January 8th: Avocado Toast, Chicken Pot Pie Soup + Garlic Cheddar Biscuits

Last year, early summer, I was googling how to roast a pepper, a seemingly simple task that I always manage to botch. My searching brought me to The Wednesday Chef, and I fell in love. With the website, with the chef, the whole thing. Check it out. She's a beautiful person, a great writer, and has some really good food on her blog. If you'd like to know how to roast a pepper, click here; her instructions are spot on. After mastering that task, I also spent time trying out a recipe here and there, including one for Avocado Toast, which became my go-to breakfast and lunch of Summer 2013. Feeling a little nostalgic and very hungry today, I made one up for lunch and mm mm good. It hit the spot. Feel free to pop over to The Wednesday Chef for Luisa's instructions on how to perfect avocado toast. I've played around with it, and my favourite way is simply 1 piece of toast, with tonnes of mayo, topped with one avocado mashed with lemon, salt, pepper and sriracha. When that's not quite enough, I make a second.

For supper, I returned to last year's other favourite discovery, Skinnytaste. It's been freezing and I mean freezing cold in Ottawa recently. -30°C pretty normal. My car slid on ice and I rear ended a moving truck today, but that's another story... So it seems my timing was impeccable in choosing warm soup and biscuits for a chilly day. I modified two recipes from Skinnytaste: Chicken Pot Pie Soup and Garlic Cheddar Biscuits. They were both yummy and enjoyed by the whole family!

Chicken Pot Pie Soup

Ingredients

2 cups chicken broth, divided
4 cups milk
2 stalks celery, diced
2 medium carrots, diced
1 medium onion, diced
227 g sliced mushrooms (white, cremini, portobello)
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
pinch dried thyme
2 medium potatoes, diced
handful green beans, diced
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup frozen peas or corn, or both
salt, to taste

Directions

Combine 1 1/2 cups chicken broth with milk in a large saucepan and set over medium. Allow it to come slowly to a simmer. Meanwhile, prep all vegetables and chicken. When liquid is hot, add celery, carrot, onion, mushrooms, pepper, and thyme. Partially cover and simmer for about 10 minutes. Add potatoes, green beans, and chicken, cover again and simmer another 10 minutes. Combine the remaining 1/2 cup chicken broth with flour and whisk thoroughly. Slowly add to soup, stirring constantly. Add peas and cook soup another 5 minutes. Add salt to taste and serve.

Makes 6 servings.

Garlic Cheddar Biscuits

Ingredients

2 cups flour
4 tsps baking powder
1 tbsp sugar
pinch salt
2-4 cloves garlic, divided, minced
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1 egg
2/3 cup milk
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Preheat oven to 400°F. Whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and half the minced garlic. Cut in unsalted butter, then stir in cheese. Whisk egg into milk, then add mixture to dry ingredients. Stir until it just comes together. Turn out on floured surface and knead about 20 times. Roll out to 1/2-1 inch. Cut with biscuit cutter. Bake for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt butter in skillet over low heat. Add remaining minced garlic and sauté about 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in parsley. Remove biscuits from oven and drizzle garlic butter over them. Return to oven for 5 minutes.

Makes approximately 9 biscuits.

April 5th: 300!

This is post #300.

Family came to visit in March. Liam committed in advance to making me bread or cookies or something during the trip. He made southern buttermilk biscuits. They were excellent. When he left, I still had plenty of buttermilk leftover, some of which I used in Sadie's birthday cupcakes. I kept thinking I should toss the rest, but L convinced me to do otherwise, namely, by telling me to make the biscuits again. So I did. Buttermilk was still good, and biscuits were delicious.

The recipe is specific in its directions, and notes that the second round of dough will result in tougher biscuits. I made just one biscuit from the leftover bits of dough, and Greg ate that one and said he liked it better than the light and fluffy first rounds. There you go; no need to waste the bits!

