Buttermilk Biscuits

I wish recipe sites would say what size biscuit cutter to use. I used a 2" cutter and these turned out enormous! And, also considering that it is raining today, I'd say that it is very humid and my biscuit dough was very sticky, so sticky in fact that I had a hard time even getting a layer to form. But, dusting the cutter in flour prior to cutting was a great help. With a 2" cutter this recipe ratio made 5 enormous biscuit-textured scone-like objects. I'm sure if I used the smaller cutter, it would have come out to be more like the 10 biscuits the original "grandma's recipe" suggests this yields.

TheFoodening Blog - Buttermilk Biscuits

Ingredients

2 c all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 organic granulated sugar
6 tbsp cold unsalted butter
1 c buttermilk

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 F

1. In the bowl of a food processor machine, pulse together flour, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, salt, and unsalted butter.

2. Add flour mixture to a large mixing bowl and add the buttermilk. Stir to combine but do not over mix.

3. On a silicone mat, use a silicon spatula to press dough down to 1/2" thickness. Use a biscuit cutter to cut the dough into biscuit rounds.

4. Place biscuit rounds onto a parchment paper-lined baking tray.

5. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until lightly golden brown.

Serve hot and enjoy.

TheFoodening Blog - Buttermilk Biscuit with Peach Bourbon Jam

Small Batch Bread and Butter Pickles

Did you know that if you chopped these up in a food processor, you can make sweet relish?

As far as pickle recipes go, this is really easy. The secret to a crunchy pickle is the salt brine, or letting the cucumber's excess moisture drain out by using salt. This recipe ratio comes from the TasteofSouthern.com blog. I omitted the onion, of course. Also, my pickle slices are thicker because I don't like wafer thin, transparent pickles. It's a blue ribbon recipe so by default it should turn out great. :)

TheFoodening Blog - Bread & Butter Pickles

Ingredients

3  lbs pickling cucumbers, ends trimmed
1/4 c kosher or sea salt
2 c white vinegar
2 c sugar
1/2 c water
1 tbsp mustard seeds
2 tsp celery seeds
2 tsp pickling spice mix
1 tsp turmeric powder

Directions

1. Slice cucumbers and place in a large bowl and toss with salt. Let stand for 1-2 hours or overnight in the refrigerator (I did the latter for this batch).

2. Rinse the cucumbers and let drain in a colander until ready to use. Place as many as will fit into half-pint or pint jars. 

3. In a large saucepan, combine vinegar, water, sugar, mustard seeds, celery seeds, and turmeric. Heat to a boil. 

4. Pour vinegar mixture over cucumbers in jars.

If canning, process in a boiling water bath for 20 minutes.

If using as refrigerator pickles, cover with sterilized lids and bands. Let this cure in the fridge for several days before using.

Quick Buns for Sliders or Burgers

An hour or so before dinner, your friend says that he feels like grilling hamburgers but has neither hamburger buns nor tomatoes. Thanks to GirlVsDough, a beautifully warm day, and the first recipe title I stumbled upon with a quick Google search, I made these in just under an hour.

TheFoodening Blog - Hamburger Buns

I used a digital kitchen scale to divide the dough. The total mass was roughly 2 lbs, and divided by 12 would have yielded 2.67 oz per ball of dough. As laziness would prevail, some balls of dough were 2.5 oz while others were 2 oz 7/8 oz. The smaller balls could pass for slider buns, and the larger balls were just about the right size for a grilled average hamburger patty. I also didn't have any milk on hand so I watered down some heavy cream instead.

Note: if you do a lot of bread baking, I recommend picking up the 2 lb block of yeast from Costco. At roughly $4, it really brings down the cost of making bread. Plus, you can store 8 oz of it in the freezer in a freezer jar and some in a pint jar in the refrigerator. 

Ingredients

3 1/2 c all purpose flour, plus more for dusting/kneading
2 tbsp active dry yeast + 1 cup warm water (115 F)
1/4 c sugar
1/3 c olive oil, or neutral smelling vegetable oil
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp sea salt
1-2 tbsp sesame seeds (optional)

Egg wash (for making buns golden brown):

1 egg yolk
1 tbsp heavy cream
1 tbsp water

-or-

1 egg yolk
2 tbsp whole milk

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

1. In a 2-cup measuring cup, dissolve yeast in warm water, then add the sugar.

2. In a large mixing bowl, egg, salt and oil. Whisk together. Add yeast water. Add flour.

3. With a wooden spoon, stir to combine.

4. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 2-3 minutes. Weigh dough and divide equally by what you want to make:

3 oz = medium sized hamburger bun
2.5 oz = slider sized bun
If you chose the latter, one batch of dough will make 12 slider buns.

