Homemade Biscuits

Let me tell you another story about Cracker Barrel, and at the same time, a story about hockey pucks.

I've mentioned before that Cracker Barrel was one of our family's favorite restaurants--if we were going out to eat, it was good, home-style cooking that provided something everyone liked.  I also already said I could have been content with their biscuits and blackberry jam.   

I know I asked my mom at least once or twice if she'd ever made homemade biscuits, because our usual home-baked version came from a can that usually read, "flaky, layered" or "buttermilk" or "fluffy."  I loved peeling apart the layered ones and putting jam on all the layers...

Well, it turns out that biscuit ruining is a family trait.  I'm pretty sure that Mom didn't make the attempt very often because both her mother and mother-in-law had issues with biscuit pucks.  Since my brother played hockey, it might have been okay to sacrifice a batch or two to the cause, but (as Mom pointed out) we all really liked the canned biscuits, and they were easy to pop in the oven while Mom worked hard on a different part of the meal.  So why ruin a good thing?

Enter my college years.  Mom had taught me all the basics of cooking and baking.  I started out eating in the dorm cafeteria and promptly gained the freshman 15 (just ask my old roommate--she's another voice on this blog).  I also really liked boys and wanted a way to entice them to stick around for awhile.  So I started cooking Sunday dinners and inviting said boys.  Since I had lots of time on Sunday afternoons, (and no trips to the store for canned biscuits) I opted to make everything from scratch.  

The first homemade biscuits I ever made, I sought out those perfect layered biscuits.  They started with a basic dough, made with butter, that I rolled out, spread butter over the layer, folded, and gently rolled again.  Delightful.

Now, cooking for my family, I don't usually go to that much effort.  I have an easy biscuit recipe I use, which is pretty fool-proof, provided you follow proper biscuit "etiquette."  

Mix your dry ingredients first.

  

Then cut in the shortening.  If you don't have a pastry blender, use to knives crossing each other or a fork.

Add the milk and gently mix it in.  Give it a few turns with a wooden spoon and then leave it alone.  Some spots will be more dry; some more wet.  That's okay.  Leave it.

You could roll it out and go to all that trouble, (they'll look nicer) or you could be like me and drop big spoonfuls on a greased baking sheet and press them flat.

Bake them at 400 for 10-12 minutes, or until those little peaks start to brown.

Homemade Biscuits


3 cups flour (can use whole wheat, but not bread)
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup (or a touch more) milk

Combine dry ingredients in medium sized bowl.  Cut in shortening.  Gently stir in milk.  Roll out or drop by 1/4 cupfuls (pressed flat) onto greased baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Black Bean & Sweet Potato Stew

Every cook has those moments when you walk into the kitchen and have a few random ingredients and think, "what am I going to do with this?"

This recipe was born from one of those moments.  

Sweet potatoes are one of my favorite veggies, so I buy them whenever I can.  My husband eats them because he is kind and he knows I rather enjoy them.  I actually started getting them because I couldn't get my kids to eat regular old mashed potatoes (I know, weird kids), and I wanted another meal filler/vegetable.  It's just so convenient that sweet potatoes are a little better for you than regular spuds.  Or so I've heard.

The week this stew came into being, we had eaten sweet potatoes several times that week already--mashed, baked, french fries.  All great.  But (as the hubby pointed out) they pretty much all taste the same when served that way, and we were getting a little tired of it.

So I did an ingredient search online.  I had beans aplenty, ham and sweet potatoes.  I dare you to put those together all by yourself.  I actually found a recipe for a Brazilian Sweet Potato Stew, and then altered it slightly with what I had.  Who knew such odd ingredients could come together so nicely?  Brazil, apparently.

My ham was already cooked, but I added a touch of oil to the bottom of a large pot and browned it a little to get the juices flowing.

Then I added in some chopped onion and a serrano chili.

When those were nice and soft, I added in my sweet potatoes and some tomato soup.  What you need to do instead is add crushed or diced tomatoes--trust me.  I would have; I just didn't have any.

When the potatoes are cooked, (you want stabbable-with-a-fork, not mushy) add in the (cooked) beans.  We're really just heating the beans and adding a little flavor here.

Serve it over rice, or by itself.  I was thinking it would go really great with cornbread.  Do it without ham to make it vegetarian. Eat it.  Love it.


Black Bean & Sweet Potato Stew

2 T olive oil
1 cup ham, cooked and cubed
1 small serrano chili, seeded and finely chopped
1 small onion, chopped
2 cups (1 large can) diced or crushed tomatoes
2 cups sweet potato, peeled and cubed
1 1/2 cups (1 small can) black beans
salt and pepper, to taste

Sautee ham, chili and onion in oil until ham is slightly browned and vegetables tender.  Add tomatoes (with juice) and sweet potatoes; cook until potatoes are fork-tender, but not mushy.  Add water if needed. Stir in beans and heat through.  Salt and pepper as desired.  Serve over rice, or by itself.

