Old Fashioned Scratch Biscuits

Homemade biscuits are one of my favorite breakfast items, next to bacon that is, and frozen and canned biscuits just don't cut the mustard, for me anyway. Biscuits are one of those things that are very easy to make, as well as, very easy to mess up. So I thought I'd begin the recipe with what not to do.

Here are the most common mistakes people make when preparing biscuits:

• If you don't add enough shortening or enough baking powder or if you use old baking powder, you'll notice that your biscuits take forever to brown and they will be hard or tough.

Note: Never use old baking power, as it looses it potency. You can freeze your baking powder to make it last longer. By old Baking Powder, I mean the container has been opened for more than 2 months.

• If you add too much shortening, your biscuits will be crumbly.

• If you knead the dough, your biscuits will not rise properly and will be hard or tough. 

Now that you know what not to do, you can begin the recipe with the confidence they will turn out great. 

Note: The reason some ingredients say Approximately is because making biscuits is as much an art as it is technique and exact measurements of some ingredients just can't be done, as environmental influences, like humidity, can effect the proportions.

Note: These biscuits reheat very well, either by cutting in half and using a toaster or in a toaster-oven. You could even use your big oven, but that seems like a lot of trouble to heat 1 biscuit.

Note: You can make the biscuit dough in large batches, cut your biscuits out, place them on a greased cookie sheet, and freeze them off. Once frozen, the biscuits will pop right off the cookie sheet, because we greased it, and put them in freezer bags. When your ready to cook them, you can go right from the freezer into the oven. Believe me, your homemade frozen biscuits are 1000 times better than any store bought biscuit. So, get the family together and have a biscuit making day, then enjoy fresh biscuits at breakfast or dinner for weeks.


Note: Remember, ingredients to this recipe are cheap so it is cheap to practice. Varying the proportions of the ingredients change the texture of the biscuits. So practice until you get a feel for how to make the type of biscuit you like. 

Note: As always  feel free to play with the recipe and make it your own. You can add shredded cheddar cheese or some goat cheese and bacon bits. You can add a cup of sugar and you'll get shortbread, then just add some strawberries and bam, the breakfast of champions. You get the idea, get creative.

Makes about 10 large biscuits

Skill Level: Beginner

Prep time 10 minutes, or less.

Ingredients:

• Approximately 2 Cups of All Purpose Flour
• 2 Level Teaspoons Baking Powder
• 1 Heaped Teaspoon Kosher Salt
• Approximately ½ Cup Shortening (Note: For some reason, the cheaper the shortening, the better the biscuits. You can also use Lard.)
• Approximately ½ Cup of Whole Milk or Buttermilk
• 1 Heaped Teaspoon Sugar (optional)
• ½ Stick of Melted Unsalted Butter

Tools needed:

• Large Cutting Board
• Chef's knife
• ½ Sheet Pan or Cookie Sheet
• Measuring Spoons
• Bench Scraper
• Brush

Pre-Heat Oven to 450 Degrees

Scoop out your baking powder.

Note: If you ever wondered why the opening to baking powder containers are not round, it is because you use the flat side to "Level" your spoons. Pretty ingenious if you ask me.





Add all the dry ingredients into a 1 gallon sealable bag and shake and manipulate until the contents are thoroughly mixed.

Note: You could also accomplish this in a bowl with a whisk, but I like to use a bag, because then I have a pre-floured freezer bag to freeze off the biscuits I'm not immediately going to use.

Pour the dry ingredients onto a cutting board and make a ring, with walls high enough to contain liquid.

Add the shortening and some of the milk.

Using one finger, begin circling around at the edge of the wall, dragging small amounts of flour into the milk.

Note: be carful not to damage the integrity of the wall by getting to enthusiastic or you'll release the liquid all over your counter.

Note: You do not want the shortening to become homogenized. You want small lumps to remain in the finished dough. This helps leaven the biscuits and makes them light and fluffy.

The process continues and as the milk is absorbed, you add more.

If your ring gets to spread out, you can use a bench scraper, or in my case a flat wooden spoon, to nudge your flour ring to a smaller diameter.

Note: Do note add too much milk. You want to add just enough to bring the dough together. It is better to leave flour on the cutting board and have a smaller ball of dough, than add to much liquid where more flour would have to be kneaded in.

Once all the milk has been added, use your bench scraper to gently crate a ball of dough.

Note: DO NOT KNEAD the dough as you want to leave shortening lumps throughout.

Note: Dough should be moist, but not sticky to the touch.

Once your dough is made, you can cut into even pieces with a chef's knife. You can spend time making your biscuits perfect and round, but I like to leave mine rustic and handmade looking.