TheFoodening Blog - A classic hamburger with grilled bacon

5. Form balls of dough. To make a smooth surface on one side of the ball, bring all the odd edges of the dough to the center and pinch it together. Place folded side down onto parchment paper or a silicone mat. Let rest for 10 minutes. I didn't cover these and it didn't seem to matter. Also, my oven takes 10 minutes to heat up to 425 F.

5.1. If you are using an egg wash to make the buns a nice golden brown color, brush the egg wash onto the buns using a pastry brush.

6. Bake for 12 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on a rack.

7. To use, simply slice each bun in half with a serrated knife (e.g., a bread knife).

Strawberry Shortcake

One of my favorite places to get dessert recipes is Southern Living magazine. Those southerners really know desserts. If only I could read and bake at the same time. The shortcakes would have tasted like little airy cakes if I had remembered to mix in the baking powder. Alas, these little pucks are a bit dense but still edible and presentable.

TheFoodening Blog - Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberry Layer Ingredients

a pint of strawberries, de-stemmed and quartered

1 tsp almond extract

up to 1/2 c organic granulated sugar

Shortcake Ingredients

2 3/4 c all purpose flour

4 tsp baking powder

1/4 c organic granulated sugar

3/4 c cold butter, diced

2 eggs

8 oz sour cream

1 tsp vanilla extract 

a batch of whipped cream

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 F

1. Combine strawberries, almond extract, and sugar (depending on sweetness of the berries) in a container. Shake covered until mixed and set aside for at least an hour.

2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, sour cream, and vanilla extract. 

3. In a food processor, pulse flour, baking powder, sugar, and butter together until the mixture resembles crumbs with bits of butter.

4. Gradually stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients. Dough will be sticky.

5. Use a 1/3 cup measure to form little cakes. Place cakes 2" apart on a baking sheet.

6. Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until tops are light golden brown.

7. Remove from oven and let cool on a rack.

8. To make the shortcakes:

Cut the shortcake in half. On the bottom half, spoon 2 tablespoons of the strawberry mixture, followed by a dollop of whipped cream, and cover with the top half of the shortcake.

You can also make these shortcakes more adult by adding a tablespoon of a sweet wine or hard alcohol to the bottom half before you add the strawberries. I used the peach wine that I made earlier in the summer; though other alcohols that would be nice are muscat wine, bourbon, sake, gin, or rum.

Oven Broiled Chicken Thighs

Fire + Meat = Good

I would like to believe that adding fire to the cooking of meat somehow brings us back to our more primal nature of being apex predators with intelligence. Plus, I love a meat that bastes in its own fat.

The Foodening Blog - Broiled Chicken Thighs

A woman's alternative to not having a grill is using the oven broiler to achieve a similar effect. Charred meat (and peppers). Some nutritionists out there would have you believe that a single serving of meat is less than 4 ounces, without the skin. I suppose I should save the bones from this in the freezer to make broth later.

My simple gas stove/oven allows you to set the temperature of the broiler. Since I already roast chicken at 425 F it seemed like a good temperature to broil chicken at which is how I got to using that temperature for broiled chicken parts.

The most basic preparation is as follows:

sea salt and black pepper on both sides
squeeze of fresh lemon or lime (optional)

Broil bone side up for 10 minutes. Flip chicken over. Broil skin side up for 15 minutes. Let rest 5 minutes. Internal temp should be at least 160 F.

Kimchi Fried Rice

At least this time around I took a photo of the dish before devouring it. You could call it a two-ingredient recipe, even though it is really three if you count the butter I used to fry the rice with; or more if you include all the vegetables that make up kimchi. If you have made everything beforehand, this recipe comes together in less than 10 minutes.