Homemade Macaroni & Cheese

Everyone loves macaroni and cheese, right?  This is my homemade version.  It's a variation on what my mom did, which was a variation on what my grandma did, which is an extension of what my great-grandma made.  It's requested for family gatherings, and our family gives it a special place on our Thanksgiving dinner table.  Seriously.  It is pure and simple comfort food.  Nothing else really needs to be said.  

However, I will say that my kids love it when I make this for dinner, but if given the choice, they would choose the boxed "mac & cheese" (think that infamous blue box) any other time.  What kid wouldn't?  We differentiate at our house by calling it "yellow macaroni" (boxed mix) and "white macaroni."

Also, when Gramma brings this to Thanksgiving dinner, she mixes in up to a cup (yikes!) of mayonnaise, spreads it in a casserole dish, tops it with extra shredded cheddar and maybe some bread crumbs or crushed butter crackers.  Heart attack in a pan, but oh-so-delightful.  When I serve it to my kids, I tend to do mean things like stir in spinach or broccoli.

Lastly, you can alter this however you like.  We once made a version that cost us $20 (yes, for macaroni and cheese) by using specialized cheeses.  It was lovely.  For the adults.  Kids, not so much in love with the gourmet mac & cheese.

Let's make it.  Start by adding three cups of dry macaroni noodles and 1/2 teaspoon of salt to 4 quarts of boiling water.

Stir it every now and then so it doesn't stick together; cook it for 8-10 minutes, or until al dente.  Drain.  Mix  in 2 tablespoons butter to keep it from sticking together while you make the sauce.

The "cheese" part of homemade macaroni and cheese comes from a roux.  If you know how to make a basic white sauce, that's all we're doing here.  

Melt 1/4 cup butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat.  

Turn heat down to low.  Stir in 1/4 cup flour and whisk quickly to keep from scorching.  

If you're using constituted milk, pour in 2 cups right now and whisk until smooth.  We use dry milk at our house, so I mixed in the powder with the flour and butter first, enough for 2 cups milk. 

Then I added 2 cups water, some salt and pepper.

Turn up the heat (med-high) and bring it to a boil.  Boil until consistency of a thick soup or light gravy.

Remove from heat.  Allow to cool for a few minutes--this will keep your cheese from getting stringy.  You can mix it into the macaroni before adding the cheese if you want, but I like to make a smooth cheese sauce, so I add the grated cheese (2 cups+) to the roux.  Little note on that--I like freshly shredded, that I just grated myself.  It's a little more work, but it melts much more nicely.

Yummy cheese sauce...I wanted to show you how thick it is.  Whisk it smooth.

Pour it into the cooked macaroni and give it a stir.

Done.  Unless, of course, you're adding in crazy things like mayonnaise or broccoli.

Homemade Macaroni and Cheese

3 cups uncooked macaroni noodles

1/4 cup + 2 T butter

1/4 cup flour

2 cups milk

2 cups shredded cheese

salt and pepper, to taste

Bring 4 quarts water to boil.  Add noodles and pinch of salt.  Cook 8-10 minutes, or until al dente.  Drain.  Stir in 2 T butter.  Set aside.  Melt 1/4 cup butter in medium saucepan over medium heat.  Turn down heat and mix in 1/4 cup flour.  Stir in milk, salt and pepper and return heat to medium-high.  Bring to a boil and allow to thicken slightly.  Remove from heat.  Add cheese and stir until smooth.  Pour into cooked macaroni noodles and serve.

*Can spread into casserole dish and refrigerate or freeze for later use.

Peek into Liz's Pantry

This is obviously not a recipe, but there is certainly plenty of food!  I just wanted to give you a little peek into the pantry to show you how I organize things. 

The picture above is part of what we refer to as "the office."  First, a little background about our home:  it's approximately 700 square feet.  We are a family of five.  There are three small bedrooms, and "the office" is our smallest room--10'x9'.  It's our no-kid zone.  Part of the room is obviously an extension of the kitchen, and this is how we organize it!  Non-perishables on the left, kitchen appliances on the right.  What you can't see on the far right, bottom shelf, is a couple 25+lb. bags of things like flour, milk powder, whole white wheat, rice and beans.

The picture below shows our food storage buckets--this is where the contents of those large bags go when they're open, to keep the creepies out.  Again, we have little space, so we store many of them right under our kitchen table.  The shelf doubles as the bench our children sit on.

