Are all scones beautiful? Certainly not if you look at mine! But, these have a nice rich, tender scone texture with all those lovely spices (similar to pumpkin pie), some crystallized ginger, and pumpkin puree.

Can you just tell these scones are craggy? I love that word – craggy. Means rugged and uneven: a craggy face, for instance. These are not your more common –  pretty, perfectly formed triangular scones with smooth tops and edges. The dough is raggedy and slightly bumpy. Even a tad on the difficult to form. But I didn’t over-handle it just so it wouldn’t get tough. I needed a breakfast bread for my DH’s men’s Bible Study group, and went to my internet file, and there was this one. It came from King Arthur Flour about 2 years ago, and if you want to see their version, click here.

My pantry shelf still had two large cans of pumpkin puree from 2010. Long past its use by date, but I know those dates are just suggestions. Canned goods usually don’t have a problem for several years. But I only used 2/3 of a cup of the pumpkin, so I’ll have to find something else to use some of the remainder. I could freeze it, but that’s taking up valuable real estate in my freezer. Not what I want to do with it for sure! If I had 3 freezers, they’d all be full. I just know it. But those kinds of confessions are for another post . . .

The scones were cinchy easy to make – flour, baking powder, sugar, some spices (cinnamon, allspice, ginger and nutmeg), a cube of butter, a couple of eggs and the pumpkin puree. That’s all there is in it. As I mentioned the dough was a little on the dry side – I ended up adding a couple of tablespoons more pumpkin to help bring it together. I could have added some milk instead, but with so little pumpkin in it, I knew a little more wouldn’t hurt. You could easily makes these in rounds, or the triangles – whatever you prefer. I molded the dough into a kind of rectangle and cut the wedges easily enough.

One unusual step was putting the baking sheet (with raw scones on it) in the freezer for 30 minutes. I’d guess that’s to freeze the butter – or at least chill it a lot – helps to make tender pastry products. Into an oven it went. I looked up what the finished temp is supposed to be (the internal temp) for scones, and found out it was 200°, so that’s exactly how long I baked them. Actually it went a couple degrees over that.

Right out of the oven one of those scones yelled out to me – I had to taste one, right – this is quality control! They’re delicious. I made half a recipe (6) so those were mostly eaten by the guys. I knew if I wanted to know how they tasted I needed to eat one. Actually I cut them slightly smaller and had 7, so eating one was just right!

What I liked: the very tender crumb. The pumpkin flavors – the pumpkin itself, but also the spices. AND the crystallized ginger. Love that stuff!  I’m a fan of crystallized ginger, so I loved the little bit of sweet-tart crunch from the little nuggets. Worth making.

What I didn’t like: the dough was a bit hard to shape – not un-do-able, just craggy, as I mentioned. Didn’t make a whit of difference to the taste, which was really good!

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Those of you who have been reading my blog for a long time already know about my Christmas favorite, Bishop’s Bread. It’s something I make every single year – because I don’t like fruitcake. You have to understand – I cannot stand those pieces of candied fruit things. This, however, is made with maraschino cherries, chocolate chips and walnuts. Okay? NOT fruitcake!

So why did I make something different than the old standby, you ask? Well, because I was reading the King Arthur Flour blog, called Baking Banter. And they did a write-up about a Golden Fruitcake they developed – about how and why they made theirs the way they did – and with a different batter to hold it together. That was what got my attention – the batter. Last year when I made my Bishop’s Bread, I thought the cake part was just too dry. I’ve noted that a couple of times over the years, but never really knew what to do about it, so I did nothing.

But  reading their blog got me to thinking and I decided I had to try it. Theirs has you soak the fruits in brandy (raisins, cranberries, dried apricots and oh-yuk – candied red cherries – all things I never put in MY bishop’s bread). It has 5 eggs in the batter. And corn syrup. Some Fiori de Sicilia (a flavoring available from King Arthur’s that I’ve had in my refrigerator for about 5 years – it’s a citrusy vanilla, sort of). And it has milk in the batter too.

