Category Archives: breakfast

Biscuits and gravy

baking, breakfast 5 Comments

Wondering what to do with all those biscuits?

Wondering how to add a few calories to your breakfast?

Allow me.

These are really super easy to make (along with, uh, everything else I ever blog) and are such comfort food for breakfast!

Biscuits and gravy

Ingredients

  • 1 pound breakfast sausage
  • 3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
  • 1 can evaporated milk or about a cup and a half of milk (I guarantee nothing with skim milk; I’m a whole milk kinda girl)

Instructions

  1. Brown up the sausage till it’s crumbly and completely cooked — no pink! — then evaluate your sausage grease situation. I put all the sausage on a paper-towel lined plate so I can see what I’m working with. You want to end up with about three tablespoons of grease left in there; drain off anything in excess of that
  2. Turn the burner to medium or so and sprinkle in three tablespoons of flour; whisking to combine. Pretty soon your mixture will look super thick and you’ll want to sock me one because this can’t possibly be right, but it is! Stay with me
  3. Now pour in your milk and keep whisking! Remember that flour doesn’t hit full thickening power till it’s bubbling (unlike cornstarch), so don’t give up; in just a couple minutes you’ll have gravy
  4. Now add back in the sausage and serve over your hot biscuits

This dish may or may not cause a Yankee to propose do you. I’m just sayin’.

Biscuits

baking, breakfast 2 Comments

We’ve seriously never talked about how to make basic biscuits? This is mind boggling to me.

This is one of those recipes I make by throwing stuff into a bowl; I very rarely measure this at all, so I had to go back and make these again and actually pay attention. The sacrifice! I make pretty small batches of this because I make small biscuits and I make them pretty often, so there are always more on the way; the recipe is easily doubled.

Biscuits

Ingredients

  • 1 cup AP flour
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1 Tbsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. instant/bread machine yeast (you can certainly leave this out; I like the little extra rise and the flavor of it)
  • 1/4 cup cold butter, shortening, bacon drippings (seriously) or any combination thereof
  • 1/2 – 3/4 cup milk or buttermilk (see instructions)

Instructions

  1. Combine flour, salt, baking powder and yeast in a bowl or in the work bowl of a food processor, then cut in butter with a pastry blender or fork, or pulse in the food processor till the mixture looks like coarse cornmeal
  2. Slowly add milk, gently stirring with a rubber spatula or your fingers; add just enough so that it turns into dough
  3. Turn onto a floured surface (I do it right on the counter lately); knead it four times, folding it back over itself as you go. FOUR! Then STOP, no matter how much fun it is. Overworked dough = unhappy biscuits
  4. Roll and cut out biscuits and bake at 400F till just starting to brown on top; I do these in a cast iron skillet, but any kind of dish or baking sheet with a little butter in the bottom works just fine

September, 2011 update: be sure to check out the lovely Fearless Homemaker’s version of these too — are those not the prettiest biscuits you’ve ever seen?

PB&J muffins

baking, breakfast, dessert, kids, snacks 3 Comments

Hello, lovelies!

Not to get all Bob Ross-ey on you, but these are happy little muffins. It’s a Paula Deen recipe (that involves only 3 Tbsp. butter, I might add) and were apparently quite a hit at The Yankee’s office. Yay!

PB&J muffins

Ingredients

  • 2 cups AP flour
  • 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
  • 2 Tbsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup plus 1 tsp. creamy peanut butter
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten
  • 3 Tbsp. butter, melted
  • 1/4 cup thick jam (not jelly!)
  • 1/3 cup honey roasted peanuts, chopped (optional)

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350F and line 12 muffin cups with paper liners or spray with nonstick spray
  2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in the food processor; add in all the peanut butter and pulse till it looks like coarse crumbs (think biscuit making); add in milk, egg, and melted butter and pulse till just combined
  3. Scoop half the batter into the muffin cups, then drop a teaspoon of jam on each; cover with the remaining batter and top with chopped peanuts if you’re using them
  4. Bake until muffins are light golden, about 15-20 minutes; cool on a wire rack (or eat immediately — these are SO GOOD still warm)

 

Paula says these will keep for 1-2 days, but they lasted about 1-2 hours in The Yankee’s office. So there you have it. 🙂

 

Skillet apples

baking, breakfast, dessert 5 Comments

This is another one of those recipes that I have written down on a scrap of paper and tucked away. I have no idea where it came from, but it’s so yummy.

