Biscuit Time!

Biscuits are delicious morsels of fluffy, warm clouds sent from heaven, waiting to be bathed in gravy or topped with all sorts of tasty treats. They are a benchmark of one's cookitude. And as a daughter of the south, especially one who loves cooking, baking high, light, fluffy biscuits should be as easy as napping in a hammock under a magnolia tree. But, alas, I still struggle with something that most southern ladies consider nothing more than something on which to rest your butter and jam.

Perhaps I am genealogically impaired. After all, my mom's Italian and from the rust belt of Pennsylvania and my dad is English and from sort of the Nebraska/Oklahoma area. Neither of my parents nor their parents baked biscuits. So, even if I'm not truly naturally impaired, I'm at least nurture-ally impaired, since I never got to stand on a stool next to mom or granny and help make them.

In high school, back when they used to separate the boys out of home economics class, we had a class on making biscuits. We followed the directions on the back of the flour bag. What we created were flat, round, hard discs that no amount of soaking in anything would make them edible. My home ec teacher just shrugged her shoulders and said, "Sometimes the recipes just aren't very good." I was not put off - I was discouraged, but not deterred. After seeing biscuits at fast-food restaurants that are high, lighty and fluffy, albeit dripping in greasy butter and too salty to enjoy, I decided it just can't be that hard. I vowed to find a way to make consistently good biscuits in my own kitchen with my own two hands.

It took awhile for me to remember my vow, but years later, I bought a box of Bisquick thinking that a box could solve this problem for me. While the biscuits were edible, they had a funny aftertaste. Sort of metallic. And the biscuits still spread wide on the pan instead of reaching the lofty heights they should. I read the ingredients on the box and realized that it was pretty much the same thing as self-rising flour, so I switched to the cheaper bagged flour.

After more disappointing attempts, I started looking for recipes in cookbooks because when I did exactly what the bag or box recipe said, the biscuits were still wide, flat and underwhelming. I came across a recipe that called for buttermilk instead of regular milk. What a revelation! Something about the acid in the buttermilk caused a wonderful bubbly chemical reaction with either the baking powder or baking soda. I couldn't tell which, I just knew I'd never make biscuits without buttermilk ever again. While I resolved the fluffiness issue, I still had problems with too much spread and not enough browning.

If I haven't said so yet, I should tell you I'm a Food Network junkie. I watch virtually every show they put on if it involves ingredients, knives, blenders, ovens, cooktops, and a host. Alton Brown did an episode on biscuits in which I finally learned the purpose of baking powder and baking soda. Power is for lift - soda for spread. I also learned there are two types of baking powder - regular and double-acting baking powder. After that show, I jumped up to try my biscuit recipe again.

Another oddity I discovered is that if I measure all the ingredients, my biscuits tend to be less good than if I just go by feel, which is another problem - being able to repeat the recipe. Armed with double-acting baking powder, buttermilk, all purpose flour, a pinch of salt, and sweet butter, I began mixing. Something told me (probably Alton) to stay my hand - don't over mix, lest the biscuits be tough. So, this time I left the mix very wet. I used the flour on my counter to tighten it just enough. The feel of the dough under my hands this time was completely different from any other time I've made biscuits. It was soft and silky and light! I cut them and put them in the pre-heated 425 degree oven and tapped my fingers together like an evil scientist. If I had a pencil-thin mustache, I would have twirled it! The timer went off and again, no browning and too much spread. It was not alive.

So, here's where I start, with my 129th (or there-abouts) attempt at making a consistently good biscuit. I have now modified the recipe to using 1/2 bread flour and 1/2 unbleached all-purpose flour. I've eliminated the baking soda entirely. I also use 1/2 butter and 1/2 shortening. If I could find lard, I'd try that but my market doesn't carry lard. I also turn the oven up to 500 degrees instead of the luke warm 425 degrees the recipies on the bag call for.

Some folks say to not use more than a couple teaspoons of baking powder because of the metallic taste. My response to that is - hogwash! Just use non-aluminum baking powder!