With all that in my head, I just switched out their batter, and used their proportions of fruit/nuts (about 7 cups for a regular 2-loaf recipe). I also added in some dried cranberries (but decided after the fact that I didn’t like that addition at all). I did soak the maraschino cherries in brandy (and the recipe has you add whatever leftover brandy there is into the batter), but I discovered with my first batch that when my fruit mixture didn’t absorb any of the brandy, of course, the batter was too wet. The better part of the first batch went into the trash.

Before I made my second test batch I did two things: (1) I reduced the amount of brandy altogether – since it was just for flavoring anyway – I didn’t need that much; and (2) I researched the web to find out the internal temperature of fruitcake – when it’s finished. Since I’ve now invested in one of those fancy-dancy instant-read  Thermapen thermometers (above), I’ve been using it for several things. And it was just the best tool for this. The answer to my online query was 200°. Even with fruit in it – you want the internal temp of fruitcake to be 200°. Knowing that, I found that in my particular bread pans, it took 96 minutes to reach that temp. Their recipe suggested 50-80 minutes baking time. At 300° it took mine a whole lot longer, obviously. Why? Don’t know, but it did and does. In the second batch I used Convection Bake and it took less time, but it browned the bread way too much, so half way through I reverted it to regular Bake and it seemed to be fine although I did have to remove it sooner. I won’t use that method again, though.

The bread has a more tender crumb – I like that part of it. You’ll notice that in the picture at top the bread crumbled a bit. I cut slices before the bread had cooled enough and the edges were still almost crispy. Once I’d wrapped it up and let it sit overnight it sliced just fine. So, I think I’ll be making this version from now on. My friend Cherrie came over the other day and we baked and baked – we made a double batch of this Golden Bishop’s Bread, and we made two batches of our other important Christmas favorite, the Chocolate Almond Saltine Toffee (cookies). We’ll get together one more time in early December to make some of our other favorites – and Cherrie has a new recipe to try too.

What I liked about this version: the brandy flavor, plus the Flora di Sicilia flavor too (but if you don’t have that, no worries, just use vanilla), the tender crumb. Even the freshly grated nutmeg gives a very subtle under-note to the bread. Altogether good stuff!

What I didn’t like: well, it does take a long time to bake, but I think my old version took 90 minutes, so what’s 6 minutes?

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I’ve been glued to the TV on Saturday mornings watching Ree Drummond on her Food Network 6-episode show, The Pioneer Woman. I’ve been a follower of Ree’s blog (also called The Pioneer Woman) for several years. She has such a verve for life, and has so many photo opps with her family on the hundreds of acres of land they farm. Talk about Kodak moments! She home schools her 4 children. She has numerous pets, including Charlie the Bassett Hound (who is also the subject of her children’s book recently published). Ree’s husband Ladd (he’s always referred to as Marlboro Man on her blog – now we know his name – and no, he doesn’t smoke – Ree is in love with his derriere and physique) and his family run a big cattle ranch in the hinterlands of NE Oklahoma. I recorded all the shows so far (3) and yesterday I even sat my DH in front of “my” TV with the Tivo attached, so he could watch the shows. He loved them. He really did. He was salivating over the chicken fried steak, cream gravy and mashed potatoes. And probably admiring the very pretty Ree!

Truly, I thought I’d laugh myself silly reading a blog piece she did a few days ago about the newest little kitten to join the menagerie. If you haven’t seen it, you just have to check out this post. It is SO funny. Ree is a very clever writer and has a delightful sense of humor.

So yesterday’s show was about a girl’s dinner she did for her geographically closest group of women friends and relatives. She did an easy goat cheese appetizer with fresh dill, and a fig and prosciutto pizza. With an arugula salad on top. Charlie got in on the act at the last moments too.

