Tag Archives: comfort

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?

Lazy woman’s peach cobbler

baking, dessert 6 Comments

This recipe comes from my great grandma, who maybe named it thusly? Or maybe that was always its name? Either way, it is, indeed, one of the easiest desserts you’ll ever make.

Lazy woman’s peach cobbler

Ingredients

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 cup flour
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 1 stick butter
  • 1 cup milk
  • 3 cups fruit (cut up; don’t drain)

Instructions

  1. Combine sugar, flour, baking powder and salt; cut in butter like you’re making biscuits, or pulse in a food processor, then stir in milk till well combined
  2. Pour batter into a buttered cast iron skillet or baking dish and top with fruit and its juice
  3. Bake at 350F for 45 minutes; sprinkle sugar on top for the last few minutes of baking

Chocolate chippers

baking, kids, snacks 8 Comments

Isn’t that the most fabulous name? It just makes me smile. On a recent impromptu stop into The Roost in Nolensville I may have nearly hyperventilated at seeing this book:

The Better Homes and Gardens New cook Book, copyright 1953. My mother had this book and I just adored looking though the pictures when I was a little girl; I’ve been looking for another copy for years and years. I thought the candy page was the prettiest food I’d ever seen.

My mother thought it more appropriate for us to eat such things as oat bran and tofu. I’ll let you browse the dessert pages of One Particular Kitchen and come to your own conclusion about that. 😉

On to the cookies in the book! This is a super easy recipe, and Kiddo had a BALL helping me out.

 

Chocolate chippers

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup shortening
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 1 cup sifted flour
  • 3/4 tsp. salt
  • 1/2 tsp. baking soda
  • 6 oz. chocolate chips

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 375
  2. Cream shortening, sugars, egg and vanilla till light and fluffy. Add in dry ingredients, mixing well, then mix in chocolate chips
  3. Drop rounded teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart on a parchment-lined cookie sheet (or greased cookie sheet) and bake at 375 for 9-12 minutes. Remove from pan immediately and cool on wire rack.

The recipe said this makes about 3 1/2 dozen; I got a little less than that. These are light and crispy and just fabulous. Even the Kiddo, who has been known to shun any chocolate chip cookies that “look different,” ate these right up to the tune of four in one sitting.

Biscuit pudding

baking, dessert 10 Comments

You know… like bread pudding, but biscuits? And OH MAH GAH this is amazing. This may be the ultimate comfort food. And yet another recipe that tastes a million times better than it looks. 😉

See, my fabulous sister got me these books from Cades Cove, which is my most favorite place on earth. It’s home in every sense of the word. I’ve been picnicking at Carter-Shields as long as I can remember, and The Yankee and I love taking Kiddo there now to splash around and count “water spiders” down by the mill.

ANYHOO… the books. The books are Recipes, Remedies and Rumors from the Cades Cove Preservation Association. And they’re fantastic. Poison snake bite cure for dogs? In there. Squirrel dumplings? You bet. But also pork tenderloin, chicken and dumplings, fried potato cakes, you name it.

Biscuit pudding

Ingredients

  • And my new favorite: biscuit pudding! This is criminally easy:
  • 5 cooked leftover biscuits, crumbled
  • 2 eggs
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 3/4 cup milk
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/2 cup raisins (optional)

Instructions

  1. In a medium bowl beat 2 eggs, and add sugar, milk, nutmeg and vanilla and mix
  2. Crumble in biscuits and stir
  3. Pour into a greased 8×8 pan and bake at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes

See what I’m saying? So easy. And so, so good.