I have a little problem. I'm addicted to cookbooks, food writing, recipe collecting, and cooking. I have a lot of recipes waiting for me to try them, and ideas from articles, tv, and restaurants often lead to new dishes. I started losing track of what I've done. So now I'm taking photos and writing about what I've prepared—unless it's terrible in which case I forget it ever happened.
These buttermilk biscuits are from The Taste of Country Cooking and were part of the meal that I discussed in a guest post on Cooking Books. If you haven’t had a chance yet, take a moment to read that post and check out the fantastic Cooking Books site. When I read The Taste of Country Cooking, I noticed that almost every meal included biscuits or rolls served with homemade jelly or preserves, and that reminded me of how, years ago, my Mom got me hooked on putting jelly on leftover biscuits for breakfast. Biscuits with butter are wonderful things unto their own, but biscuits with sweet jelly provide a different experience all together. So, when I was choosing dishes to prepare from the Fall chapter of Taste of Country Cooking, biscuits simply had to be included.
The ingredients used here are pretty typical for a buttermilk biscuit. The difference is the thickness. These were rolled out to 1/4 inch and cut into two inch rounds. I usually roll out biscuit dough to about 3/4 inch or so. They were baked in a 425 degree oven for about 10 minutes. Inside, they are as delicate as can be, and the tops and bottoms have just a slight crunch making them even more delicious than you’d think was possible. Hot out of the oven, we sampled one with just butter and one with blackberry preserves. I would have been very full of biscuits by the time I chose a favorite, so I declared them both winners.
These biscuits are buttery and flaky with that nice, tart touch from the buttermilk which makes sweet preserves such a lovely counterpoint. Whether you partake of the jelly or preserves on your biscuits during the meal, after the meal, or for breakfast the next morning they’re equally good and well worth the effort of baking them.
I was thrilled when Andrea invited me to write a guest post for her blog, and I’ve finally chosen a topic. I read The Taste of Country Cooking awhile ago but hadn’t cooked from it yet, so I chose a meal from the Fall chapter to prepare and discuss. Visit Cooking Books to read all about my first experience roasting a pheasant, and enjoy all of Andrea’s fantastic posts while you’re there.
*Update:
Andrea has made this a new monthly feature on her site called Off the Shelf. It will showcase a different blogger and a book of his/her choosing each time. I can't wait to check in each month and find out what other people have been reading and cooking.
The basil oil I mentioned on Friday was used in Saturday morning’s breakfast. I’ve been reading the October issue of Saveur, which is all about breakfast, and I was inspired to cook up a hash and top it with fried eggs. This dish doesn’t appear in the magazine, but all the breakfasts mentioned had me craving a big morning meal. Thinking about a hash, I wanted to create something with a varied mix of vegetables and not just a potato dish. Fennel and orange bell pepper were diced small and added to the potato and onion. I left the hash to cook over medium heat for about 20 minutes until it was very tender. The fennel, potato, onion, and pepper all took on a similar texture and the flavors were well-melded. I used a generous amount of Aleppo pepper which brought some good heat to the dish and balance to the sweetness of the onion and fennel. At the end of the cooking time, a big handful of chopped parsley brightened it all. The hash was served with a fried egg on top, a drizzling of basil oil, and some fennel fronds.
The basil oil was fresh-tasting as it enlivened the other items on the plate. The fennel was an especially good part of the hash, and it mingled very cordially with the basil flavor. I believe this is how the meal came together:
1 T butter 1 T extra virgin olive oil 1 t (or to taste) Aleppo pepper 1/4 cup red onion, minced 2 small, red potatoes, unpeeled and diced 1 fennel bulb, diced 1/2 orange bell pepper (or whatever color of bell pepper is in your refrigerator), diced 1 big handful parsley leaves, chopped salt and black pepper to taste fried eggs basil oil fennel fronds -melt butter with olive oil in a large saute pan over medium heat -add aleppo pepper, onion, and potatoes, stir to combine, and allow to cook, stirring occasionally while dicing fennel and bell pepper -add fennel and bell pepper, continue cooking while stirring occasionally for about 20 minutes, season to taste with salt and black pepper -stir in parsley just before serving -fry eggs as you prefer and place on top of hash, drizzle with basil oil, sprinkle on fennel fronds -sit down to a delicious, big breakfast
I have decided to stop any and all complaints about there being no fall season in Austin. This is because I walked outside yesterday and found that my basil plants had reacted quite positively to the rain that finally fell the other day. And, thinking back to last year, my basil plants were still alive and kicking at Christmas time. For me, that’s an adequate tradeoff for the lack of fallness. This abundance of basil might have been used for a pesto, but I decided to go even simpler with it.
