DANGER: BISCUITS

The problem is that biscuits are delicious.

The other problem is that I have finally perfected (well, nearly perfected) my biscuit recipe, which means I want to make them ALL THE TIME. It's been a long, hard road to biscuit perfection, and now that I've arrived, I feel like I really owe these biscuits some quality bonding time. I want them to be able to put up their feet and stay awhile, you know? Now, I am sure that you understand the trials that it takes in order to get something really, really right. When you love and appreciate something, it makes you want to reach for the stars. And, well, I've always loved a good biscuit. Although, let me be honest -- it's just not all that easy to be a biscuit maven like myself because, well, we all know that bad biscuits are a dime a dozen. But, hurrah! That actually means it's that much better, that much more exciting when you come across a really spectacular one. Let's keep in mind here that the key biscuit adjectives are light, flaky, and fluffy. The inside is what matters. (Oh my God, biscuits are like humans!)

I fell in love with the idea of baking biscuits when I first read Justin and the Best Biscuits in the World when I was eleven years old. (Really! Snatch up a used copy from Amazon for a couple bucks!) It's such a simple, yet well-spun story about the ten year-old Justin, who lives with his mother and sisters and is thoroughly convinced that pretty much all chores, including cooking, are, ahem, women's work. He then visits his cowboy grandpa on the ranch where he does, ahem, men's work -- he visits the rodeo, mends fences, and, best of all, learns to make his grandpa's famous biscuits. (Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert!) He learns, of course, that there really is no such thing as women's work or men's work, and that all work is valuable in its own way. He not only takes pride in taking care of himself, but also in learning his way around the kitchen. The biscuits become his pride and joy, and, by the time you're done with the book, you Must. Make. Biscuits. Immediately.

I thankfully grew up with parents who welcomed all sorts of kitchen experimentation and collaboration, so between their kitchen, my grandma's kitchen, and, occasionally, my aunt's kitchen, I had multiple opportunities to try out some biscuit recipes. I became a pretty serious biscuit sampler, and I remember wondering how on earth each and every biscuit could taste so, so different from the next. It still confounds me, in fact -- so few ingredients, yet so much room for error! It is simply maddening, yet fascinating. The biscuit sirens called for me!

Growing up, we'd have lovely biscuits for breakfast sometimes on the weekend, and my dad (brilliant, clever, crafty-with-condiments dad!) would make a vanilla icing to apply to them. And, if that didn't gild the lily enough, cinnamon-sugar would go on top of that. Or, sometimes, jam. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: this guy really knows his spreads and layers. Then, because my parents always knew the best places to go, I found my favorite biscuits when we were on a family vacation to New Orleans. I fell quite in love with those biscuits at Mother's, and I still dream about the perfection of the obscenely buttery layers. Please, Mother's, draw me a bath of those biscuits. I'll never ask for another thing, ever! I swear.

I'll introduce you now to my newest biscuit recipe, the one that has me shackled to the butter and sleeping in the flour as I wait for morning to come so that I can make them. I shudder with happiness (and more than a smidgen of fear) when I think about the absurdity of spreading, um, butter on something that is made out of butter...but, really, would the biscuit gods approve of these butter qualms? Likely not. When faced with biscuits, you must embrace the Butter And Shortening Factor. You just have to. The original recipe calls for cake flour, which will definitely make them airy, but I have had great success with all purpose flour, so I'd recommend starting there. Work your way into the wackiness of cake flour whenever you're feeling frisky.