It’s also what I had for breakfast this morning. Is that wrong? It’s fruit, people.

Try this. Seriously. Gather:

  • 1 skillet (I used my smallest cast iron)
  • 2 Granny Smith apples
  • 2 Tbsp. butter
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
  • Sprinkle of nutmeg

And then:

  1. Core and slice apples (uniformly sized pieces are your friends so they’ll cook evenly; you can also peel them if your little heart desires, but I dig the peels)
  2. Melt butter in skillet
  3. Add apples, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg to skillet and stir to combine and coat apples (note: the mixture will look a little dry at first and you’ll be tempted to add more butter, but don’t; as the apples cook down they’ll get nice and juicy and everything will be great)
  4. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 15-20 minutes or until apples are nice and tender and sauce is starting to thicken
  5. Serve for breakfast

I can neither confirm nor deny that these are crazy good with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Just sayin.

Amish friendship bread

baking, breakfast 5 Comments

Ah, friendship bread. Let’s be honest: it’s like a chain letter. But since I end up with this: I say it’s okay.

Let’s start at the beginning. Don’t have anyone dying to give you some starter? You can make your own (recipe found here):

  • 1 pkg. active dry yeast
  • 1/4 cup warm water (110°F)
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1 cup warm milk (110°F)

Now get it going:

  1. Dissolve the yeast in the warm water and let it sit for about ten minutes. Stir.
  2. in a two quart glass or plastic (no metal!) container, combine flour and sugar; make sure they’re well combined so the flour doesn’t get lumpy in the milk
  3. Add in the warm milk and dissolved yeast/water, stirring slowly till everything is incorporated; the mixture will get bubbly
  4. Pour mixture into a one-gallon ziptop bag and seal tightly, pushing out as much air as possible

That’s it! That is now day 1 completed. Then you follow the directions as if you’ve received the starter:

Day 2: Mash the bag, “burp” the air out if necessary
Day 3: Mash the bag, “burp” the air out if necessary
Day 4: Mash the bag, “burp” the air out if necessary
Day 5: Add to the bag: 1 c. all-purpose flour, 1 c. sugar, 1 c. cold milk. Mash the bag (yep, it sits on the counter after this — weird but true)
Day 6: Mash the bag, “burp” the air out if necessary
Day 7: Mash the bag, “burp” the air out if necessary
Day 8: Mash the bag, “burp” the air out if necessary
Day 9: Mash the bag, “burp” the air out if necessary

Day 10: Pour the contents of the bag into a non-metal bowl.
Add:

  • 1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 c. sugar
  • 1 1/2 c. cold milk.

Then:

  • Write the date (so your friends know what day one is) on four gallon size zip bags
  • Measure out one cup of batter into each bag
  • Keep one starter bag for yourself; give the other three to friends along with a printed copy of the recipe (Word doc) (remember that if you keep a starter, you will be baking every 10 days)

Time to bake!

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees and grease two small or one large loaf pan

To your remaining starter (about one cup), add:

  • 3 eggs
  • 2/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 1/2 cup cold milk
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 cups AP flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

The master recipe calls for a mixture of 1/4 c. sugar and 1/2 tsp cinnamon for dusting/topping. Use 2/3 of this mixture to dust the greased pans, and then sprinkle the remaining on top of the batter after poured into the pans. Bake for 1 hour. Cool until bread loosens from the sides, about 10 minutes.

Variation: some recipes call for 2 small boxes instant vanilla pudding mix and/or substituting 1/2 applesauce and 1/2 oil. You can also play around with different flavors of pudding mixes and additions of fruits, nuts, chocolate chips, and spices.

Two great websites with tips and recipes:

http://www.armchair.com/recipe/amish/amish.html
http://www.momswhothink.com/bread-recipes/amish-friendship-bread.html

I was surprised at how many people were interested in this starter — I had no trouble giving it away, and even mailed a couple of them with no problems. Enjoy!