Mama’s Biscuits

From Dish Gwen:

I’m 38 weeks pregnant, and with motherhood right around the corner it’s time that I finally learned how to make biscuits like my own mom does. Growing up I never realized how lucky I was to have a mom who made biscuits from scratch, and I plan to spoil my own kid just as badly as my mom spoiled me.

These biscuits aren’t fancy but they’re damn good, and they can be served for breakfast, lunch, dinner or dessert depending on how you treat them. Pair them with bacon and eggs, with gravy and a nice roast chicken, or topped like shortcake with sweet strawberries and fresh whipped cream. You can’t go wrong, and your kids will be forever in your debt. Eat your heart out, Pillsbury.

Biscuits from Scratch

Ingredients:
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour (plus 1/2 cup for rolling the dough)
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 8 tsp butter (this is where I stray from mom – she uses some Crisco but I won’t touch the stuff)
- ¾ to 1 cup milk

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients then chop in the butter using a pastry cutter. Don’t let the butter get melty – it should be cold and as you mix it into the dough it should clump into small pea-sized bits. Once all of the butter is coated with flour and broken down into small bits, chop in the milk using the pastry cutter. The dough should be sticky but not liquid, so add the milk slowly and use only as much as you need to form a loose ball.

Sprinkle about 1/3 cup of flour on a dish towel and lay the dough ball on it. Sprinkle additional flour on top of the ball so that there is no sticky dough exposed. Without touching the dough with your hands, use the towel to knead the dough, pressing the ball flat then folding it over on top of itself repeatedly. Press and fold the dough about 15 times, then press it out flat so that the dough is about ¾ of an inch thick. Use a round cookie cutter or a sharp-edged cup dipped in flour to cut the dough into rounds, and lay the rounds onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Re-knead the dough as necessary to cut it all into rounds.

Bake the biscuits for about 20 minutes until they start to brown on top. Makes 6-7 biscuits.

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Homemade Sauce and a Pizza, too!

From Dish Erin:

Some people go to church on Sundays. Me, I make tomato sauce. This weekend I had some extra time that allowed me to not only make sauce but homemade pizza, too. I really wanted to make homemade dough, but apparently this Presidents Day, there was a run on yeast at my local supermarket! So you’re getting a 75% homemade pizza recipe, but a 100% delicious one, I promise. The saucy lil husband and I own a pizza stone, which to me is just a constant excuse to eat pizza. But I don’t fight it. Making pizza at home is a totally different experience from ordering out and I’ve come to appreciate it for different reasons. The process, mostly. It’s a meal that you create layer by layer, which is really gratifying. You get into bite into a crust you rolled out, taste a sauce you slaved over all day, and a pie you assembled yourself. Tonight I opted for mushrooms and broccoli and a few sliced meatballs (for my meatball recipe, click here) as toppings. If you use broccoli, I suggest blanching it first.

For the sauce
1 yellow onion, diced
1 medium sized carrot, finely diced
2 stalks celery, finely diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 bay leaf
2 cans crushed tomatoes
Splash of wine (optional)
Crushed red pepper flakes to taste
Salt & pepper to taste
1 tablespoon honey

For the pizza
1 lb of dough (I used whole wheat)
Tomato sauce
1 1/2 cups grated mozzarella, or 1/2 lb fresh mozzarella, sliced
Toppings of your choice
Basil, cut into a chiffonade

1.) Time to make the sauce! Heat olive oil over medium heat and add onion, garlic, carrot and celery. Saute until veggies are translucent and soft. Add oregano, thyme, and the tomato paste. Stir to incorporate paste and when it’s ‘melted’ into the veggies, add a splash of wine. Doesn’t matter what kind.

2.) Add bay leaf, both cans of crushed tomatoes, a few shakes of crushed red pepper, salt & pepper. Stir and turn the heat down to low. Add honey. You can use sugar if you don’t have honey on hand, but just use a little less than 1 tbsp. Stir again, cover, and simmer for about 30 minutes to an hour.