Dip some shortening out on a paper towel.

Use to grease the sheet pan.

Place biscuits on the highest rack in your oven. This will help ensure the bottoms of the biscuits don't burn before the tops are golden brown.

Bake about 10-12 Minutes.

About 2 Minutes before the biscuits are done, I like to brush my biscuits with some melted, unsalted butter.

Enjoy.

How to make Meatballs - Part 1

Spaghetti Meatballs, one of those dishes that is not only Italian in origin, but now, is American as apple pie. Meatballs are an easy recipe to make with the family. Kids will love lend a hand on this one. So what makes a meatball good? Well, the secret is a mixture of meats, ⅔rds of the mix is beef, 1/6th pork, and 1/6th is veal, that are more coarsely ground. You can ask your butcher to do this for you, or you can actually use whole cuts of meat, placed into a food processor and pulsed into the desired constancy. Veal is a bit expensive, so I tend to leave that ingredient out and I like to substitute "Bacon Ends and Pieces" (because the thicknesses of the bacon is far grater than you can usually get, so you can cut larger lardons) for the pork, because, well, it's BACON. The other secret is the bread crumbs, which actually, and this sounds bad, absorbs the fat and retains it within the meat. This sounds bad for your waist, and it is, but it is also what keeps the meatballs moist and makes them taste so good. Well, anyway, here is my take on the classic dish.


Note: It is important to realize that these recipes are merely guidelines to follow. They'll taste great as they are, but I encourage you to play with them and make the recipes your own.

Note: It is good practice to read the entire recipe, while paying particular attention to the "Notes", before you try to make the dish, as there are often subtleties that can be easily overlooked, which sometimes, can make all the difference in the world for the outcome. 

Note: I split the recipe because of prep time. I if you do the whole dish from start to finish, your going to be in the kitchen all day. Since the meatballs can be made and stored, I suggest you make them ahead of time, to make the meal easier and faster to prepare.

Note: Traditional meatballs would be made with 1 pound of ground beef, ¼ pound of ground pork, and ¼ pound of ground veal. I substituted lardons of thick cut bacon for the pork and omitted the veal by adding a little more beef.

Makes about 25 golf ball sized meatballs.

Skill Level: Beginner

Prep time about 30 minutes.

Cook Time about 20 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 1 ¼ pound ground beef
• ¼ pound thick cut bacon or bacon ends and pieces, chopped
• 2 eggs
• Parmesan cheese (Fresh or the "green can stuff")
• 6-8 whole cloves of garlic
• 1 tld Dried basil
• ½ tlb Dried oregano
• 1 Dash cinnamon
• 3 slices fresh bread
• Bread crumbs (Plain)
• ¼ cup milk (Whole is best, but any kind will do)
• Vegetable Oil 
• Kosher salt
• Pepper (Note: preferably fresh cracked from a mill)

Tools Needed:

• Large Stock Pot
• 1 Sautoir Pan
• Wooden Spatula
• Chef's Knife
• Food processor
• Small Ice Cream Scoop
• Pan, Tray, or Cookie Sheet
• Small Ziploc Bag
• Aluminium Foil
• Parchment or Wax Paper
• Plastic Wrap

Before we chop the garlic, we are going to prune the clove. By pruning, I mean we are going to remove the core of the clove, which can add a bitter flavor to your dish. Use the face of your chefs knife to slightly crush the garlic clove. Pull the clove in two with your fingers. If you didn't over crush the clove, the core should be obvious and easily removed.

Note: Sometimes the core can have a greenish tip on one end and it will always be a slightly different color than the rest of the clove. 

Mince Garlic

Cut the crusts off the white bread.

Large dice the bread and place in a food processor.

Process the fresh bread in to crumbs.

Place all ingredients, except for the vegetable oil and the store bought bread crumbs and mix thoroughly by hand. Then begin adding the store bought bread crumbs until the mixture is just barely tacky to the touch. DO NOT add so much bread crumbs that the mixture becomes dry to the touch.

To portion the meatballs, use a small ice cream scoop. Choose a scoop that will produce the desired sized meatballs. I am using a 1 ounce ice cream scoop, which makes meatballs about the size of golf balls.

Every 3rd to 4th meatball scooped out, dip your ice cream scoop in water. This keeps the mixture from sticking to and caking onto the scoop.

Now, with moist hands, form each scooped out meatball into a perfect sphere. Rinse off meat residue from your hands every 3rd to 4th meatball, for the same reasons as the ice cream scoop. 

This recipe made 25 meatballs exactly.