So, this past Saturday, excited to blog about biscuits, I got up, put on my game face and pre-heated the oven to 500 degrees. I even measured the ingredients for the biscuits and made sausage gravy to put on top.
This gravy made from locally-produced Neese's sausage with extra sage. I love that stuff! I used to use Jimmy Dean's 50% less-fat sausage until I realized it was 50% less fat because there's 50% less sausage in the package! It used to take two packages of Jimmy Dean to get this volume of sausage gravy. Neese's has a bit more fat content, so I have to remember to skim some off before I start the roux. I throw in a pinch of cayenne pepper and use half and half. Might as go all the way!
Here's what the biscuits looked like out of the oven. Finally, brown biscuits without having to turn on the broiler! I also did not put any butter or milk on top. The little biscuit is for my kitty Pepper, who has "helped" me make biscuits since she was a kitten. She wasn't fooling me - I know she was really just after the milk.
And, the final result. Biscuits and sausage gravy! You might be wondering, why was I displeased with this result? Well, the biscuits were not quite high enough and the dough was a little too damp in the middle. I'll modify the recipe to cut back on the fat, use a little more baking powder and see how that goes. I'll keep you posted!

Green Bean Epiphany

God bless her, but my mother is a utilitarian cook. Completely uninspired by flavor or texture. Because of that, and a lot of other factors beyond my control (like the fact we were one of the first single parent households in my town and my sister and I some of the first latch-key kids of our generation) I was 21 when I had my first lightly steamed fresh green bean. Single parent households are fairly common now, but back then my sister and I were looked on by our schoolmates like we had just landed from Mars. So, it was a challenge in more ways than one for my mother to provide healthy and quick meals. After all, she was the sole bread-winner. TV dinners were just starting to come out and they were still pretty darn expensive and frankly, some of the worst tasting food ever made. We relied a lot on canned vegetables and inexpensive cuts of meat that ended up being overcooked and under seasoned.

My least favorite meal was her pot roast. Although, I must say, there's got to be some sort of scientific award of excellence for managing to make meat both stringy and rubbery at the same time. At that, she was a genius. How she managed to have the chunks of potato, carrot and celery keep their original shape but completely disintegrate at the waving of a fork over them has to be an alchemical mystery. One night, I just couldn't manage eating the pot roast at all. Had a really bad day at school and just couldn't face a bad meal to boot. So I pushed my food around, ate some bread and when I cleared the table, I hid my bowl in a cabinet so I could toss it out later and not hurt her feelings. I do love her for the effort, but by 11, I was making my own eggs and toast or instant rice with boiled vegetables or Campbell's vegetable beef soup poured over top. By 13, I had dinner on the table for us when she got home at 6:00. Fried hamburger patties, baked potatoes, iceberg lettuce salads with green goddess dressing.

So, there I was - 21 years old and living with two female roommates in Rockford, Illinois. How I got there is a story for two bottles of tequila in a smokey bar, which I don't imagine happening any time soon. One of my roommates came home from work and for dinner prepared a huge bowl of lightly steamed fresh green beans. She folded herself into her papasan chair in front of the TV and began to eat them with her fingers like popcorn. She offered me one. I bit into the slightly firm, warm green bean and it popped with it's crisp freshness. My little brain nearly exploded with wonder - a green bean that wasn't gray, over-salted mush that melted like mud on my tongue and often left sinewy strings in my teeth?! The flavor was like nothing I'd ever had before. I could taste the healthiness of it and my body sighed with joy. Food was actually good! Vegetables can haz flavor! It changed my life.

A few months later, I find my way back to my home town and began watching the cooking shows on PBS every Sunday (because this was way before cable TV and Food Network). Yan Can Cook! Julia Child. The Frugal Gourmet. Jacques Pepin. Lydia's Italy. I couldn't get enough. It was my new religion. The Goddess provides and we get to eat it! I soaked it all in and began picking up recipes and trying out new things. After many years of just playing around with food for my own enjoyment, I finally feel like I can cook something and share it with friends and family without embarrassment. Luckily, my husband thinks everything I make it awesome and I'm grateful he puts up with my experiments.

