Biscuits Supreme

These are the biscuits from the previous post.  They were SO yummy!  And puffy!!  Next time I make these I'm going to use buttermilk & I do believe they will taste just. like. Cracker Barrel biscuits!  Make fun of me, I don't care!!  Once you try them, you'll be a believer, I'm sure :)

For these little yummies, you'll need:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tbs baking powder
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
• 1/4 tsp salt (I didn't use salt bc I used salted butter)
• 1/2 cup butter, margarine or shortening
• 2/3 cup milk

Stir together flour, baking powder, sugar, cream of tartar, and salt (if using).  Cut in butter until it resembles coarse crumbs.  Make a well in center (see above).

Then add milk all at once and stir until moistened.  I ended up using my hands and mixing it up, then putting dough on floured surface, quickly kneading dough until nearly smooth and rolling out with a rolling pin.  Then my son & I cut out our biscuits using some non-conventional biscuit cutters.

Baked them in a 450 degree oven for about 10 minutes and voila!  Biscuits in the shape of halloween cats and hearts lol.  I tried to get him to at least choose the snowman cutter, but he was stuck on halloween cats.  Sigh.

Doesn't this pic just say love to you??

Chicken A La King

I decided to make this recipe last week bc my mom used to make chicken a la king when I was growing up.  However, this recipe, which I thought was the one she used, I realized was totally different while I was putting it together.  Funny how you don't realize these things until you actually start mixing together the ingredients!  Haha!  So it was a new dish for our family!  And it turned out yummy & everyone in the family ate it so that equals success in my book.  It was pretty easy and fast, but as you will see, being fast made it a little tricky to document for the blog - it got a little crazy at the end!

For chicken a la king, you'll need:

• 1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
• 1/4 c. chopped green sweet pepper
• 1/4 c. chopped onion
• 3 tbs butter or margarine
• 2 tbs all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 2 1/2 c. half-and-half or light cream
• 3 beaten egg yolks
• 2 tbs dry sherry
• 1 tbs lemon juice
• 2 c. cooked chicken
• 2 tbs diced pimiento

Now I have to brag on my hubby for a minute - he came home last week with new knives for the kitchen and I was beside myself with excitement!!  Our knives were so old and in desperate need of replacing, so I had basically forgotten what it was like to prepare food with knives that actually cut!!  And, Tommy, it came with kitchen scissors so I'm set for my next round with dicing bacon - yay! :)

So my first test into my new knives was dicing the green pepper, onion, and mushrooms.  For this test I used the "chef's knife" - oh, you know I sure felt like Julia Child! :)

Isn't it beautiful??  And it was like cutting butter.  Brazilliance.  I added more green pepper and onion than the recipe called for.  And probably more mushrooms too.  Cause that's how I roll.

Since I added more pepper and onion, I increased the butter slightly as well.  I probably put in about 4 tbs instead of 3.

Isn't that pretty?

Saute veggies until tender, not brown.

Stir in flour, salt, and paprika to make a roux.

Add half and half all at once.  I likened this to making my own cream of mushroom soup, a kitchen staple at our house.  It was really easy and with our new knives, who knows??  Maybe I'll start doing this more often!

Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly.  Then things got a little crazy and I didn't get a picture of the next step :)

Beat egg yolks in a small bowl (I used a pyrex measuring cup).  Stir about 1 cup of the thickened sauce into the beaten egg yolks - this is so the egg yolks don't cook weirdly into your dish - and I had to do it fast so I didn't end up with chicken a la king + scrambled eggs :)

Return mixture to saucepan.  Cook and stir over medium heat till bubbly.  Stir in sherry and lemon juice.  I didn't have sherry bc I couldn't find it at the store (I know, y'all are surprised I couldn't find my way around the wine aisle haha).  I think it would've been extra rich & good with the sherry, so hopefully I'll find it next time :)

Add chicken and pimientos.  I didn't measure my pimientos, just dumped in the whole jar.  And I made my chicken my usual way prior to putting it in the mix.  Heat through.

You can serve it with any sort of bread or pastry shell, so I made cream biscuits, of course!  The family really liked this meal and it was easy!  Yum!

Cream Biscuits

Okay, I know I said last week that if you make nothing else on my blog, you must make these brownies.  Well, I've changed that.  If you make nothing else from my blog you must make those brownies...and these biscuits!!  Oh. my. word.

Now, if you're like me, biscuits sound intimidating.  They sound complicated.  They sound like you have to have special tools to cut out the biscuits or wait around forever for the yeast to rise.  Wrong.  These biscuits are easy!  And I made them on the first try and they are A.MAZ.ING.!!  Read:  YOU MUST TRY THESE BISCUITS!!

Okay.  Now, Hubby came home last week, on a particularly trying day with the youngens - ha, bearing gifts (guess he knew I was about to lose it).  Besides the chocolate, he also got me this new cookbook!  I wasn't sure if I should be offended by the title, but then he explained to me that it was recipes made of healthy ingredients and things that most people have in their kitchen.  So that explained the title and I got right to reading!

There are tons of great recipes I was ready to try!  But this one was a MUST try ASAP!  I just had a feeling it was going to be that good!  But really, how can you go wrong with cream and biscuits in the same sentence?

You'll need:

• 1 1/2 cups Flour
• 2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/4 tsp Salt
• 4 tsp Sugar (optional - I didn't use the sugar this time bc I didn't have a container ready to store my sugar in and didn't want to open the bag - ha)
• 6 tbsp Cold Butter (not sure why the distinction, but that's what the recipe says)
• 3/4 cup Heavy Cream

Mix flour, baking powder, and salt (and sugar if you choose to use it)

Add butter and mix into crumbles with your hands or a pastry blender/cutter thingy (I don't have one of those so hands it was)

Reserve 1 tbsp cream, and add the remaining cream to mixture.  Mix with fork

Mine looked like this after mixing with the cream and the fork

Then knead it a little with your hands again.  Then mine looked like this.

And here's where the fun begins!  I never get to use a rolling pin for anything so this really made me feel like I knew what I was doing - haha!  I don't have a butcher block or anything, so my board was my clean counter.  Floured so that the dough wouldn't stick.  The recipe called for rolling it out about 3/4 inch thick.

The following is where I lost all my street cred as a professional baker.  Sigh.

Since I didn't have anything to cut my biscuits with, and I didn't want square biscuits (the recipe said you could cut them in squares if you like), I called upon my Twilight cup to be my biscuit cutter.  That's right, thank you, Edward Cullen, for shaping my biscuits correctly!  And thank you, Maggie , for my Twilight cup :)  Really any cup would work, but anyway, back to the biscuits...

After I cut out my 8 biscuits and put them on my cookie sheet with parchment paper, I used the reserve cream and brushed it on the top of each biscuit.  And since I haven't been able to locate my basting brush since the move, I just used the back of a spoon to spread the cream on each biscuit.  It worked just fine.

Put them in a 400 degree oven for 17 minutes and...

...here they are!!

At first I was a little worried that they weren't super puffed up like I thought they would be.  However, when I took a bite (to make sure they were okay before handing them out) I became a believer!!  Oh. my. gracious.  Hubby said we should have these at every meal.  That's how good they were!!

So you must let me know if you try them.  Because they're amazing.  And wonderful.  And we will be having them again at our house.  Yum!!