Breakfast for Breakfast - Buttermilk Biscuits

When I first met my husband, we were flat broke.  Together, we had a combined amount of spending money that equaled, like, nothing.  But I knew he was for me.  I didn't know how I knew, but I knew.  One night, as we discussed what we could do while hanging out, we determined we didn't have the money to go out.  Also, he lived in the middle of nowhere at the time and it was more trouble than it was worth - we'd already lost one car to an angry deer.  He looked at me and said, "Hey - have you ever had breakfast for dinner?"

It was a sign.

I realize this may be a THING for a lot of people, but until he mentioned it, I didn't realize families other than my own would do breakfast for dinner.  My mom would offer this suggestion at least once a month growing up and I never turned it down.  Usually it was some kind of breakfast meat, scrambled eggs and her mom's homemade buttermilk biscuits.  She also made these biscuits with her roast and omg...nothing is better.

So this morning when my dogs played their typical Saturday morning game -

Chanel: I'm bored.  Let's put down our weapons of war and make a truce to get outside RIGHT NOW.
Gina: YES!
Chanel: If I scratch my collar, and you do that horrible hacking thing you only do between the hours of 2:00AM and 8:00AM, Mom will get up!
Gina: OKAY!  HAAAAAAAACK!  HACK HACK HACK!
Chanel: jinglejinglejinglejingle

-I got back inside and turned on the tv to the Food Network to watch people cooking.  No greater inspiration.  My tummy is funny in the mornings, thanks to our Baby Boy, and while I tried to decide what to make, biscuits came to mind.  Even years ago, when I was homesick for my mom, or when I could tell it was about to get chilly (for Houston, that's about 75 at night), I would make these and call her.  So, upset stomach and missing my mom made me crave these biscuits today.

The issues I have when I want to make these are that I never have Shortening or Buttermilk in my house.  Shortening you do have to have - the good news is once you've bought it, it lasts forever.  I never use mine unless I'm making these, homemade pie crust, or snickerdoodles, which means I buy a can a year, and I don't mean the Sams size cans.  Normal, tiny can.  Buttermilk, however, you do NOT have to have.  In fact, I've been doing this for years, but I just heard Pioneer Woman tell everyone how to do this on her show this morning!

Put a tablespoon of white vinegar in a measuring cup.  Pour in milk (any kind but skim will work) until you hit the 1 cup mark.  Let it sit for 5 minutes.  When you stir it, you'll see some funky separation and grossness. Face it - buttermilk IS gross.

See?  Clots=Gross.  But tasty in bread.  I never said cooking made sense.

Buttermilk Biscuits

Oven temp.  450

Makes about 15 biscuits

2 cups flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

5 tablespoons shortening

1 cup buttermilk

Sift together all the dry ingredients.  I used my whisk again.  Then you cut in the shortening.  I used to think I could do this with a fork, but that was NOT true.  I needed this funky little tool that my mom got me when I complained enough.  

If you know what this is called, PLEASE tell me.

Basically, you put the 5 tablespoons in your bowl of flour and run this through it.  

It's kind of a mess, but when you get to where most of the dry stuff has touched the shortening, you can stir in the milk.

This dough is RIDICULOUSLY sticky.  Set out some wax paper or baking paper, and dust it with flour.  Cover your rolling pin with flour.  I LOVE my rolling pin.  It was a Christmas gift from my husband.  He knows me so well.  The measurements are seriously helpful when you're making crusts, even cookies, or a kransekake , which I did last year for the first time and it was SO much fun.  Anyway, you want this dough to be about 1/2 an inch thick.  

I need to learn to take better pictures.  :(

So my mom had this ancient round cutter that must've been her mom's.  I don't know what happened to it - it could've been tossed by her years ago for being rusty or something.  I don't have one but I have these awesome glasses.  My very good friend, and bridesmaid, Amanda gave us our glasses for a wedding gift.  She's a NICU nurse, so not only does she give great gifts and advice, she's an amazing person.

A lot of shout-outs in this blog!  Crate & Barrel no longer makes these.

Spray a cooking sheet with nonstick spray, and place the cut biscuits on the tray.  You don't have to worry about them expanding a lot.  They stay put.  Bake 10-14 minutes, or until golden brown on top.

Enjoy them!  They'd be great for homemade Egg McMuffins, or with jelly (apple is my favorite).  They even make pretty good shortcake bases if you don't mind them missing some sweetness.  