In Vegetable Harvest, by Patricia Wells, a few different herb oils are described and used in salad dressings, and the process for making them couldn’t be easier. Here, two cups of basil leaves are dropped into boiling, salted water for 15 seconds, then plunged into ice water, and then drained and dried in a towel. Placing the leaves in a sieve that will fit into the pan of boiling water and the bowl of ice water makes this procedure even simpler. Patricia Wells lists an exact amount of salt to be added to three quarts of boiling water because salted water helps set the color of the leaves. I note this because I often cook with less salt than is recommended, but in this case, there seems to be good evidence that the right amount matters. Once the basil leaves are dried in a towel, they join one cup of olive oil and a little sea salt in the blender. Wells suggests leaving the pureed oil as is while other herb oil recipes mention straining it. I don’t mind tiny bits of basil in the oil, so I left it unstrained.
In Vegetable Harvest, the basil oil is used in a lemon-basil dressing which is made by combining 1/4 cup of the oil with one tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice. That will be my first use of it, and I already have a few other ideas too.
On Monday, I mentioned a celebratory dinner party and went straight to discussing dessert. Today, I’ll backtrack and describe the hors d’oeuvre course. We toasted with a Louis Bouillot blanc de blancs sparkling wine and whetted our appetites with blue cheese popovers and herb-marinated green olives. I found the mini popovers in Martha Stewart's Hors d'Oeuvres Handbook. I’ve used this book many times over the years and have come to depend on it. The chapters are organized by shapes or styles such as skewered, stacked, or stuffed. There are meat, cheese, and vegetable options throughout, and several of the spiced nut variations have become perennial, holiday favorites of mine.
The genius of these popovers is that the batter needs to be chilled before it’s baked so it’s not just convenient but also necessary to make it the day before. I crumbled a Roquefort cheese as small as I could into the milk and melted butter batter which sat in the refrigerator overnight. Unlike baking full-sized popovers, the pan does not need to be pre-heated. A mini-muffin pan is used, and the batter is spooned in to fill each cup. They pop up nicely, hold their shape well even as they cool, and they can even be re-heated which I discovered when we snacked on the leftovers.
Served warm, these little, bite-sized morsels had a light, golden crust on the outside with pillowy, moist, and savory insides. The amount of blue cheese used here provides just a mild pungency. To my taste, I would actually consider increasing the amount to push that flavor forward. But, if blue cheese isn’t your thing, try these simple, tidy popovers with gruyere or parmigiana reggiano for your next cocktail hour.
Saturday evening, a couple of friends joined us for dinner. We were celebrating a backyard project getting off to a great start and autumn’s arrival. Although, you need a calendar to know that it’s fall in Austin because the 90 degree weather is still going strong. We toasted the project, and the good company and conversation far outshone the menu, as they should. Just the same, I’m going to write about the food, and I’ll start with dessert. I tried to choose a somewhat simple dessert. I had hoped that a small piece of tart filled with good chocolate would be a nice ending to a big meal. I took this from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich.
I appreciate Medrich’s precision in her recipe writing. For instance, bittersweet chocolate with 60-62% cacao was listed, and a note was provided for how to change the recipe if 65-72% cacao was used instead. Of course, this should be high quality chocolate. Unfortunately, the definition of chocolate is being reconsidered these days, so referencing the cacao percentage is becoming necessary. The tart making process was very easy. The dough was made with melted butter, was patted into the tart pan, and was baked and then allowed to cool. The filling contained only chocolate, butter, orange zest, and an egg yolk whisked with boiling water. Medrich mentions, and I agree, that the orange and/or grapefruit used here should be organic so no sprays will be on the zested skin. No sugar was added to the filling, and none was needed. Had a higher percentage chocolate been used, a small amount of sugar was to be added. As it was, it was silky-textured and balanced in flavor with a fresh, citrus note. Once filled, the tart was chilled for a few hours.
For the topping, jasmine tea leaves were steeped in cream for eight to twelve hours. Medrich notes that the cream should be poured through a sieve to remove the tea after twelve hours even if you won’t be using it yet. I steeped the cream overnight, and removed the tea in the morning. When I tasted the cream at that point, there was a lovely, subtly floral, jasmine presence. However, by the time dessert was served, the jasmine was nowhere to be found. It was a nice addition to the cream, and in the future, I’ll time it so the jasmine tea is removed just before serving.
One other point to mention is the serving temperature. The tart should be removed from the refrigerator about 30 minutes prior to serving so the filling can slightly soften. I failed to give it quite enough time, and the chocolate was a little firmer than ideal. It may seem like I’m nitpicking on several tiny details, but for a dessert like this with so few ingredients, every part of the process matters. The chocolate has to be excellent, the texture has to be right, and all the flavors have to come together. Then, it becomes just what it was intended to be. The result was very good, but next time I’ll know how to make it even better.