The rice blend I use is of my own making. It's a 1:1 ratio of Trader Joe's Wild Rice (though, I suppose any wild rice will do) and Trader Joe's Brown Jasmine Rice; both of which apparently have naturally occurring inorganic arsenic in it. Who knew? Apparently, Consumer Reports did a study on the amount of arsenic in rice and it doesn't matter if it is organic rice or conventionally grown rice. I don't eat a lot of rice, but when I do eat it, I usually only cook a cup of rice at a time.

The Foodening Blog - Kimchi Fried Rice

Ingredients

1/2 c cooked rice, per serving
1/2 c homemade kimchi, per serving
1/2 tbsp unsalted butter or olive oil, for frying

Directions

Heat frying pan over medium-high heat until butter melts but does not start to turn brown. Add rice and mash around in pan until the grains have separated from each other. Add kimchi. Stir rice and kimchi around in the pan until evenly distributed. Remove from heat after 5 minutes, or until everything is about the same temperature; if your ingredients came from the refrigerator.

Serve hot.

Malted Milk Powder

This post has been brought to you by nostalgia. I grew up drinking malted milk as Olvaltine, and I enjoyed foods with malt in it such as the Whoppers candy and malted milk shakes. As an adult I consume a lot less sugar and as such, needed to figure out how this stuff was made in order to make it from scratch. Why make it from scratch? Because there are so many additives to today's malted milk powders. Just look at the ingredient list for Nestle's Carnation or Olvaltine. King Arthur has a cleaner ingredient list but it costs $10/lb.

I'm not terribly inclined to add wheat flour since it is primarily used as a thickener. This is just malted barley (whole barley berries that have been sprouted, dried, then ground into a powder) and dry milk powder. Also, this is not for making beer.

I got my organic barley grains Whole Foods's bulk aisle; though, you can certainly procure whole grains at any feed store or brewing supply shop.

How to Make Malted Milk Powder

This can be made from whole wheat or barley berries. For this experiment, I am using barley berries. You'll want to find unhulled berries because you want these to sprout. Do not use cracked, pearled, or hulled berries.

Sprout. Take 1 cup of dry grain and rinse it thoroughly in clean pure water. Soak it over night, or about 8 hours, in a 1 quart mason jar with a loose lid. Place a clean mesh lid on the top of the jar and strain out the soak water. Fill the jar again with pure water, stir and strain again. Drain. Rinse your jar of grains once a day. Watch for sprouting hairs after day one, it usually takes between 1-2 days depending on the room temperature.

Ferment. As the barley germinates, it starts to break down the starch into sugars. This is what gives malt powder its natural sweetness. If wild yeast is introduced as the barley is fermenting, the yeast will eat the sugar and convert the liquid to alcohol. You don't want the latter to occur.

Dry. Three possible methods of drying. Air/sun drying (requires 90+ degree temperatures for a few days), food dehydrator, or oven drying. This is to stop the fermenting process.

Air drying - spread moist, freshly sprouted grains on sheet pans in an even layer. Place pans in a dry, well-ventilated area. Dry for 18-48 hours depending on the humidity/temperature. If you are drying this outside, cover your grains with cheesecloth or food-safety screens to keep bugs/birds from eating it.

Food dehydrator - Set dehydrator to 115 F and dehydrate grains for 12-24 hours, or until the grains are dry.

Oven drying - Set oven to its lowest setting, between 150-170 F. Check for dryness in 8-12 hours.

When fully dry, the grains should weigh about the same as what it weighed before sprouting.

Grind. A this point, you are essentially making barley flour from sprouted, dried barley grains. You can grind these in a grain mill, food processor, or blender. You want it to a fine powder, with the granular consistency of say.. cocoa powder.

Storage. Store sprouted flour in an airtight container in the freezer or refrigerator. If using in baking, this can substitute regular flour at a 1:1 ratio.

Now that you have barley malt powder, you can blend it with dry powdered milk!

Here are some sweetened and unsweetened powder ratios.

Depression Era Malted Milk (ratio comes from backtobasicsgal blog):

6 tbsp barley malt powder
1/4 c granulated sugar
2 c powdered milk

Unsweetened Plain:

2 c instant dry milk, whole or nonfat
6 tbsp malt powder

Unsweetened Chocolate:

2 c instant dry milk powder, whole or nonfat
6 tbsp malt powder
6 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

To make one cup: add 1/3 c dry mix to 8 oz cold milk. Blend or whisk together. Sweeten to taste with sugar, honey, or stevia.