Lazy Days & Chocolate Chess Pie

It's been a really busy few weeks, so I'm sorry for the delay.  Baby Boy Taylor looks great!  He's very active in his little home (which doesn't feel or look so little to me).  We hit 19 weeks tomorrow!  The doctors have suggested I spend some serious time with my feet up, which has put my husband in the kitchen more.  He's awesome in there, though, so I don't mind.  Here's a shot of our little troublemaker at about 16 weeks - he happened to look up at the sonogram wand, open his mouth, and give us some jazz hands at the right time:

In the midst of all this sleeping, working, sleeping and sleeping some more, I honestly haven't done a lot of cooking.  Shocker.  But I did attempt one of the scariest recipes in my mom's book.  Chocolate Chess Pie.  

Chocolate Chess Pie, in our family, is legend.  I don't remember when Mom introduced it to Thanksgiving but I remember holidays without it.  See, I'm not a huge fan of pecan pie or regular chess pie.  Mom never liked pumpkin so it wasn't always present, and really, I probably wouldn't have liked it until the past ten years anyway, when I jumped on the pumpkin from September-December bandwagon.  

But holidays were experiment days, especially in a family full of teachers who had a week or two surrounding each event to plan and research new recipes.  So one day this pie showed up, probably around the time I was 8, and suddenly I had a dessert I loved at Thanksgiving - aside from the pumpkin roll which we'll get to later.  

This pie belongs to a lot of people!  It is what my cousin's son Roland recently requested for his birthday dessert.  It is what my mom made my uncle Charles for his birthday every year.  My cousin, Eric, knew Aunt Debbie made this for him every Thanksgiving, and he wasn't wrong!  This pie was a huge gift from Mom, and everyone loved to receive it.

The problem is this pie is a legendary challenge.  Ugly - this dessert is, at least according to my mother, the ugliest dessert in existence and if you follow her rules, you have to apologize for its appearance at every turn. 

I'll just put out a blanket apology now, and say it really doesn't matter what it looks like.  All you have to do is taste it.

And now that I think about it, I will go ahead and let you know that my mom had a way of writing recipes that makes no sense to me.  We'll talk about this more when we hit cornbread dressing, but she tended to write the brand name rather than the item on every recipe.  So I'll include both :)

Chocolate Chess Pie 

1 uncooked pie crust - Pet Ritz frozen (now Pillsbury)

1 1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1 Tablespoon flour

1/2 cup melted butter

3 eggs

1/4 cup milk

2 teaspoons vanilla

whipped cream for garnish - Redi Whip or homemade.  Homemade is super easy.  I'll add something about it at the bottom.

Place your oven rack on the lowest position.  I did this, but it may have been a mistake.  We have a gas oven, and putting it on the bottom puts the pie closest to the flame.  Our crust was just a little bit chewy, so I will be experimenting with this.  In an electric oven, it should be fine.

Mix together sugar, cocoa and flour in a bowl until there are no lumps.  In older recipes, Mom mentions running them through a sifter.  I prefer to mix dry ingredients with a whisk.  It saves time and does the same job :)

Stir in melted butter.  

Mix in one egg at a time until smooth.  I don't know that I'd call it SMOOTH, but it starts to look like a glob of fudge, or chocolate cookie dough.  It also smells amazing.

Stir in milk and vanilla - no extra vanilla this time.  It's important to stick to the numbers with pies!

Now that is smooth!

Place the pie crust on a dark cookie sheet for stability.  Dark cookie sheets are better for this because the lighter ones are made to reflect specific heats to give crusty shells, nonstick bottoms, and a lot of other stuff that doesn't matter when you're just trying to balance a hot pie.  Pour the mixture into the pie crust.  Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes.  

When the pie comes out, it will have developed a dome.  Somehow I didn't get a picture of this.  I'm sorry.  I wish I had because it really freaked me out to see it.  Set it to cool to room temp and it will fall.

See?  Ugly.

Cover and place in the fridge.  This pie is best served cold, covered in whipped cream.  Also, the whipped cream covers all the ugly.  If we'd been serving the pie all at once, I would have made it beautiful.  But I only had four friends coming over, so I took a picture of the destruction.

The clear plate makes it look like we eat straight off the counter.  Aww yeah.  Fun fact - those clear plates are leftover from our wedding in 2009.  We don't waste!  They even made the move from the townhouse!

*Homemade Whipped Cream

1 carton whipping cream (I like the small cartons - they're more manageable)

1-2 teaspoons vanilla  

Whip these together with an electric beater.  A whisk attachment is best.  You'll do this forever.  Then it will look and taste like whipped cream!