The pizza looked really good. It just so happened I had a package of prosciutto I’d bought a couple of days ago. It just so happened I had half a package of full-fat Mozzarella (not fresh, as Ree used). I didn’t have arugula, but I did have Romaine. I had a nice big flat of fresh figs too. Ree used fig jam. Nope, not me. Fig jam is not my thing. Just like Fig Newtons won’t ever cross my lips again. My dad used to adore them and he tried so hard to get me to like them too. Nope.

So I improvised. Here’s what I did: (1) I made a partly whole wheat pizza dough in my bread machine. That took 55 minutes and about 3-4 minutes to add the ingredients into the machine; (2) the fresh figs were roasted in a hot oven (see photo at right of raw figs top, roasted figs on the bottom). I cut them in half, oiled the cut surfaces, sprinkled them with dried thyme first; (3) when the dough was ready I used my rolling pin to help get the pizza into a big round shape. I used my pizza stone, though I didn’t preheat it; (4) pesto went onto the pizza first, then the roasted figs, then the slices of Mozzarella. It baked for about 20 minutes; (5) then I sprinkled little pieces of prosciutto all over the top of the hot pizza to let the heat warm up the cured meat; (6) meanwhile, I tossed a bit of Romaine lettuce with a little lime juice based vinaigrette and piled that all over the top of the hot pizza; (6) sliced it and served!

As it happened, yesterday was an odd weather day here in So Cal. First thing that happened was we had a huge thunderstorm. I mean huge. For us to have thunderstorms in September is just about unheard of. Here’s a photo of our jacuzzi during the middle of the downpour.

I don’t suppose that looks like much – but the uneven surface is because the pool is being plummeted with big, huge raindrops.

Within about 10 minutes of this picture we had a LOT more lightning and thunder and rain. So much so that our power went out. And no, this is not the power outage that hit Arizona, San Diego and southern Orange County two days before (that was operator error from some technician in Yuma, Arizona – this obviously was a lightning strike and a separate incident). We were without power for about 3 1/2 hours, but it was during daylight hours so it didn’t hamper our ability to do much except I couldn’t use a computer nor could we watch TV, obviously. I did some reading and some cleaning instead. Am finally moving most of my clothes back into my closet(s) from where they’ve been stored in our 3rd floor studio area, piled up on top of furniture there during our bathroom remodel.

Here’s another photo of the rainstorm. That’s a picture looking out our front door, up the steps and our driveway up to the road on the far right top. We share a steep driveway with our next door neighbors – that’s why there’s a wall there in the middle. And, I guess you really can’t tell, but it’s raining very hard in this picture!

The good news is that our drains all worked perfectly. Whew, is that ever a big relief!

All that was to tell you that because of the rainstorm, the weather yesterday was blessedly cool. I don’t think it even hit 75 all day. It was delightful. Today looks to be similar. We slept with blankets over us last night. Nice. So, I didn’t mind heating up the oven to 425° on a day like that. It barely warmed the kitchen air.

What I liked: the textures – the sweet from the figs – the crispy, light pizza crust – the crunchy of the salad on top. When I first had a salad on top of a pizza (at California Pizza Kitchen about 20 years ago) I thought it was such a GREAT idea. Still is.

What I didn’t like: I’m not crazy about thicker-crusted pizza – I like thin crust. I tried my best, but I still had some puffy edges. Dave ate them all, so I needn’t be concerned.

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This recipe has been residing in my to-try file for a long time. Years, I think. And perhaps I read about them on somebody else’s blog, but my copied recipe doesn’t indicate. So, I went online to make sure this was still a viable recipe as printed. I’m trying to remember to do that as often as possible – especially for recipes I know are online. At Paula’s website the recipe was the same, but nobody seemed to have any beef with the baking powder.