Now, I'm aware this isn't all of our food.  The storage places I don't have pictured are:  

1. the fridge.  If you opened my fridge right now, you would see cheese, eggs, plain yogurt, condiments, cold water, grapefruits and tangerines.  My husband would open it and say there is nothing to eat.  This is frequently the picture of our fridge, with minor alterations (like the type of cheese or what kinds of fruits and veggies are in the crisper drawer).  I regularly stock what I need to make what we eat. I stock real food ingredients.  Not ready-made food.

2. the freezer.  No one ever wants anyone to see inside their freezers--right?? Maybe one day I'll show you, but even if I do, the warm air will get to the packaging so fast that everything will be all fogged up.  So just check the list in my kitchen page--that will tell you what's inside my deep freezer.  Inside the fridge-top freezer I keep make-ahead meals and snacks, or open packages of fruits, veggies, butter, cheese, etc.

3. the baking shelves.  I do want to show you these someday, but they're so chaotic right now and all my canisters are empty.  Basically, there's a spice shelf (with all my spices and seasonings...), and a couple shelves holding small containers of different kinds of flour, leavening agents, fats (shortening/oil), pasta, etc.  Every cook organizes this differently; you don't really need to see how I do it, do you?

Whole Wheat Tortillas

 

Have you ever tried homemade flour tortillas?  No?  You should make some.  Today.  This is why:

1. They taste amazing.  You know how you sometimes buy white flour tortillas because you love the taste and whole wheat flour tortillas because you think you should? And those amazing made-in-restaurant tortillas you eat on rare occasions--forget ever bringing home a batch of those for your burritos, quesadillas and enchiladas throughout the week.  With homemade tortillas--problem solved.

2. They're fun to make.  I confess--the kitchen might get a little (a lot) messy.  But sometimes it's just great to really get your hands in there and make a mess with your food.

3. They're cheap.  Don't believe me?  You have a coupon?  You shop in the ethnic aisle?  Here's comparing for you:  I usually pay about $5 for 24 burrito size flour tortillas.  This batch cost me $0.94.  

Convinced?  Good. Let's get started.

Start with your flour.  I usually do half whole-wheat, half all-purpose because I have picky eaters.

 

Add in the rest of your dry ingredients, and give it a stir.  Drop in the shortening and mix it in with your hands.  Really, truly, use your hands.  It will get sort of crumbly and piled like this:

 

Dump in the water and mix it up well.

If I'm feeling ambitious, I'll divide the dough into relatively equal-sized balls for ease of rolling.  I started out doing that this time, then ended up just pulling off a chunk of dough.  Do what works for you. For an 8-10" tortilla, you need about a golf ball sized ball.

Dust your work surface with flour.  I recommend a large cutting board if you have one, because it's portable.  Roll out very thin.  Pie crust thin.  Thinner than tortilla thin, because it will rise slightly (thicken) as it bakes.  

The picture below is to show my whole "process," not so much the rolling.  In the far background, you see the griddle.  It's a regular stove-top griddle, ungreased, set over low to medium heat.  That's where the tortillas are baking.  In the middle are the finished tortillas, in the foreground obviously the rolling process.  The point of all this is:  when I first started making homemade tortillas, I would mix things up on the counter, roll them out on the table, and run between the kitchen and dining room between baking and rolling (did I mention they cook for about 10 seconds on each side?). Don't do that.  Set it up close, even if you have to put a cutting board across your sink.

Gently peel up your rolled-out tortilla and place it on a hot, ungreased griddle.  Flip when the top begins to bubble, after 10 to 20 seconds.

Cook the second side for only about 3 to 5 seconds.  Remember you want them to be pliable, and it's likely you'll be cooking them again.  Your most cooked side will only be lightly browned.

Eat one right off the griddle.  Serve the rest however you like.  Keep them in a gallon-sized freezer bag in the fridge (or freezer) until ready to use.

• Whole Wheat Flour Tortillas
• adapted from allrecipes.com
• 
  
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoon salt
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 4 tablespoons shortening
• 3 cups water

Directions

1. Whisk the flour, salt, and baking powder together in a mixing bowl. Mix in the shortening with your fingers until crumbly. Add the water and mix until the dough comes together. Divide the dough into 24 equal pieces and roll each piece into a ball.
2. Preheat a large skillet or griddle over low-medium heat. Use a well-floured rolling pin to roll a dough ball into a thin, round tortilla. Place into the hot skillet, and cook until bubbly; flip and continue cooking until slightly dried (as in, not doughy). Stack tortillas on a paper towel to prevent sogginess.