Biscuits For Loving
adapted from Brilliant Food Tips and Cooking Tricks by David Joachim, who did not actually call them Biscuits For Loving...although I believe that he would be really jealous of my new name for them


1 2/3 C all purpose flour (or 1 1/3 C cake flour + 1/3 C AP flour)
2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
3 T cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
3 T cold shortening
3/4 C buttermilk (I use 3/4 C milk + 1 T white vinegar -- make sure you let it sit and curdle for about five minutes before using)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Mix the together the dry ingredients with a whisk. Add butter and shortening with a pastry blender and cut in until both are incorporated. It should look evenly mixed with no large clumps. Quickly stir in the buttermilk until just mixed -- but try not to overwork it. On a lightly floured surface, quickly and very gently knead the dough with just your fingers until it comes together. Press or roll out into a circle-ish shape that is about 1/2" to 1" thick. (This totally depends on how thick you like your finished biscuits to be. Experiment around a bit to see what you like.) Cut out biscuit rounds with a biscuit cutter. Gather up your scraps, gently roll them out, and cut out the rest of your biscuits. (I usually end up with 9-12 biscuits, but it might be less if you make them thicker.) Bake on ungreased cookie sheet until very, very light brown on the top, 8-12 minutes. Watch them carefully. You don't want them to be overdone because that means Dry Biscuits.

Serve with, of course, butter! And pumpkin butter or apple butter. Or jam. And scrambled eggs! Just make sure you are ready to eat them as soon as they tumble out of the oven! They will be best when they are very hot and very fresh. Gaze lovingly at your biscuits and your biscuit cutter. Say thank you.

I'm Thankful For

• the first text message I received on Thanksgiving, cryptic and hysterical: Kill A Turkey!
• waking up knowing that cooking is my only assignment for the day
• five days off + three days off with M.
• red slippers (and wondering if my mom is wearing her identical ones)
• the sound of the under-cabinet lights flickering on in the kitchen
• the red red red of cranberry sauce in the refrigerator light
• the clatter of measuring cups
• jazz organ + dancing all day in the kitchen with my very own Bill Cosby dance impersonator
• the sizzle of bacon in the oven
• coffee (and someone who likes to pour it for me and knows to put in two spoons of sugar) 
• the squeak of the biscuit cutter on the countertop
• eating said biscuits with pumpkin butter at the kitchen table
• Brilliant Food Tips & Cooking Tricks by David Joachim
• an empty dishwasher when I start cooking
• watching waves roll in while I wash dishes
• hot water (even though it's been smelling a little mysterious lately)
• parsley, sage, and mint in jars on the windowsill
• Mrs. Meyer's pine-scented soap
• a well-seasoned iron skillet
• a long walk on the sand and a handful of beach glass to prove it
• bacon-wrapped pork wearing a turkey costume
• Hendrick's gin wearing a martini costume
• pineapple-mint cocktails wearing no costume
• bare feet during Thanksgiving dinner
• not burning, overcooking, or undercooking ANYTHING this time!
• Beautiful Home Home Cooked Meal For Pure And Simple Living
• all this love + all this laughter + all this everything
• knowing my family and friends are safe and being loved, even though they aren't with me
  
• building a memory at the table
• falling (no, really, falling) into bed at the end of it all
• being headache-free in the morning and not having to go to work
• Thanksgiving for breakfast (sans martinis this time, I swear)

Loaves, Not Fishes

I'm pretty enamored with no-knead breads lately, and this is my new go-to recipe. It's a lovely, basic white sandwich bread, but there's a bit of whole wheat flour in there, too, so it's a little earthier and a little more dense than your average white bread. It makes outstanding toast, and I would not doubt you if you told me it made some pretty delicious french toast too. I made two loaves on Sunday, and we've been breakfasting on one of them since then; the other has been employed for the Thanksgiving stuffing, and is currently very busy drying itself out on pans in the kitchen.

This will make two loaves, so split it in half if you only want one loaf. BUT, the magical thing is that you can make the whole batch, bake one loaf, and save the other half of the dough. Just refrigerate it in a lidded (but not completely air-tight) container and use within 5 days. Incredible!  

A Nice Sandwich Loaf
adapted from Family Fun magazine

2 cups warm water
1-1/2 tablespoons (2 packets) yeast
1-1/2 tablespoons coarse salt or 1 tablespoon table salt
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup vegetable oil
6 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour

In a large bowl, whisk together the water, yeast, salt, eggs, honey, and oil, then stir in the flours.