On the Food Network site, though, there was a lot of discussion about these biscuits. When Paula first made them on air she used self-rising flour. In the translation from the demo on the show and the recipe printed online the producers or recipe writers went from self-rising flour to regular flour with baking powder and salt added. That’s when the dissention ensued. Lots of folks were successful making these. Other people weren’t. Some were ticked off that the recipe was changed. Some said the 4 tablespoons (yes, tablespoons, not teaspoons) of baking powder had to be wrong. The recipe (now, at least) says 4 teaspoons. Some complained they couldn’t taste the sweet potatoes (I couldn’t). Others complained the biscuits didn’t rise (mine did). Others thought they were hockey pucks (nope, not mine). Numerous cooks thought even 4 tsp of baking powder was too much. They thought it was a misprint. After reading every single comment online I went with the existing recipe, as written, and had not a single problem with it.

However, I did do a few things – I briefly heated the sweet potato in the microwave to bring it to room temp or maybe a bit warmer. I did sift the baking powder and salt in with the flour to make sure it was mixed properly. I also mixed the dough very gently. VERY gently. Biscuit dough doesn’t like to be “handled.” It wants the fat (butter, oil, whipping cream) to be added and just mixed in as little as possible. The more of that fat that stays intact, the more flaky the dough will be.

Actually I forgot to add the rosemary in the dough, so at the end I sprinkled it liberally all over the top of them, which worked out just fine. We ate them when they were just barely cooled to room temp, with a little bit of butter. We thought they were delicious. Tender and flaky. And truly, I’d never have known there was sweet potato in them. They don’t rise a lot, but they did rise some. I used the light colored – golden – yam or sweet potato, not the orange one. If I’d used the orange type the biscuits would have been much darker colored.

What I liked: they were easy to make; tender and flaky; a good use of some leftover sweet potato if you had some, especially right after Thanksgiving or Christmas. Do note that this is not a high-fat biscuit – only 5 grams per biscuit. Not like a lot of Paula’s recipes . . .

What I didn’t like: not a thing; enjoyed them very much.

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If I could just reach into that picture, I suppose I’d reach for the toast first. Oh, was it ever delish. Well, the salmon was too, but the toast was memorable! With oodles of butter, garlic and herbs. Could I just have that for lunch, please?

What you do with leftover salmon, I don’t know, but I’m always at a loss for how to use up a serving or two of salmon, other than just reheating it in the microwave. One of my favorite company meals is a Grilled Salmon with Watercress Salad. Invariably I have just a little bit left over and the salad part isn’t edible the next day. So I end up with a chunk of salmon with nothing else to go with it. Now I have a solution with this recipe. Phillis Carey always has such great ideas for making use of leftovers, this being a perfect one. It will become part of my regular repertoire.

The recipe below assumes you need to cook the salmon from scratch, but if you have leftovers, you’ll know where to pick up in this recipe. The big flakes are marinated in a dressing for a couple of hours, then it’s mounded on the baby Romaine (Trader Joe’s carries that) or use some other kind of tender lettuces, like butter lettuce. As you toss the salmon (gently, gently) you’ll find that the bigger chunks will break apart some – that’s fine – but that’s why you start with bigger flakes to begin with.

Meanwhile, do make the toasted bread. It is just so good. Undoubtedly loaded with too many fat grams, but hey, you’re eating omega-3 fatty acids in the salmon, so it balances out, right?

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I don’t know about you – and your pantry – but I don’t have lard anywhere in it. I suppose I eat some now and then when I go to our local Mexican restaurants because in the Mexican cuisine, lard plays a terribly important part. But to cook with it? Well, I can count on one finger the number of times I’ve purchased the stuff. I think I bought it once when we were making tamales years and years ago.

Therefore, I substituted unsalted butter to make these. And yes, they were just delicious that way. I mean, what’s there not to like about fluffy biscuits with bacon and red onion in it? But as I was [later] reading the cookbook this came from, Biscuit Bliss: 101 Foolproof Recipes for Fresh and Fluffy Biscuits in Just Minutes, it has a preface by the author, James Villas, with information about fats. I always like to understand the chemistry behind things – that’s why I bought that interesting book a year or so ago, the one that renders so many basic recipes to equations, by Michael Ruhlman, Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking. Not for the faint of heart, that book, as it really does apply math to everything from cookies to shortbread, piecrust to scones. It includes ample recipes too – more recipes than text, really. Interesting to me. Ruhlman’s short chapter on biscuits says he only uses butter in biscuits. Now that’s really interesting – completely contrary to what Villas has to say about it. I’d suppose they teach this kind of stuff ad infinitum in culinary school, but since I didn’t go to culinary school, I don’t know these things.