3.) Time to make the pizza! Preheat oven to 450 degrees and put the pizza stone in the oven while it’s preheating. (If you don’t have a pizza stone, don’t worry, just use a baking sheet.) The key to making pizza is a smokin hot oven, and a smokin hot pan.

4.) Roll out your dough. Assuming your supermarket didn’t run out of yeast, it’s not hard to make your own dough, just time consuming. But in a pinch, you can always buy fresh dough. Put down parchment paper and dust it with cornmeal. This will keep it from sticking much better than flour, and the cornmeal actually departs less flavor onto the dough. You can use flour, but be careful because it can start to make the dough dried out. Take a rolling pin and start in the middle of the dough, slowly rolling out all sides equally so you don’t get an oblong or weird shape, but a nice round circle. This will take a few minutes. Pizza dough requires a little elbow grease and effort to get it to fully smooth out. Don’t be discouraged if it keeps ‘pulling back’ into a ball, just keep working at it.


5.) Remove the pan from the oven and place the dough on top. If you want a really thin crust pizza, and the dough’s not cooperating with you, you can poke a few holes in the crust with a fork, because the dough will rise in the oven.

6.) Spoon a few ladles of tomato sauce onto your pizza dough, then add the cheese, then your toppings. Brush the edges of the pie with a pastry brush dipped in olive oil.


7.) Bake on the bottom oven rack for about 15-20 minutes. The pizza should be crisp on the bottom, golden brown on top and bubbling in the middle. Remove from tray to a plate or a pizza paddle (hey, I’m from Jersey, I’ve got my pizza making tools, ya heard?) and let cool for about 5 minutes. Slice and serve.

The sauce you can have, but the pizza, she’s-a mine!

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Chicken a la King with Buttermilk Biscuits

From Dish Nicole:

I just recently celebrated my 29th birthday, otherwise known as the last year of my 20’s. I decided that 29 sounds like a mature and sophisticated age. 29 sounds like the age you throw yourself a birthday brunch at your apartment and cook for all of your friends rather than get sloshed at a bar. So that is exactly what I did. It was a blast. Per the usual, I over-bought and over-cooked and had loads of leftover ingredients in the fridge. Once I took inventory I decided that buttermilk biscuits and chicken a la king would be my next SLD. Buttermilk biscuits are super easy to make and you probably have everything you need to make them (minus the buttermilk) without even realizing it. They are always delicious and always impress.

What you need for the biscuits:
2 cups flour
¼ teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoon unsalted butter (cold)
1 cup (approx) buttermilk

You can make the biscuits before starting the chicken or wait until it’s simmering on the stove. I always hold off so that the biscuits are fresh out of the oven when it’s time to eat. While getting all of the ingredients together, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Combined all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl or food processor and then add the chilled butter in chunks. You want the mixture to resemble a course meal. I recommend using a food processor for this. Return the mixture to a bowl and add the buttermilk, adding more if the consistency is too dry. You can pat the dough out on a floured surface and use a cookie cutter to get perfect round biscuits but I don’t mind the free form shape so I scoop about a ¼ cup of the dough out and drop onto a cookie sheet. I also added shredded cheddar to the top to make them extra tasty.

Bake these puppies for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown and that’s all there is to it.

Next up, the chicken:

3 cups diced cooked chicken (I chose to poach chicken breasts but you can also use leftovers from a roast chicken)
3 tablespoons butter
4 small shallots
¼ cup flour
2 cups milk, ½ and ½ or evaporated milk
1 ½ cups chicken broth
1 cup diced carrot
1 cup diced celery
½ cup peas
3 cloves garlic diced
½ cup chopped fresh dill
Salt and pepper

In a large deep skillet or saucepan melt the butter over medium heat. Next add in the shallots and garlic and cook until softened. Add in the celery and carrots and cook for an additional 5 minutes. At this point you can blend in the flour, coating the veggies. Gradually add in the milk, broth, salt and pepper and bring to a simmer. Add in the chicken, peas and fresh dill and simmer for about 10 more minutes or until it thickens to your liking. Serve it up in a bowl with those delicious biscuits and you have yourself one comforting meal. Please note: Friends, roommates and boyfriends really enjoy this meal and will ask you to make it for them again and again.

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