Loosely cover the dough and let it rise at room temperature until it doubles in size, 2-3 hours.

Lightly grease a loaf pan. Dust the dough with flour, then quickly shape it into a smooth-topped loaf shape and place it in the pan.

Let the dough rest for 60 minutes covered loosely with plastic wrap.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Brush the entire top of the loaf with an egg wash (one egg whisked with a tablespoon of water), then use a sharp knife to make three cuts across the top. Place the loaf on the oven's center rack and bake it until it as brown on top and firm, about 30 minutes. (Set it for 25 and then watch it carefully. The original recipe said that it would take 45 minutes to bake, but mine took way less!) Remove the loaf from the pan and let it cool on a rack. Slice into it while it's still very warm, since that's when it will be in its most pillowy, divine state. Otherwise, you'll really only need some salted butter, a spreading knife, and one hungry belly.

The Patience of Bread

The Center

After the worst day, I want my kitchen.

I want to drive home with no diversions, no stops, nothing to keep me from remembering my goal or the place that I'm going. I don't want to listen to the radio, or even my favorite song, and I certainly don't want to involve anyone in my misery by calling them to whine about it on speakerphone (okay, this is a lie. Certain Moms Whom I Call At Times of Distress, you know who you are, and I'm sorry.) I want to get there, and I want to screech to a stop in my garage, gather my things, explode up the seven steps, hoping hoping hoping not to run into a neighbor this time. I want to feel the lock give beneath my key, and I want to spill into the house, where the temperature makes sense and the things I love are waiting. The light switch is part of my motion as I close the door behind me, and my bags will hit the ground, my shoes will come off. My eyes will dart around in their usual entering-the-house pattern, as I survey the state of affairs and let my mind tell me I'm home, as I let my feet feel this part of the earth that can always make me feel whole again.

The structure of my home is such that, when you arrive, the door empties you out into the kitchen. This works. This is my destination. The radio is welcome now, and I choose the Dizzy Gillespie station and hope that it will Pandora-itself into that one song that has all the idioms in it. It connects, and I scoff at the Glade ad that comes on first. Chances are good that there will be dishes in the sink from breakfast, and I will find myself washing them in my coat or vest, water splatters on the nylon and no wonder I'm getting so hot in here. The kettle goes on and the best mug comes out from its cabinet, and the refrigerator opens, the cabinets open. Just once, then closed. Everything is just how I left it. Good. Dinner ideas pile up in my head, but I remind myself that I am allowed to breathe first. Breathe first? What? Why would you do that? Oh, that. I breathe, not too solidly, but meaningfully, and I try to decide if my feet are hot enough to take my socks off. I scour the room with my eyes, hunting for small things to accomplish. Tiny accomplishments are like medicine. (Uh, sometimes they are actually medicine.) Dishwasher emptied! Yesterday's mail opened! The always-neglected area behind the breadbox dusted! Coffee pot washed out! Orchid watered! Bowls stacked! Toaster unplugged! Three Motrin swallowed! It's time for tea.

I sniff my options. Echinacea tea? Helpful but disgusting. At work I was certain I was getting sick, but now that I'm far away, I'm pretty sure it was the plague of non-profit disorganization that was cramping each and every one of my organs. Not echinacea tea. Chamomile tea? For God's sake, I don't need a tea telling me to calm down. Shut up, tea! Pomegranate Red Rooibos tea? So I can spill it on my light gray shirt and make my day a little worse? Um, no. Apple cinnamon tea that tastes like the very part of autumn that I actually love, not the part that makes it get dark at four o'clock in the afternoon? Yes. Yes, please.

I haven't even changed into my play clothes yet because, well, I have forgotten to leave the kitchen. Or, rather, I haven't found a reason to leave the kitchen. The other rooms have fallen dark, and I make my rounds, turning on switches and welcoming the rooms into the evening. The living room light comes on, and as the dimmer rises, I startle all too easily in reaction to seeing our coy, new-ish roommate, Frankie, on the floor. (How many times will I have to look at the scraped-up-from-life-in-the-dumpster, armed-but-hands-less torso before I stop having the initial reaction of --Jesus! Fuck! There's a naked, muscular, stiff-bodied, arrogant-looking half-man on the floor with real-man eyelashes and accurate eyebrows! Help!--?)