I still feel like I'm at the beginning of that journey. And, this will be my chef's log. I think it's time to revisit my Frugal Gourmet cook books!

Of Food and Ferraris

I have always had a deep appreciation for cars. I don't know where I got it. It's been said that boys sometimes get the "truck gene," meaning that when a large piece of machinery of any type - road work equipment, building cranes, anything with giant tires and loud engines comes around, the boy's eyes get as large as saucers and they dance and point at the big, dirty, noisy thing. These are the boys who love the chunky Tonka dump trucks or Hess gas station trucks as gifts. Some even graduate to Matchbox cars later on. It's unfortunate, but I believe there is a bit of reverse sexism in toys. Sure, it's been frowned on for boys to take up playing with dolls, but you also rarely see girls being encouraged to play with Hot Wheels, erector sets or for that matter, anything mechanical.

While I was not blessed with the "truck gene," I did have a trigger to my love of cars. I was a very girly girl - patent leather mary janes, pretty little dresses with crinolines and lace, but I also on occasion liked to catch frogs or make mud pies (more on that later). Being a girly girl, I was given Barbies and all the fashion accessories that went along with her with two major exceptions - the house and the car. The house I could do without as long as I had shoe boxes with which I could build my own. But the Car...the car was a Corvette! It was low and sleek and had amazing swoopy fenders and fat tires and SHE drove Ken around doing what SHE wanted. The concept was intoxicating to my wee little brain.

Barbie's Corvette allowed her freedom of a level I had not seen exhibited on TV or in my real life. As I grew to driving age, I looked around at the cars most folks drove and they did nothing for me. They were utilitarian, boring, and often more trouble and expense than helpful. Every once in awhile, I'd see something strange and beautiful with swoopy lines or low and crouchy about to pounce, or sleek and statuesque and I began looking at labels. Porsche, Ferrari, Lotus - exotic names that conjured mystic lands of curvy mountain roads dropping off to cliffs overhanging deep blue oceans. I was smitten. But, being a girl, I had no resources for tracking down these exotic beauties. And the guys in high school who were motor-heads were more inclined to the heavy, inelegant, clunky American muscle cars. Sure, I learned a lot about how an engine works from them - even getting my hands dirty from time to time handing them the torque wrench or holding the butterfly clip still while they cleaned the carburetor. I quickly learned that I'd prefer to be a patron of the fine art of exotic cars rather than a mechanic of any car.

When I turned 16, I was determined to learn how to drive a stick shift because all the exotic supercars had manual transmissions and I wanted to be ready for that rare opportunity to drive one. So, I went to my neighborhood BMW dealership and convinced the salesman to teach me - on a brand new BMW. I ended up having to go to several BMW dealerships before I got the knack of it down - besides, I just loved driving BMWs. Soon, I began visiting all the luxury car dealerships just so I could sit in one of these fine, handcrafted vehicles (well, they were back then). The smell of the leather seats, the feel of the gear shift, the way the driver's seat hugged my sides...all heaven. Then, I'd get back into my mother's Ford Granada with the vinyl seats that were cracked and splitting at the seams, the paint that was delaminating and rusting, and the cheap wheel covers and drive away wondering why American car companies can't make cars like the Europeans. This was right at the beginning of the oil crisis of the 1970's and the Japanese small tin can cars were just starting to come on the market, so Honda and Toyota had not quite yet established their ability to be solid, safe, and reliable cars yet. You either bought an American road cruiser or something from Europe at at least double the cost.

Meanwhile, I dreamed wistfully of a land where a reasonably priced car can be reliable, fun to drive, and still have panache and style - there just has to be a middle ground. My current car is a 1998 Nissan Altima with over 165,000 miles. The car is still in darn good shape. My mechanic tells me I can easily get 200,000 miles out of her. However, lately I've been putting a bit more into repairs than I've been accustomed to so it's got me thinking about what my next car should be. And it's that journey to my new car that I'd like to share.

I realize I didn't do much with food in this post, but I promise I'll get to the food part of this blog in later ones.