Back in May, I baked a couple of things from Martha Stewart's Cookies and realized that I wanted to try every cookie in the book. They all look delectable, are simple enough to create, and all together form a great cookie baking reference. Also, my co-workers have gotten accustomed to my habit of bringing treats into the office, so it was time to grab this book again. This time, I chose the gingerbread white chocolate blondies. Because they are bar cookies, the baking time is minimized. Beyond the time required, I didn’t think too much about this choice and had no idea what I would be unleashing by making them.
Seeing molasses in the ingredient list may have somewhat influenced my decision as I think I’m developing a molasses dependency. The homemade graham crackers made with molasses started it. Then, while making these blondies, I realized that molasses and salt causes a swirling in my brain just like the effect of caramel and salt. This recipe didn’t require an inordinate amount of salt, but it was somehow more noticeable than usual as it played with the molasses flavor. And, then, there’s the white chocolate. White chocolate has always held a special place in my appetite. I used a block of Callebaut which was chopped into chunks. So, molasses, gingerbread, and white chocolate all sounded good.
Apparently, they were, in fact, freakishly good. Everyone who tried one got that jaw-dropped look of wonder. After having a sample, Kurt is searching our kitchen for more, is sure there must be some hidden somewhere, and can’t believe I took them all to work. He might be right. I definitely recommend the book, but if you need some of these cookies before you can get a copy, the recipe is also online.
These buttermilk biscuits are from The Taste of Country Cooking
and were part of the meal that I discussed in a guest post on Cooking Books. If you haven’t had a chance yet, take a moment to read that post and check out the fantastic Cooking Books site. When I read The Taste of Country Cooking
These biscuits are buttery and flaky with that nice, tart touch from the buttermilk which makes sweet preserves such a lovely counterpoint. Whether you partake of the jelly or preserves on your biscuits during the meal, after the meal, or for breakfast the next morning they’re equally good and well worth the effort of baking them.
The basil oil was fresh-tasting as it enlivened the other items on the plate. The fennel was an especially good part of the hash, and it mingled very cordially with the basil flavor. I believe this is how the meal came together:
In 
In Vegetable Harvest, the basil oil is used in a lemon-basil dressing which is made by combining 1/4 cup of the oil with one tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice. That will be my first use of it, and I already have a few other ideas too.
The genius of these popovers is that the batter needs to be chilled before it’s baked so it’s not just convenient but also necessary to make it the day before. I crumbled a Roquefort cheese as small as I could into the milk and melted butter batter which sat in the refrigerator overnight. Unlike baking full-sized popovers, the pan does not need to be pre-heated. A mini-muffin pan is used, and the batter is spooned in to fill each cup. They pop up nicely, hold their shape well even as they cool, and they can even be re-heated which I discovered when we snacked on the leftovers.
Served warm, these little, bite-sized morsels had a light, golden crust on the outside with pillowy, moist, and savory insides. The amount of blue cheese used here provides just a mild pungency. To my taste, I would actually consider increasing the amount to push that flavor forward. But, if blue cheese isn’t your thing, try these simple, tidy popovers with gruyere or parmigiana reggiano for your next cocktail hour.
For the topping, jasmine tea leaves were steeped in cream for eight to twelve hours. Medrich notes that the cream should be poured through a sieve to remove the tea after twelve hours even if you won’t be using it yet. I steeped the cream overnight, and removed the tea in the morning. When I tasted the cream at that point, there was a lovely, subtly floral, jasmine presence. However, by the time dessert was served, the jasmine was nowhere to be found. It was a nice addition to the cream, and in the future, I’ll time it so the jasmine tea is removed just before serving.
One other point to mention is the serving temperature. The tart should be removed from the refrigerator about 30 minutes prior to serving so the filling can slightly soften. I failed to give it quite enough time, and the chocolate was a little firmer than ideal. It may seem like I’m nitpicking on several tiny details, but for a dessert like this with so few ingredients, every part of the process matters. The chocolate has to be excellent, the texture has to be right, and all the flavors have to come together. Then, it becomes just what it was intended to be. The result was very good, but next time I’ll know how to make it even better.
Seeing molasses in the ingredient list may have somewhat influenced my decision as I think I’m developing a molasses dependency. The 
Apparently, they were, in fact, freakishly good. Everyone who tried one got that jaw-dropped look of wonder. After having a sample, Kurt is searching our kitchen for more, is sure there must be some hidden somewhere, and can’t believe I took them all to work. He might be right. I definitely recommend the book, but if you need some of these cookies before you can get a copy,