The phone rings and, thankfully, it's my mother, who has the sort of power that enables her to make me feel better no matter what she says. I swear to you, she could call to say, what a terrible sweater you're wearing, and my day would improve drastically. She doesn't say that, of course, and I sit at the kitchen table as she tells me about -- yes, this is a funny coincidence -- the kitchen renovations they're undergoing. I smile as she recounts the horror that dozens of evil aliens (okay, contractors) can bring into a home in a few short days, and my heart curls up when she says that she misses all the things in the kitchen, which has been rendered inaccessible for the week. It's the hub, she says fondly of the kitchen. We don't need any other room more! I am, I know, clearly this woman's daughter. What an incredible honor this is, I think, and I picture us having a slumber party on the kitchen floor, laughing as we drag bare mattresses into the kitchen, smooth mattress bottoms up against my hardwood floors or her shiny new tiles.

I return to the kitchen, padding around, thinking about how much I love to be at home, how much I love this kitchen and all the things in it. The cobweb in the high corner makes me roll my eyes, and I mentally add it to my list of things to do over the Thanksgiving holiday. The scratches in the red table (you know, that red table) shine under the light flickering from a candle, and the ice maker rumbles inside the freezer, and I'm thankful that it's not one of the eighteen things that broke this week. The glasses in the cabinet shake slightly against each other in reaction to the vibrations of the light fixture that lives underneath it, and I picture a silver bullet lightening train whizzing through the kitchen, romantically rattling all the dishes against each other, then settling as I hear the train moving into the distance. I have my tea, and I poke around at bowls and pots and pans, trying to decide which ones will be best for mixing the lamb kefta, cooking the couscous, serving the salad. It suddenly sounds so complicated, this dinner I had planned, and I try to list all the reasons not to order take-out.

I eye the clock courageously and decide to deal responsibly with whatever numbers it has for me. Seven thirteen. I calculate how many hours until Matthew comes home, and my worries of the day start to roll back over my skin as I think about the things I need to accomplish before bedtime. I try to prioritize, to list, to plan, but instead I end up lifting up my mug of tea that has cooled off considerably, and I try to both breathe in and breathe out before the lukewarm swallow of cinnamon. I stare down the sounds of the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, then close my eyes to think. I lift my glasses off a bit to rub the bridge of my nose, and I open my eyes skeptically, which makes me laugh at myself. Surrounded by my tool shed, my wares, my safe spot in an otherwise prickly day, I find my strength again, and I stand up, stretch into my body, and move towards action, towards the safety of building something, the tranquility of cooking the dinner.

Calling All Bunnies

Nice Buns

This past summer, I fell in love with these amazing buns, these dreamy, perfect, fluffy buns. I discovered this bun wonder at Eat Spot in Northport, Michigan, where it contained roasted turkey, provolone, pesto mayo, and roasted red peppers and was purely magnificent. I do not lie when I say that my mother and I fell in love with this sandwich and we had, I think, eight of them (sheesh! not sixteen total! eight between the two of us!) during a mere one week this summer. The bun holds other sandwiches, too, like the chicken bacon swiss, the hamburger, and the roast beef -- all very dreamy in their own right, but the turkey one is just so nice. When I returned to the Bun Mecca again in October, I had the sandwich, of course, and I later found myself traveling home with an entire bagful of the buns. I took a bit of a plunge that day when I sheepishly asked the clerk for the recipe, but imagine my delight when she assured me that the owner would certainly part with the recipe -- he gives it out frequently! -- and he would be happy to send me the recipe. Ha! Brilliant! My very own buns. Perfect buns were coming to my very own kitchen!