In a Sautoir Pan, add oil until approximately ¼ inch deep. Heat oil, then add the meatballs in batches. DO NOT OVERLOAD the pan. It took me 3 separate batches to brown 25 meatballs. Brown the meatballs evenly all the way round.

Place the meatballs on paper towels to cool.

Note: The meatballs are not fully cooked at this point (THEY 'RE STILL RAW IN THE MIDDLE SO DO NOT EAT ONE) but they are ready to be finished in the sauce or to be stored for later use.

In my next post, we'll finish the meatballs in the sauce, so for now, let's talk about how to store your meatballs longterm for later use.

When completely cool, place in a appropriate sized freezer bag, force out as much air as possible and close.

Note: This method works for most every item you may want to freeze longterm. There are some exceptions which I'll cover in a future post.

Wrap the meatballs in the freezer bag in piece parchment or wax paper.

Now wrap in aluminum foil and a final layer of plastic wrap with a label and date. Place in the freezer.

Note: I placed my label on a standard sheet of paper between the plastic wrap and the aluminum foil, so you see, you don't need real labels or masking tape and a Sharpie to label your food, as you can use anything on hand.

Note: The layering of the different materials insulates the food item, causing it to freeze much more slowly. This 'controlled freeze' significantly reduces the effects of freezer burn. Additionally, the layers also reduce flavor transference from one food item to another while in storage. 

In Meatballs - Part 2, I'll show you how to make the tomato sauce that we'll finish cooking the meatballs in and we'll make the spaghetti and plate it up nice and pretty with some garlic bread.

Key Lime Pie

I want to apologize, in advance, for this recipe not being as photographically complete as I'd have liked, but I was at a family reunion and there was such great kitchen banter between all the other cooks, that I simply forgot to take photos of some of the steps.

That being said, with this recipe, I thought it would be a good time to introduce the idea that you can make many recipes despite not having all the correct equipment and the results will be the same as if you did.

So, I decided to pretend I didn't have any pie pans. Thus, I foraged around the kitchen and found a cake pan and a small square baking pan, then proceed with the recipe as normal.

The lesson in this is, don't ever stop yourself from making a recipe because you don't have the exact right equipment, just be a little creative with what you do have and forge ahead.

Note: It is important to realize that these recipes are merely guidelines to follow. They'll taste great as they are, but I encourage you to play with them and make the recipes your own.

Note: It is good practice to read the entire recipe, while paying particular attention to the "Notes", before you try to make the dish, as there are often subtleties that can be easily overlooked, which sometimes, can make all the difference in the world for the outcome. 

Makes 2 Large Pies or 3 pies in Standard Disposable Tin Pie Pans

Skill Level: Intermediate/Advanced

Prep time about 30 minutes.

Cook Time about 30 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 4 cans of sweetened condensed milk
• 3/4 bottle of Nellie & Joe's Key West Lime Juice
• 1 bag of fresh Key Limes (Garnish)
• 2 Limes
• 2 dozen eggs (You may not need all of them)
• Sugar
• Cream of Tartar
• Graham Crackers or Graham Cracker Crumbs
• 1/2 pound butter

Tools Needed:

• Kitchen Aid or Hand Mixer
• Pie Pans
• Small Sauce pot
• Large metal bowl
• Large Plastic Bowl
• Rubber Spatula
• Small Spoon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

In a bowl, make a 3 to 1 mixture of graham cracker crumbs and sugar, respectively.

Note: 3 cups graham to 1 cup sugar is about 1 large pie pan.

In this recipe, I took 1 box of graham crackers,  removed the individual packs of crackers, placed each in a doubled up Walmart bag and used a bottle of spaghetti sauce to pound them into crumbs. Then poured the graham crumbs through a colander to remove any large chunks.

Separate your eggs until you have exactly 500 milliliters of egg whites.

Note: Make sure that you do NOT GET ONE SINGLE DROP of egg yolk into the egg whites, as this will RUIN the egg whites for making the meringue. If you do get yolk in the whites, finish measuring out the 500 milliliters, to get your egg yolks for the custard, then toss the egg whites and begin again. You must have 500 milliliters of egg whites for the meringue. The yolks obtained this time are waste, unless you want to make another recipe that just calls for yoks, like Cème Brûlée (Recipe is coming soon!).

Note: Why 500 milliliters of egg whites you ask? It is because giving a number of eggs, like "seperate 16 eggs," is just plain stupid, because ALL eggs are slightly different in size, and I have seen as few as 10 eggs to make 500 milliliters and as many 18. So using 500 milliliters ensures you get the correct amount of egg every time, no matter the size of the eggs you use.