So here’s the scoop – this is what James Villas says in his book about biscuits:

“Lard (the rendered fat of hogs), vegetable shortening, butter and margarine are the principal fats used to make biscuits and each has its own distinctive properties. Their function is not only to impart flavor, but, most important, to grease the proteins presents in the flour so that the liquids cannot activate the gluten, to separate the flakes in dough by melting between starchy layers during baking: and to thus tenderize (shorten) the overall texture of the biscuits.

There can be no doubt that lard, which is 100% fat, produces the fleeciest, most tender biscuits since it has the greatest shortening power and maintains the biscuit’s texture at all temperatures. (Curiously enough, however, pure lard contains considerably less cholesterol than butter.)

Next best for fluffiness is vegetable shortening [Crisco], constituted of both animal and vegetable oils and today the most popular fat for making biscuits. Butter and margarine are both richer in flavor, but since they are only 80% fat, they have less shortening power than lard or vegetable shortening and thus yield a heavier texture (especially butter, because of its milk solids.

The ultimate biscuit, of course, would have the combined flaky tenderness produced by lard, the fluffiness from vegetable shortening, and the rich flavor of butter. Mixing fats is always an option, but be warned that it can be risky if you’re not familiar (through experience) with how each behaves. “

And no, I don’t know about that last sentence – I’m not familiar, other than with my hands-on years of making biscuits and scones, how each of the fats behave when making biscuits. I’ve never taken a biscuit recipe and made it in small batches, side by side, with butter in one, lard in another and vegetable shortening in the third. I suppose I could/should, but I’m not a test kitchen, so I never would think to try that. For years, in my early cooking, I just used Bisquick. Because that’s what my mother did. And the resulting biscuits were good enough, I suppose. I must have branched out at some point about 30 years ago when I didn’t have a box of Bisquick on the shelf. And discovered that I liked home made biscuits better.

Interestingly, Bisquick uses vegetable shortening in their box mix. All that said, I guess I should buy some lard and store it in our garage refrigerator for those rare occasions when I might use it. I’d already made these with butter when I read the preface about fats. If I had (well, at 6 pm when I need to get dinner on the table, do I spend 20 minutes reading a book’s preface? uhm, no!), I’d have used the non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening I have in my pantry. Maybe I should make these biscuits again using lard and see if there’s a difference. I used red onion – because that’s the only kind of onion I had on my pantry shelf. Yellow or white would work just fine – even green onions would work just as well too. I added the chives, just because I have an abundance in my kitchen garden right now. I’m suffering from a wicked spring cold as I write this (last week), and on our dinner menu numerous times in the last week was soup. Besides, with this cold spring we’ve been having, we’re still enjoying hot soups around our house and these made a great side.

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A year ago: Jicama Slaw
Two years ago: Pacific Rim Shrimp Pasta Salad
Three years ago: An essay I wrote about the Myth about Searing Meat

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Exactly how or why I looked up this recipe, I don’t know. It was recent, so I don’t remember whether it was written up on somebody else’s blog or what. But anyway, the title of the recipe was what intrigued me. A cake just for a brunch. Okay. And bananas too. I was recollecting a good banana cake my mother used to make (and I can’t find her recipe for it). This recipe was uploaded to food.com in 2007.