So, I need to actually tell you about these buns. And my bun history. I'll spare you the gory details, but I'll tell you the most important bits. They are light, so light, and dusted in flour. You poke the bun and it sinks softly and generously under your finger, but then instantly rises back up. The inside is airy but still very substantial, the perfect consistency. Now onto this whole onion thing. At first, I didn't really read this bun as an onion bun because the onion-ness is so slight, but I've learned that that is what makes them so amazing. The slight aroma of onion, the tiny onion bits strategically placed throughout, the whispering onion aura...the most unterrifying bun you could imagine! The bun could survive deliciously without the onion, but the onion just takes it higher. Higher!

My bun-making history is a bit grim. I've tried several times, but it just didn't work. And by "not work," I mean they ended up resembling evil, horrible rocks. You may remember a post from last winter -- perhaps a sausage adventure post? -- in which Meghan and I made buns that ended up as weapons, not edible food. It was rather embarrassing, yet funny. Not delicious. That was one of my first bun times. I vowed afterward that I would get it right, and I did get it better, but not right. I think I like to act like the recipe was the fool, not I, but that's awfully silly. I tend to think about all of the buns out there, and how many are stale or tough or just nasty, and then I think about the glorious buns, which, honestly, are few and far between. When I met the onion bun, it took me by the shoulders, shook me madly, and told me GET ME INTO YOUR LIFE. IT'S TIME. So I've been doing that. You have to listen to what buns tell you. You just have to.

I've been experimenting with the onionness. The first batch was way too oniony; I used 2 small onions, diced, but I didn't dice them nearly small enough. The buns were studded with loads of onion bits that really didn't cook as much as I thought they would, so they were still crunchy, which grossed me out a little. I decided that if I was going to proceed with the raw onion thing, I would need to mince the onions to hell. Alternatively, cooking or caramelizing them seemed even more practical. Most importantly, less would turn out to be more. I tried these approaches, and it worked, but they still just weren't quite right. Somehow the Eat Spot bun's onion bits really work, and mine needed help. I ended up finding a solution that really makes me thrilled out of my mind, and it's called...dehydrated onion flakes. You can plop some into the dough while you're mixing it up, or you can just sprinkle them on the top so that they stick to that oil you sprayed on. (Try not to be confused when you gaze up at the photo -- it's from that first floppy batch with the onion-boulders, so you won't see the onion flakes. Use your imagination, you talented chefs!)

Onion Buns
recipe courtesy of Bruce Viger, owner of Eat Spot in Northport, Michigan

Try not to be nervous! These are not tricky buns to make! The recipe is staggeringly simple, and you don't even have to knead them! You will be astounded by the complete ease of bun-ness.


1 1/3 C warm water
1 package yeast
1/4 C honey
4 C flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 C oil
dehydrated onion flakes (other options are sesame seeds, poppy seeds, garlic, caraway seeds, or even a combination!)

Mix water and honey with a whisk. Add yeast and mix. Add flour, top with oil and salt. Mix with wooden spoon until incorporated but try not to overmix. Portion out the buns by pulling off pieces and rolling them gently into balls; you should end up with 9 or 10 of them. Spray a cookie sheet (or two) with cooking oil. At this point, you can lightly dust the buns all over with flour, but it's not crucial. Place buns approximately 4 inches apart and spray a bit of oil on top of each bun. Cover all the buns with plastic wrap or a lightweight tea towel and let rise for an hour or until doubled (or almost doubled) in size. I like to turn my oven on and place the cookie sheet on the back burners so that the warmth radiating from the oven helps them rise. As with any kind of bread, if your kitchen is really cold or really humid, it could affect the rising, so keep this in mind. Sprinkle tops with dehydrated onion flakes and place in a preheated 350 degree oven for 16-20 minutes or until very slightly golden on top. I'd say that you might want to start with 10 minutes and then keep an eye on them. If the tops get brown, that means the insides will be too dry! Take buns from oven, remove to a cooling rack and let them cool for 14 seconds or until you can't possibly stand to wait anymore! Eat one! Burn your mouth! It's worth it!