our vampirish ways and enjoying all that the day light has to offer. 



 



 

 



 

 

 

 

 

Facebook to the Rescue

After taking nearly a year long hiatus from social networking, I reopened my Facebook account a few months ago.   I rejoined the masses for the sole purpose of connecting to my family back home, but have found myself enjoying several other benefits of the site.  Lately, it seems like Facebook belongs less and less to the young party people and more and more to the more settled homemaker.  Every day I find great posts about cooking, cleaning, and surviving parenthood. 

A few days ago one of my friends posted an article about using dryer sheets for cleaning. For years, I have been using dryer sheets to clean roasting pans with baked on yuck, but it never occurred to me to take that any further. The list ways to use dryer sheets to clean house started with:

 Use in your bathroom. Cut your cleaning time in half. Makes bathroom mirrors and fixtures sparkle. Cuts right through bathtub scum.

I had to try this one.  We live in an old rental who's previous tenants apparently had an allergy to cleaning and I have spent the past 8 months trying to cut through years of soap scum on the glass doors in the shower.  Nothing I tried seemed to make any difference at all, even when I scrubbed until my arms ached.  So this afternoon, I grabbed a handful of dryer sheets and headed into the bathroom.  In less than 10 minutes I found myself speechless as I realized that for the first time I could actually see through the glass shower door.  

With the doors sparking clean, they really looked like they belonged in a Mr. Clean commercial, I started in on the rest of the shower.  The dryer sheets worked equally well on the walls and trays of the shower and was able to get into the little nooks and crannies I usually scrub with an old tooth brush.  Since our tub drains very slowly, the foot goo down there gets pretty nasty and in this area the dryer sheet did prove to be less than ideal.  After a few moments of pushing the scum around with the dryer sheet, I resorted to Comet gel and wiped that mess up in no time. 

No, dryer sheets are not going to replace all other cleaning products in the bathroom, but they will definitely become part of the scrubbing routine.  Now that the baby is asleep, I am almost excited to go back and see what they do on the sink and toilet.  Yes, nice easy cleaning solutions can make me that happy! 

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.  

 

 

 

The Wife of a Southern Man: Sweet Tea

Here in July, I know we all are feeling a bit patriotic and all warm and fuzzy about the big American family.  Yet as someone who has moved around the country a bit, I can tell you that this big messy family has as many differences as it does likenesses.  Truthfully, that is part of what makes us so beautiful.  Nothing drives it home more than being a northwestern girl married to a southern man.  Our differences in culture and speech allows for a lot of discovery and a even more laughs. 

For me culinary differences has been a great source of adventure.  I am constantly learning how to prepare new southern style dishes and a few of them I have become quite proficient at.  With that in mind, I came up with the idea of a weekly series of posts entitled The Wife of a Southern Man.  Since these southern folk (Superman included) drink sweet tea like us northern folks drink coffee, maybe even  a bit more enthusiastically, I thought that a few pointers on that front would be a great place to start.  No tea will not make or break a marriage, but I sure love the reaction I get every time I hand my husband a glass of perfectly brewed sweet tea. 

The instructions for brewing a good batch of tea can be found every box of tea bags ever manufactured, but there are a few additional hints for consistently perfect sweet tea. Trust me, I learned these the hard way: through trial and error. 

 

Have a picture set aside for tea only. Tea picks up flavors easily and can become tainted very quickly. (If you use a pot instead of a kettle for boiling the water this applies again.)

 

For ideal southern style sweet tea, use 1 1/2 cups sugar per gallon of tea. Be sure to stir in sugar while tea is still nearly boiling hot.

 

Make a fresh batch every 2-3 days, if it lasts that long. Old tea gets cloudy and will develop sludge.

 

Always serve sweet tea ice cold. 

 

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.