Biscuits - Drop, Oil

This blog is really for EASY cooking - not fancy, but stuff Ryu gives the "umai" (delicious) vote to. These biscuits fit that role. I am not a biscuit maker. If you have read any of my other posts, you will perhaps remember that I do not like to cut shortening or butter into flour. I have a pastry cutter and CAN do it if necessary, but will go to great lengths NOT to do so. Also, big old cans of Crisco are not available to me and butter is too spendy for daily consumption. However, a student received many many bottles of oil for a mid-summer gift. She and her husband are not great oil consumers, so she gave me a bunch of them. I don't use oil in much of my regular cooking, but...free is FREE!

Then, I found this recipe for biscuits - using oil. And they are sufficient if you like drop biscuits. If you are dead set on cut out ones, don't try this recipe - though the original recipe says you can roll the dough out between pieces of wax paper - why try to do the impossible???

As this recipe is not the same as the one Betty Crocker has on her web site, I'll post it all here:

Baking Powder Biscuits - Drop, Oil

1 3/4 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup oil

Heat oven to 450F or 230C. Mix dry ingredients together. Combine milk and oil and dump into the dry ingredients. Mix with a fork until all is moist. Avoid over-mixing. Using a spoon, drop the batter into a greased cookie sheet (I never grease mine.) Bake until golden brown. 10-12 minutes (cooking time depends on the size of your biscuits - so check on them.)

Source: Betty Crocker's Cookbook, New and Revised Edition, Copyright 1978. Baking Powder Biscuits page 194

In the original recipe, the oil is shortening and is cut into the flour mixture.

Peanut Butter Bread

As I mentioned on my other blog, I was flipping through an Amish cookbook and came across Peanut Butter Bread. Well! That sounded strange enough to me to give it a try. I looked on the internet to find a recipe that I could easily share with you all if I liked it, and was SHOCKED to find all the recipes for Peanut Butter Bread! Seriously! I had NEVER heard of it before. Then I heard from Abigail at Mamatouille - her cooking blog, and before reading my post she had been planning to try this "interesting recipe".... Peanut Bread.

I made the bread, and, truly, if it weren't for the raves from the peanut butter lovers around me and those who want to try the bread, I probably wouldn't post the recipe. With each bite I kept wanting chocolate spread or peanut butter cookies. Needless to say, I forgot to add a handful of chocolate chips like planned!

I choose the recipe from Jif Peanut Butter. I figured if it had to do with peanut butter, a recipe from a peanut butter company should be good. And, while My Mother never bought it, as a child the ads ALWAYS said "Choosy mothers choose Jif!"

So, here it is. If you try it, please let me know. It is supposed to be nice with chocolate spread, cream cheese, jam, etc. Straight butter did not do the trick, in my book!

Peanut Butter Bread

Scones a la Reiko-chan

Back in my single days, and I was living in a freezing apartment in Japan, a young Japanese woman, who was studying and living in the US at that time, came to stay with me for a couple of days. Her name is Reiko. For breakfast, she made me scones from a recipe she had learned from someone in the States. Unfortunately, my baking powder was past its raising age, and the scones came out quite...dense. However, I have kept and made this recipe Sooooo many times.

I got it out again this morning and made them with cinnamon chips. So yummy! Ryu was eating his silently. I kept oohing and ahhing over the scones and asking him what he thought. Finally he said, "Kim, when I am eating quietly, it means it is just too good for words." Well, there you have it!

Scones

1/2 cup butter (I used cake/stick margarine)

1 3/4 cup flour

3 Tbsp. sugar

2 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 egg, beaten

4-6 Tbsp. milk (I used a combo of yogurt and water)

1/2 cup raisins **

1 egg, beaten (to brush on top of the scones)

Cut the butter into the dry ingredients. Combine the milk and egg, and stir in so the dough leaves the side of the bowl. Turn it out on a lightly floured surface and knead lightly 10 times. Roll or pat to a 1/2" thick circle. Cut into 6 wedges. Put on ungreased baking sheet, brush with egg, back at 450 F for 10-12 min.

Now, the way I did it! HAHAAHA! First, a friend who owns a cake shop makes scones (different recipe) and makes them into little balls. So, I tried it with this recipe, and it works wonderfully. I suspect it doesn't take the scones so long to bake, and you have more individual servings. This morning I ended up with 11 scone balls.

**I use raisins when I want. I have also used:

• cinnamon chips
• semi-sweet chocolate chips and crushed sea salt almonds!
• semi-sweet chocolate chips and pecans (upped br. sugar to 1/3 cup.)
• orange marmalade (no milk or raisins. Add 1/2 cup orange marmalade)

Cornbread!

We were in the States this spring, in a ranching community. I overheard a woman invite her father to dinner. He asked what was on the menu, and she said cornbread and beans. And I died from jealousy.

Oh, to be able to go to any old supermarket anywhere and buy a big box of cornmeal. Cornmeal muffins, cornmeal in pancakes, cornmeal in yeast bread. Anywhere except mush!

I went home to my folks and got out the big box of cornmeal and made the recipe below for muffins - but as cornbread. The nieces and nephews nearly finished it before dinner. So, I made a double batch the next time.

Here, I can buy a package of cornmeal at Isetan's supermarket. Close to, but not quite a cup, for somewhere in the neighborhood of $2. So, I picked up a package. I divide the cornmeal carefully into two batches, so each batch has a little less than the stated 1/2 cup, but...it is worth it! I just fill the 1/2 cup measure with extra flour.

The recipe is on the box of the Alber's box. If you can find cornmeal, I recommend it!

Sweet Cornmeal Muffins