Recipe: Rolled Biscuits

Pulled out the rolling pin this week for a rolled biscuit recipe I've been looking at sideways for a while now. Will they come out flaky and fluffy, or will they fall flat? Rolled biscuits, here I come.

Recipe: Rolled Biscuits
1 3/4 c. flour
1/4 tsp. salt
3 tsp. double-acting baking powder
6 Tbsp. chilled butter
3/4 c. milk
Extra flour for dusting

0. Preheat your oven to 450ºF (my oven runs hot & in fairly precise increments of 5º, so I set it to 445ºF).



1. Sift flour, salt and baking powder into a large mixing bowl. Cut in chilled butter using a fork or a biscuit cutter, until pastry has a clump-free, flaking consistency. Create a cavity in the center of the dough and pour in the milk. Use a fork to stir the liquid into the pastry, turning it around the bowl until it begins to pull away from the sides.

2. Turn the dough on to a floured board and knead quickly -- only 8 to 10 times, so it retains a flaky consistency and doesn't get tough. Roll the dough out in as few strokes as possible. Use a round pastry cutter, a large cookie cutter, or even a floured glass to cut the biscuits into shape, then place on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Cool 2 minutes before serving with butter.

Well, here's how they came out:



Yup, flat as flat can be. I could barely pull apart two halves of the biscuit to put butter inside. Though they worked for my purposes (dipping in soup), I think I'll probably try a different dough next time, because this experiment turned out far from perfect. I was fantasizing about flaky, puffy, southern-style biscuit towers and I got a squished-down version instead. Maybe it's time to seek out a bag of White Lily and see if I can't turn out a batch of these.

This week in baking: Grape Nuts (preview edition)

So I've been having a Grape Nuts craving, but since I usually get tired of them long before they go stale (and then they, um, go stale), I decided to get preemptive and concoct some Grape Nuts baked goods, including vegan strawberry cereal bars and a very Daring Custard Caper. Stay tuned to this space to see what delicious Grapey-Nutty yummies I come up with!

The other reason for baking in the relative heat of July is that I heard a horrible story from my mother this morning. Seems that while she was putting away the delicious peach pie we had at her July 4th barbeque, the pie plate slipped from her hands, shattering the dish and laying waste to all those hand-peeled peaches and the perfect, flaky, homemade crust. So I wanted to bring something yummy and not-too-bad-for-you to her when I see her next, to help ease the pie-related trauma. Here is a picture of the pie, taken by my friend Styrous, before it met its doom:


In the meantime, check out this recipe for Peanut Butter & Jelly Tart (with graham cracker crust, I might add) that I found on Epicurious while I was looking up other people's Grape Nuts experiments for inspiration in my own. It contains no Grape Nuts cereal, but the words "grape" and "nut" appear in the recipe, so it showed up in the results of my searching. If I were gonna make this tart, I'd tweak it a little (for instance, I'd try seasonal berries & homemade jam instead of grape jelly & Concords). Anyone else feel like giving it a go?

P.S. I can't help it -- I'm also making Wheat Free Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies for a certain Birthday Boy I know... Mmm... cookies...

Update: (Sunday afternoon) I went to three different grocery stores, and there were no Grape Nuts to be found! To be fair, I wasn't expecting Trader Joe's or Whole Foods to stock them (I was right), but when I went to Andronico's they didn't have any on the shelf, and the employees were incredibly unhelpful. My mission continues tomorrow, when I try a fourth store and hope that the universe stops thwarting me at every turn. At least it gives me an excuse to keep buying wine -- everyone has such good deals! So as a consequence, my wine rack is completely full.

Duh: Vegetables are good for you.

Tara Parker-Pope blogs over at The Well, a New York Times blog, and yesterday she posted "The 11 Best Foods You Aren't Eating", a fairly comprehensive list of foods that aren't incorporated into the average person's daily diet. (Pro tip: Check out the comments for some great recipe ideas and Tara's replies to her readers, some of which betray her closet case of bitchiness.)

Your mom already told you that beets are good for you, and Richard on Top Chef reinforced this idea on the cookin'-with-kiddies episode this season. Cabbage is so delicious, and often overlooked. Also, most people slather cabbage in mayo and think they're doing themselves a favor. Newsflash for these folks: the mayo offsets your attempt at health. TPP is quick to suggest an alternative -- here's a recipe for Asian Slaw with Peanuts from Epicurious. Personally, I'd skip the peanuts and throw on some sesame seeds to substitute the crunch and avoid the overpowering nut flavor, since I dig the taste of cabbage.

For anyone who eats spinach avidly (one of the superfoods that usually makes these top lists), swiss chard is probably a known substitute, especially because it's prepared so similarly. At my favorite farmer's market, the chard is such a pretty sight that one can't help but be tempted by the bright stems, especially in winter when everything else in season is so void of color. Canned pumpkin and frozen blueberries are great tips for high antioxidant foods that can be kept in the cupboard/freezer year-round. I like to substitute purréed pumpkin for the eggs & water portions of the readymade recipe for a boxed chocolate cake -- it makes for a great, fluffy vegan cake when you're short on time -- but don't forget the oil or it won't puff up enough!

Of course, all the aforementioned basically boil down to the following: Eat More Freaking Plants (with apologies to Michael Pollan for butchering his lovely original phrase). To add irony to the eye-roll, what should appear on the RSS this morning but TPP's latest missive: "Lying About Your Vegetables".