I did change the recipe just a little bit – I added more cinnamon – well, I rounded the 1 1/2 teaspoons quantity, and I added some freshly grated nutmeg and some ground ginger. Hence it’s now a banana spice cake. It’s not a very high (thick) cake. It’s certainly sweet enough to be a regular cake-cake, and next time I might reduce the sugar in the batter to about a rounded 1/2 cup. But that’s really up to you. I’d say it’s quite low fat (14 grams for a serving, and the servings are large, really large). But my DH will only eat a bite of two of it since it’s loaded with carbs (42 grams) what with the sugar and bananas. Next time I make this I might add half yogurt and half milk since yogurt adds nice moisture to breads and cakes.

When it was warm out of the oven, I did have a small square of it. Oh was it good. Not quite as good the next day when I had a little smidgen (the remainder has gone into packages in the freezer). The cake had a really tender crumb when it was warm – more tender than I’d think anything made with Bisquick could be, actually. Now, I’m not telling you this is the greatest thing I’ve ever made, but if you need an excuse to bake something with some over-ripe bananas, this will fill the bill. It’s very easy to put together – really it is. The topping is easy to make too (don’t eliminate it because you’ll like the crunchy texture). The person who uploaded the recipe mentioned that when her bananas get too ripe, she sticks them whole into the freezer. When she wants to make this cake, she pulls out the blackened bananas, defrosts them in the microwave and they’re just right for the 1 1/2 cups of banana needed. I used 3 1/2 bananas to get 1 1/2 cups. One recipe for this suggested 4. Probably best to measure it!

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A year ago: Pancetta Crisps
Two years ago: Grilled Skirt Steak with Quesadillas

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Last Saturday our daughter from San Diego, Sara, came up to visit for a few hours. Every once in awhile she has a part of a day off from family activities, games to go to or practices to watch with their two children. We had a delightful visit and I whipped together a breakfast for us. These scones sounded appealing to go with the ham, asparagus and gruyere frittata I made – see photo below. We had ham leftover from Easter, and Gruyere cheese in the fridge, so it was simple to put together. I used a shallot in the mixture, and some fresh herbs from our garden – chives, thyme and dill.

This scone recipe I read over at Smitten Kitchen’s blog, awhile back. They have a light sweet touch to them, but not overly so. The sharp cheddar cheese added a nice tang to them, and the little pieces of apple provided the sweetness. After my first bite I thought they tasted like an apple turnover, or almost like apple pie, but it was certainly a whole lot easier to make these than to roll out dough and make turnovers. They disappeared (I made a half recipe and we ate them all between the three of us) in a hurry. I did change the recipe just a tad – I used a little less sugar (although I did sprinkle the tops with granulated sugar), a bit more baking powder, and because I didn’t have a tart apple, I used a Braeburn. That apple type added more sweetness to the scone, so that’s why I used less sugar.

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Two years ago: Bacon and Cheddar Scones
Three years ago: Mashed Potatoes with Shallots and Truffle Oil
Four years ago: Ribeye Steaks with Amazing Glaze

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So, this is how the story goes. My friend Cherrie and I were having lunch in Solana Beach with my friend Linda a few weeks ago, and since all three of us like to cook, often our conversations steer into food directions. And Cherrie was telling us a story . . .

Cherrie’s sister lives about 50 miles north of us, and over the years of visiting, Laurie’s family would often go out (or bring food in) from a restaurant nearby called the Smoke House. Everyone in the family loves the food. But mostly, they love-love the garlic cheese bread from this place. I suppose they’ve asked the restaurant how they make it, to no avail. So, a couple of years ago somebody gave Laurie a recipe and said “try this – it’s almost like the restaurant’s.”

Laurie made it for her family. Until she served it, everyone pooh-poohed it, saying no, this wasn’t going to be the recipe. Couldn’t be the recipe. That crispy cheesy stuff couldn’t start from a package of the dry “cheese sauce” from inside a box of Kraft Mac & Cheese. Nah. And then they ate it, and decided it was pretty-darned close to the recipe. And Laurie’s been making it ever since. And so has Cherrie.

With that kind of fun background story, I had to try it. We were up north visiting family and I figured our two grandchildren would enjoy this bread. So, on the mission, I bought a box of Kraft Mac & Cheese. Not the upbeat type with extra cheese. Just the plain old one. That’s about a dollar a box. You don’t need the macaroni – but you need the little packet of cheesy stuff that’s inside the box. Use the macaroni for something else.