I made the biscuits to go with a chicken soup I made. The stock was made roughly from the Red Apron recipe, and the soup was based on Today's Parent's Mexican Blizzard Soup (go easy on the chili powder, should you wish your children to eat it). It was great soup. I wish I still had some kicking around to eat. Guess that means I should make it again. And the biscuits. Yum.

October 31st: biscuits

This is my Nana's recipe. It is delicious.


Biscuits


2 cups flour
4 tsps baking powder
1 tbsp sugar
salt*
1/2 cup unsalted butter**
1 egg
2/3 cup milk


Preheat oven to 400°F. Whisk together dry ingredients. Cut in butter. Whisk egg into milk, then add mixture to dry ingredients. Stir until it just comes together. Turn out on floured surface and knead about 20 times. Roll out to 1/2-1 inch. Cut with biscuit cutter. Bake until just beginning to turn golden brown, about 12-15 minutes.


*amount not given; 1/2 tsp?
**original recipe calls for shortening; I have modified it


For a warm-up post-trick or treating supper: biscuits with Mexican Chicken Soup.

November 24th: Make ahead snack: Biscuits

Verdict:
Try Again: freezer biscuits

Again, in preparation for perhaps not wanting to cook this week, I made and froze three types of biscuit dough over the last couple weekends from Cook's Illustrated: Freezer Biscuits.

This recipe spurned me to purchase something I've been missing from my kitchen supplies: a biscuit cutter. I have been making biscuits for at least ten years, always using a drinking glass to cut the dough. I'm a worrier. One of my worries when making biscuits is the closed top of the glass: does it somehow affect the biscuit and make it less than perfect, taste- or texture-wise? Problem solved, as I now own not one, but two biscuit cutters! They are the same size, so redundant, but they came in a pack of two, and they are nice, heavy, stainless steel ones that can go in the dishwasher, which is a BIG selling point in this household. Shannon can attest to this. I think we annoyed her when she lived with us, with our "everything that can go in the dishwasher will go in the dishwasher" mantra.


The dough is so tasty, Olivia and I ate a lot of the scraps from the biscuit-pressing process. The whipping cream lends itself to richness of character, and it's so simple! Here's O, whisking the dry ingredients in the chive version:

Look at that index finger. What technique!

Here is the finished product:

L-R: chive, Cheddar, plain

Here is the recipe:

Freezer Biscuits

6 cups flour, plus more for work surface
2 tbsps each sugar and baking powder
1 1/2 tsps salt
4 1/2 cups whipping cream

Line large baking sheet with parchment; set aside. Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Stir in cream with a wooden spoon until dough forms, about 30 seconds. Turn dough onto lightly floured work surface and gather into ball. Knead dough briefly until smooth, about 60 seconds, adding extra flour as needed if dough is too sticky.

Pat dough into 3/4-inch thick circle. Cut out biscuits using biscuit cutter, trying to cut as many biscuits as possible without reworking dough. Lay biscuits on prepared baking sheet, spaced about 1/2 inch apart. Gather up scraps of dough and knead briefly to combine, then repeat process. Discard (or eat!) remaining dough.

Place baking sheet in freezer and freeze biscuits until solid, about 6 hours. Transfer biscuits to bag or container and freeze for up to 1 month. Do not thaw before baking.

Bake from frozen at 450°F for 20-25 minutes, until puffed and golden brown. Serve hot.

Makes 24 biscuits.

Variations:

Cheddar cheese freezer biscuits

Toss 6 ounces Cheddar cheese, cut into rough 1/4-inch pieces, into flour mixture before adding whipping cream.

Herb freezer biscuits

Whisk 6 tbsps minced fresh mild herbs (chives, dill) or 3 tbsps minced fresh hearty herbs (thyme, rosemary) into flour mixture before adding whipping cream.

I made 1/3 the recipe (about 8 biscuits), 3 times and tried each variation, for a total of 24 biscuits. I really liked the plain and the Cheddar, but didn't dig the chive so much. Maybe another herb would be more suitable.