In a plastic bowl, mix the 4 cans of sweetened condensed milk and egg yolks. DO NOT ADD THE KEY LIME JUICE YET. Let mixture come to room temperature.


Note: A plastic bowl is used as we will be adding acid to the mixture and you don't want it reacting with a metal bowl, negatively affecting the flavor. 

In a small sauce pot, place your butter on low/medium heat to melt.

Note: You can leave the wrapper on the butter and remove when butter is melted. This is particularly useful when you have to melt many sticks/pounds of butter. I have found, if you are doing several pounds of butter, you can wait until the butter is completely melted and you can use a slotted spoon or a fryer scoop/skimmer to easily and quickly remove all the wrappers. 

Mix melted butter and the graham/sugar mixture until the mix will hold together when compressed, but does not look or feel oily. Evenly spread mixture in the pans, making crust about 1/2 inch thick. Bake for about 15 minutes.

Note: If the mixture is too oily, then when you bake them, the crust will sluff off the sides of your pan. If this happens, and you act quickly enough, you can use a spoon to push the sides back up before the crust begins to harden. 

In a Kitchen Aid bowl, add the 500 milliliters of egg whites, 2 1/4 cups sugar, and 1 tablespoon of cream of tartar. Let come to room temperature.

Note: You can use a hand mixer to whip the meringue, it just takes a lot longer.

Note: Let egg whites come to room temperature before making the meringue.

After about 15 minutes, your crusts should look like this. Let cool.

When crusts have cooled, you are ready to add lime juice to the egg yolk and sweetened condensed milk mixture. As you mix the Key Lime juice in, you will notice the custard thicken.

Note: Add about 3/4 of the bottle of Nellie & Joe's and add the juice of 2 fresh regular limes. 

Immediately pour the custard into the cooled pie crusts. 

Place pies in 350 degree oven and bake for approximately 15 minutes.

Note: Depending on your oven, this can vary wildly. So the best approach is, after 10 minutes, give the pies a jiggle. You want the pies to be mostly firm, with maybe the slightest jiggle left in the very center of the pie.

Note: If you see any signs of browning or dull hardened areas on the pie, you have over cooked it. The pies should be as bright and shiny when they are finished as they were before they were cooked.

While the pies are baking, turn the Kitchen Aid on high. The meringue will take about the same amount of time as the custards take to bake.

As the meringue is whipping, as it rises in the bowl, it is a good idea to move the whisk up and down to make sure the meringue is well mixed.

Note: With a Stand Mixer, you can tilt the motor back and forth to achieve this.

Note: There are 2 types of Kitchen Aid mixers: 

1. the Commercial Style mixer (I highly recommend this version), which has a lever that moves the bowl up and down 
2. the Stand Mixer (pictured), which has a hinge at the back, allowing the entire motor assembly to tilt out of the way, making The Stand Mixers far less versatile.

After the meringue becomes thick and shiny, stop the mixer and take a spoon and do a peak test. If the peak falls back on itself, continue mixing. 

Note: This is the trickiest part of the whole recipe as from this stage the meringue can quickly become over whipped and ruined, so begin peak testing often. 

When your meringue is perfect, it will be very shiny and very stiff. Dipping a spoon in and out will effortlessly produce beautiful peaks.

Note: The smaller the spoon, the more peaks you'll have and the prettier the pies will be.

Note: If the peaks are breaking, or are hard to tease out, the meringue is over whipped.



The pies and meringue should be ready about the same time. Immediately spread the meringue onto pies, creating a smooth dome shape. Starting in the middle of the pie, and radiating out in concentric circles, pull peaks with a small spoon.

Immediately place the pies back into the oven to brown the tips.

Note: You can turn the oven up to 400 degrees to get a more dramatic coloring on the tips.

Here is the recipe in standard pie pans, from last years reunion, with sliced Key Limes as garnish. 

Cool completely on countertop. Then place in a sealed pie container in the fridge overnight to cool.

Note: Moisture is deadly to meringue, as it will cause the sugar suspended in the meringue to turn to syrup and leak out. Since a refrigerator is very humid, you want to try and protect the pie from this as much as possible. They make pie covers specifically made for preserving meringued pies as long as possible. 

This brings me to cutting the pies.

1. Use a wet knife
2. Clean knife and dip in water between each cut.
3. Keep the knife as vertical as possible, as to minimize the contact of the blade and the meringue. 

The 1st piece is always the hardest to get out and therefore the easiest to ruin. This ugly, but tasty treat is your reward for all your hard work. 

The pies will keep about 2-3 days.

The Custards are very easy, the meringue is a little tricky, and making them pretty is the most difficult of all, but all it takes is practice.

Enjoy.