So, first you marinate garlic in melted butter, and that must sit overnight, to develop all that great garlic flavor. Just before dinner, re-melt the butter and spread it on cut loaves of French bread. Then you mix the mystery dry cheese sauce mix and some of the old-fashioned green-can dried Parmesan cheese. That gets sprinkled all over the bread. Into a hot oven it goes for about 6-8 minutes to warm the bread all the way through, then you change the oven to broil for about 30-45 seconds (well, it depends on how close the bread is to the broiler element, so it might take longer) until the cheese gets crusty brown. Serve.

I do have a condition, though, and it’s about the BREAD. I’m NOT a fan of regular grocery-store type loaves of French bread. I think it’s like Weber bread, just made into French loaves. Has no taste and definitely no texture. So, do seek out a better loaf of French bread. I don’t recommend an artisanal baguette though – it’s too crusty, narrow and crispy. You want a wide, flattish type loaf. But an artisan one is fine. Linda tried this on something similar to a ciabatta (holey, wide and flat) but it was thicker. She discovered that the baking (heating) time was not sufficient, so I upped it some based on a similar loaf I used. If you make it with a very thin bread, then stick with less baking time.

So, this bread isn’t gourmet. And who knows what’s really in that dry cheese sauce mix – probably food additives, etc. And who eats the old green-can Parmesan anymore? Normally not me! But, is it good? A resounding yes.

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Two years ago: all about the Beater Blade for your stand mixer

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You can’t really see these biscuits very well. Sorry. I cut large squares, rather than smaller round biscuits since these were going on a casserole – actually they went in the bottom of the casserole, and more on top. I’d picked up a used book – a cookbook, of course – called Biscuit Bliss: 101 Foolproof Recipes for Fresh and Fluffy Biscuits in Just Minutes. Every time we visit Placerville, where one of our daughters and her family live, I stop by a cute used book store in town. And invariably I come out of there with a new (but used) cookbook in hand. This time I bought three (a memoir about Julia Child, written by one of her associates for about 20 years, and Maya Angelou’s cookbook, which is almost more story than it is recipes, although each short chapter does contain one recipe relating, somehow, to the story she tells about her growing up. Or her family.

Finding several recipes in this biscuit book to try, I finally settled on this one. I liked the idea of light and fluffy, and my daughter did have some Crisco on hand. When I use shortening these days I buy the non-hydrogenated kind, but this was just one meal, so I used Crisco that was on the cupboard shelf. It’s a long drive to the local grocery store, besides, and not all stores carry that other type.

These took no time to mix up – there’s a dry mixture and a wet mixture. The dry mixture includes butter, which needs to be cut into the flour part (I used my fingers) since my daughter didn’t have a pastry blender. The dough is rolled out to a thin layer and you just cut. I used a square cutter because it was easier to use for a squarish-shaped casserole. At left you can see the bottom biscuits (with cutter), then I scooped in the casserole and added more biscuits on top.

The recipe suggests baking this at 475°. I didn’t bake it that high because it had a casserole underneath it, and if I had it to do over I’d have baked the casserole for about 20 minutes first, to get the mixture hot, THEN I’d have added the biscuits. But biscuits had to go on the bottom too, so I just winged it and baked the casserole at 400° for a longer period. The biscuits were supremely light and crispy-crunchy. Delicious texture. Everybody ate their fill, me included!

So, who’s Sam, you ask? The cookbook author, James Villas, says Sam is a Texas friend of his, who has a far and wide reputation for making the lightest and fluffiest biscuits around. Villas says it’s from the cake flour, the shortening and the egg in it. Whatever, or however, they were really very good.

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A year ago: Chicken with a Garlic Lemon Crust
Two years ago: Meat – about buying good quality
Three years ago: Vermont Cheddar Bread

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