[These have currently been featured on SITK at different times in the last few years, now a biscuit compilation, the songs chosen for each post at each given time.]
It’s getting freezing cold outside, nothing better than the smell of biscuits in the oven with some good seasoned meat cooking for company. Let’s bake some biscuits, I like it when you stop in for a while.
It’s getting freezing cold outside, nothing better than the smell of biscuits in the oven with some good seasoned meat cooking for company. Let’s bake some biscuits, I like it when you stop in for a while.
Dropped into molds, a different way to have biscuits, fitting for a country dinner when you want a casual evening. They are still moist, tear apart easily for butter spread in the middle or lightly dabbed on top.
Cheese & Garlic Biscuit Cakes ~
– Skirt in the Kitchen –
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
6 tablespoons cold butter cut into chunks
2 tablespoons canola or olive oil
1/2 cup grated sharp cheddar
1/2 cup grated monterey jack
1 tablespoon chopped chives*
1 tablespoon parsley flakes*
1/2 cup whole milk
Buttermilk, adding a little at a time, stirring to appropriate moistness; you want a very pliable batter to drop easily for mold consistency, but not too wet.
*Depending on your preference, you may want more or less chives and parsley.
Whisk together dry ingredients, first. Cube the butter, then cut into flour mixture or use your fingertips to work into the dry ingredients.
Add all other ingredients, simply prepare before milk is added; buttermilk, lastly.
Bake in a 400 degree oven until golden-brown. Once out of the oven, brush with butter to melt over the biscuits.
Roast Beef
~ adapted from Trisha Yearwood ~
Salt and pepper all sides of a 5-pound boneless chuck roast.
On aluminum foil, shiny side-up, chop red onion over the meat. Pour evenly 1/4 cup cider vinegar. Fold up the top and sides of foil to hold liquid while cooking, having 1 inch of water in the pan. Place in a 450 degree oven for 3 to 4 hours or until falling apart with the prick of a fork.
If gravy is desired, let the fat set up just enough over the broth to remove it, using only the broth with flour for the gravy.
Skirt in the Kitchen hint: Cook this the night or day prior, warm up in a covered skillet adding a little water in the bottom of the skillet if there isn’t enough broth… but cook it into pieces within the broth (fat removed from the broth) to warm up for a meal– a quick and easy way for the following day.
Cornmeal-Flour Rosemary Butter Biscuits
~ Skirt in the Kitchen ~
Measure 1 1/2 cups AP flour, 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, and 3/4 teaspoons salt into a bowl.
Blend with 1/2 cup coarse cornmeal which gives it a slight crunch. These biscuits are meant to be thin, sort of like a savory shortbread, having specks of yellow throughout the interior.
Add nutmeg with the rosemary, working both in the butter content.
Moisten with gradual addition of milk in a thin stream while cutting it in with a fork– 2/3 cups or more if needed. Do not handle more than necessary to prevent toughness when baked.
Dough will seem fragile, barely keeping together. Lightly roll out in little flour and cut into biscuits, putting a tiny dab of butter and rosemary on the top of each one. Butter will adhere the rosemary. Bake in a 450 degree oven for 15 minutes.
Onion Green Beans
~ Skirt in the Kitchen ~
Put 1 1/2 inches water in the bottom of a saucepan of long-stemmed green beans. As thin as can be sliced, sliver off pieces of yellow onion. Include some of the roasted onion, having both to season the beans well. Add minced garlic– 2 cloves. Salt and pepper; add 1 tablespoon beef grease from the chuck roast. Cook steaming hot with still of a crunchiness and bright green color.
Chocolate Gravy For Square Biscuits ~
~ adapted from Helen Young ~
It’s called “gravy” because flour is a thickener.
Cut into 1/2-inch chunks, 4 tablespoons butter
and 4 ounces cream cheese– freeze, both, for 30 minutes.
In middle position, heat oven rack to 450 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper, or simply line the oven rack with parchment to lay the biscuits.
Put together 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 1/2 cups cake flour,
1 tablespoon sugar, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, and 3/4 teaspoons baking soda.
In the work bowl of a food processor, process dry ingredients with the butter and cream cheese from the freezer until it resembles coarse meal.
Transfer flour mixture to a large bowl, add buttermilk and stir until just combined.
Place dough onto a floured surface, knead just until it comes together. The least you handle this dough, the more tender the biscuits will be.
Softly roll out into an 8×6-inch rectangle,
cut into 12 squares.
Bake until light brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Place them together side by side when baking to insure moist, soft and tender sides.
(This biscuit recipe can be made ahead: Unbaked cut biscuits can be kept in the refrigerator on a covered bar pan with plastic wrap for 1 day.)
For the chocolate “gravy”, measure dry ingredients. Whisk together in a saucepan with 4 cups
whole milk until smooth. Keep a steady stir with a bamboo or wooden spoon, bringing it to a simmer over medium heat so it thickens.
Stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and drape over biscuits.
Black-Pepper Biscuits with Sorghum
~ adapted from Martha Stewart Living ~
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In the bowl of a food processor, combine 4 cups all-purpose flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 1/4 teaspoons salt, and 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper.
Turn out onto a floured board, barely handle the sticky dough, but add just enough flour if needed.
Cut into biscuits, place onto parchment. Brush on heavy whipping cream, then sprinkle the tops with freshly ground black pepper.
Bake 14 to 16 minutes. Serve with butter melted on biscuit with sorghum poured.
“Blue Biscuit” Sausage with Smothered Pepper Gravy ~
~ Skirt in the Kitchen ~
Set oven temp to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
Stir together: 2 cups all-purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 4 teaspoons baking powder, and 3 teaspoons sugar. Fork in dry ingredients 1/2 cup butter-flavored shortening (Not the same result with white shortening for this; use the yellow shortening.) Set aside.
Whisk 2 large eggs, frothy; add and whisk altogether with 1 1/3 cups whole milk.
Stir until just moistened.
Spoon into 2 buttered cake pans or 1 oblong.
Bake until lightly golden. Brush salted butter over the tops and sides when fresh out of the oven.
For the gravy, on medium-low heat, brown and cook pork sausage patties in 1 teaspoon olive oil to get it started, but make sure the skillet is hot, first. When patties are cooked evenly all the way through, pour into the skillet 1 can of beef broth. Whisk to prevent lumps. Bring to a good heat, a light boil, then whisk in enough flour to “ball up”… Add water from here on out, a little at a time, to make brown gravy. Reach a slight thickening point, turn down to the lowest heat setting just to keep it warm. Stir in a little bit of Kitchen Bouquet, kosher salt and freshly grated black pepper (not much). Taste it. Cover the skillet.
Chop 1 red bell pepper
and a good amount of fresh cilantro.
Begin sauteing in a medium-large skillet in 3/4 stick of unsalted butter.
Saute 1 chopped purple onion and 1 minced garlic clove. Sprinkle red pepper flakes. After sauteing, drain, add and stir combination into the gravy.
Build your biscuit–
Pour gravy over the sausage biscuit with the peppers and cilantro mixed into the gravy. This is very good (my husband loves it).
Herbed Buttermilk Biscuits ~
~ adapted from Fine Cooking ~
(You may use tarragon, chives or chervil in place of dill.)
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Sift 2 cups all-purpose flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 3/4 teaspoon table salt, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, and 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill or 2 teaspoons dried dill. If using fresh dill, mix the dill with 2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley.
To the dry ingredients, add 3 tablespoons vegetable shortening or lard, well chilled and cut into chunks. Also add 2 tablespoons unsalted butter cut into chunks, chilled.
Combine and cut in with a pastry blender or two table knives until coarse meal forms.
Make a well in the center…
and pour 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk. Blend the dough just until combined with your fingers or with a wooden/bamboo spoon. It will be sticky, but that is alright.
Turn out onto a floured cutting board. Wash, dry and flour your hands. Gently pat out the dough and fold it back over itself about half a dozen times, just until smooth. Pat it out again, this time into a round or oval that is an even 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick. Cover the dough with plastic wrap, lightly, and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, remove the cutting board with the biscuit dough from the refrigerator, cut the dough with a sharp knife or biscuit cutter–trying to get as many rounds as possible. The dough with toughen, somewhat, each time you work it but lightly pat remaining dough together, pat down evenly, and cut again. Set biscuits 1/2 inch apart on prepared baking sheet.
Bake the biscuits, rotate the baking sheet halfway through to achieve even cooking. Bake until raised and golden brown.
I had this on my mind for a couple of days before I phoned my mother to get her recipe. I added a couple of ingredients: Freshly squeezed orange juice to cut back on granulated sugar, juice from half a lemon, and bourbon vanilla extract– not the almond extract that she prefers to use in her cherry desserts. I grew up on her cobbler from the time I could remember, but we mainly had the dessert during the winter because she would bake with the cherries she canned from summer. Since we had only one cherry tree in our orchard, my siblings and I would travel somewhat far to go cherry picking with our parents every single summer, spending hours, gathering bushels of cherries. We’d each claim our own tree, have ladders and our own buckets for bushels. It was a race to see who could get theirs filled first, in the beginning, but then it just got to be a tiresome day.
These are not the Montmorency cherries, the kind we picked. Montmorency canned cherries are lighter-red and more tart compared to these luscious deep sweet reds. These are also larger. My mother’s cobbler was much better from those cherries for biscuit cobbler than my own cobbler I baked this evening even though this one is good, too, and ideal for vanilla ice cream. No matter how good this one is, I still miss hers and like hers better. I wish I could have the same kind of cherry tree to bake and can from but I’ll have to purchase a Montmorency tree from Stark Bro’s Nursery next planting season for cherries in a couple of years that are more suitable for cobbler and cherry pie like hers– “the kind that Mom made”. I’ll probably use almond extract.
For an oblong baking dish for cobbler or an extra-large round one, wash and pit 2 pounds cherries.
Don’t always measure– not always mandatory, so sweeten it for your own taste along with the juice of 1 orange as previously mentioned, and a little bit of freshly squeezed lemon juice. Reach a boil, turn down to a simmer and allow it to thicken into its own sauce, keeping it covered until the cherries are tender. When tender, uncover in order for it to cook down; there is no need to add water. Flavor with almond extract, vanilla, or your choice of extract flavoring other than these. When desired consistency has been acquired, keep warm on the lowest setting of heat.
For the drop biscuits, the sweet dough: Whisk to combine 2 cups all-purpose flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, 3 teaspoons baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cut in 1/2 cup cold unsalted butter. Lightly beat 2 eggs; add 1/2 cup evaporated milk. Using a fork, a little at a time, add combined eggs and milk and more evaporated milk if needed to moisten. Butter the dish before filling with cooked cherries and dropped dough. Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes.
They could be clouds… but they’re drop biscuits. They aren’t made for honey but they’ll do fine with butter in the middle as soon as they are hot from the oven, on the table.
They were baked for a southern gravy, and it’s this skillet of red that I craved when I was pregnant with my oldest. I could not get enough of this gravy that a lady who quilted introduced me to. She got fresh cow’s milk, brought it in (now unadvised) and she cooked me a couple of breakfasts during my visits to see her while my husband of then fur trapped and deer hunted with his brother on weekends in the woods that she owned close to her house in the country. My sister would go with us at times.
Sometimes she made a light-brown gravy for the tomatoes and bacon to sink into over sliced southern-fried potatoes– lovingly for her husband, family, for me and my little one that was soon to be born, like a little calf. She knew just how to run a farm, an entire household, and the crazy neighbors up the road. She was a real person, as genuine as one could ever be with herself and with others around her. She was my boy’s great-aunt… she eventually came down with Alzheimer’s and passed.
That was then. I still love the gravy, almost as much as I still and always will love her and my husband of then, and his sweet brother. When you love people, you go on loving them– just in a completely different way– the gist of loving anyone.
Tomato-Bacon Gravy w/Savory Biscuits ~
~ Skirt in the Kitchen ~
2 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder (not onion salt)
1/2 – 3/4 teaspoon fine salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon parsley
1/4 teaspoon basil
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk
2 beaten eggs
1 stick unsalted butter (1/2 cup)
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 scallion
(Make sure butter, buttermilk, and cheddar cheese are very cold.)
Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees F.
Measure out flour, leveled, in a large bowl. Add dry ingredients, whisking or blending with a fork well. Cut in cold butter with a biscuit cutter or with fingertips, working it in quickly.
Stir in cheese and chopped scallion; then eggs with buttermilk, just until moistened– to not overwork the biscuit dough.
Drop by spoonfuls, releasing from spoon with fingers, baking until golden-brown approximately 12-15 minutes.
For the gravy: In a cast-iron skillet, fry 4 slices bacon; blot onto paper towels. Eyeball just enough flour, stirring while it comes together in the skillet; then pour in milk or flour, a little at a time, stirring constantly still. Keep stirring, possibly adding more liquid to desired consistency. Take off the heat, strain through a seive to rid of lumps for a smooth glossy gravy. Pour back into the skillet, turn down the heat to prevent boiling. Add salt & pepper, Liquid Smoke seasoning, peeled crushed tomatoes, (may wish to add 1-3 drops of chili sauce, but check for taste, first, before adding anything after adding Liquid Smoke.) and bacon broken up into peices. Stir, bringing it together, then serve over warm biscuits.
What to do with leftover biscuits from this recipe:
…make into good, moist bread stuffing for your chicken or sliced ham; or toss in some rotisserie chicken torn or cut into small pieces, mixed in well with the stuffing, before sticking it in the oven after adding to its contents 1/2 – 3/4 can of Campbell’s Cream of Chicken Soup, undiluted…
But FIRST, sautee in a skillet with 1 stick melted butter, 1 small minced onion and 1 finely sliced celery stalk; towards the end of sauteeing, mince 1 garlic clove to finish sauteeing.
Crumble 6 (exact number that I used for this) leftover biscuits into the sauteed mixture in the skillet. Mix altogether. Add the Campbell’s Cream of Chicken with enough cooked Israeli Couscous. Then taste for salt or pepper if needed.
Spoon into a baking dish. Sprinkle generously with panko breadcrumbs for a crunchy top. Drizzle lightly with melted butter before baking.
Place in 350 degree oven, covered for the first 10 minutes. Then remove cover or aluminum foil; finish browning for a light golden crust color, crunchy sides.
Don’t let this overbake, making it too dry. You want it moist with the right amount of seasonings, salt & pepper.
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