Corny Biscuits and the Kapok Tree

I provided my wonderful biscuit recipe in an earlier post.  An easy improvement – BUY NEW BAKING POWDER.  I used up the old and bought a new can, and I am simply amazed at the difference in quality of the biscuits.  The previous can was a bit old, but it had never been opened so I thought it was probably OK.  Nope.  The new biscuits are so much lighter they almost float.

While sorting through postcards I came across some of the Kapok Tree in Clearwater, FL.  We had gone there for some Important Family Occasions when I was in my early teens.  My Aunt lived just north of Clearwater and when we came to visit everyone would get all dressed up and we would drive down, park, and enter the lovely sculpture and fountain-filled gardens.

I remember the extravagant dining areas and coordinating restrooms.  And the corn fritters.  I was making biscuits one day and thought about making corn muffins with corn and jiffy mix.  Opened the can of corn and then got down the box of jiffy mix.  Uh Oh.  It was too old.  In the trash.  Was not in the mood to eat corn as a vegetable so I thought corny biscuits!

Corny Biscuits

1 cup all purpose flour

1 Tbs dry milk powder

1 1/2 Tbs baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1Tbs dried onion flakes

2 Tbs sugar

1/2 can of corn – about 7 oz

drain corn juice into measuring cup and add milk or water to make 3 oz

1 oz canola oil

mix, and make drop biscuits.  Bake. Makes 1/2 batch.

They are delicious and I’ve made them several times.

Back to the postcards.  After seeing the Kapok Tree postcard, I remembered how much I liked the CORN FRITTERS they served family style with every meal.  I think we would have been happy with individual plates of corn fritters.  The recipe is online, and I checked.  The only difference between my corny biscuits and their fritters – they add an egg and 1/2 the sugar and deep fry them.

I feel almost virtuous.  No deep frying here!

Biscuits

A good friend of mine has a daughter with the “touch.”  This is a precious and valued commodity for a southern family as it means pastry and biscuits made by this person will be light, fluffy, edible, and have no relationship to a hockey puck.

It isn’t me.  My mother’s mother was said to make the best and lightest biscuits, and she taught my mother.  They both had the same size hands so could measure the appropriate amount of flour, salt, and baking powder.  I have much bigger hands than my mother and didn’t have biscuit lessons.  We used either whomp biscuits or Bisquick.

If you don’t know about whomp biscuits – they come in a can from the grocery store.  You unwind a trapezoid shape of paper from the outside of the cylinder and if you don’t hear a “whompf” sound of the biscuits opening, you whomp them on the edge of the counter.  Whomp biscuits.

I can make a delicious whomp biscuit – first you melt half a stick of margarine in the pyrex pie plate…then dip the biscuits in the “butter”.  Put the dough circles back in the oven to bubble and fry in the excess margarine.

Bisquick was just about the same, but we made drop biscuits and although they were OK, they weren’t Biscuits.

After growing to the appropriate age where they let you live on your own, I ventured into baking.   I was thorough – the Crisco was evenly blended into the dry mixture so every lump was pea-sized.  The delicate dough was overworked and biscuits were tough.

Then came the diet years.  Bread was carefully dolled out and hot breads were just too tempting to eat outside of restaurant settings.

Followed by years of barely cooking.  I called the creations casseroles.  It is amazing how many ways you can mix up a batch of something, toss it in the microwave and get something edible out of it.

Now I am once again interested in biscuits.  Partly because of my venture into the Amish Friendship Bread (AFB, see previous posts for details) and I ran out of bread.  Both flour and oil were in the house for the AFB and I thought to give it another try.  I found a recipe for Wesson Oil Biscuits at Cooks.com and wondered how bad could they be, considering what I’ve eaten in the past.

I had pulled out the Oster Sandwich toaster (OST) that makes neat triangle pockets out of sandwiches.  I ran out of bread because I had fresh tomatoes and a fresh tomato, cheddar cheese, and onion toasted sandwich is quite tasty.  I had also used the OST to make triangle shaped pancake AFB, also good.

Why not biscuits?  It worked!  They were not too bad, but not too light.  Allowing the dough to rest a few minutes did give lighter biscuits but it is hard to wait.  Of course enough butter covers a multitude of biscuit errors.   But too much butter = too many more calories and expensive.  Cheese biscuits were still kind of bland.  Then I thought of Red Lobster biscuits and started adding garlic powder, seasoned salt (Everglades seasoning is my favorite), onion flakes and pepper.  That was GREAT.  I made those quite a bit and then wanted something sweet.  Hmmm… so then added sugar and cinnamon instead of the savory things.  Also good. All adaptations are for ease of a lazy efficient baker.

Wesson Oil biscuits copied from Cooks.com adapted by Dustbunnys

1 c. flour
1/2 Tbs. baking powder (I have a 1/2 Tbs measure which is easier than measuring one and one half tsp or 3 one half tsp, just how my mind works)
1/4 tsp. salt

1 oz Wesson oil
3 oz milk (now if I’ve run out of bread, I’ve probably run out of milk.  Substitute 3 oz of water and add 2 Tbs of milk powder to the dry ingredients)

mix all dry ingredients thoroughly.

measure water/milk and oil in the same measuring cup.  Pour all at once into the flour mixture. Stir with a fork/spoon (whatever) until mixture clears sides of bowl and rounds up into a ball.

Plug in OST and let dough rest while it comes to temp.  When the little light shuts off, it is hot and ready to bake biscuits.  The ball of dough makes 8 nice biscuits so scoop about 1/8 of the dough into one of the triangle wells.  Add a tiny bit of butter (or more) to the top of the dough.  When all the wells are filled and buttered, close the lid.

Depends on how much butter you put in…you may hear sizzling right away.  Maybe not.  Watch the light go back on, reheat the griddle and then turn off again.  Do not open!  When the light comes on a second time, lift the lid and admire the toasty golden brown biscuits.

Remove and replace with more lumps of raw dough and butter.  Try not to eat too many biscuits waiting on the second batch to cook.

I haven’t measured the savory ingredients – I pretty much substitute seasoning salt for the table salt, add garlic powder, onion flakes, and pepper.  How much depends on you.  I’ll measure next time I make them.  If I can find the herb mix for olive oil dipping I plan to make an olive oil batch.  Those should be VERY good.

Sweet biscuits – I did measure and write down:

add to dry mixture 1/4 tsp cinnamon and 2 Tbs sugar

Almost like a scone, but a bit more moist and softer.

Night all!

Sushi

Sis loves sushi and has introduced me to that lovely morsel of most anything wrapped in seaweed and rice. Amazing flavor in just a bite. I know there are all different types including a little block of rice with a bit of raw fish draped over the top (sashimi). But I prefer the complex and intriguing mixes of modern American sushi rolls.

A new restaurant has opened up near her home and on my last visit we went twice – once with bro and sis-in-law and then we went back a second night. Wow. It was so good you could hardly stand it. On our repeat visit it was just the two of us and we sat at the sushi bar and chatted with one of the chefs. It is a small, family owned restaurant and I hope it succeeds as we can always use another place to get Good Food. I would be hard to pick a favorite – they had something called “Passion Roll” with tuna, Kani, Avo, and tempura battered to deep fry. This was sooo good – they wouldn’t even have to fry the thing to get me to eat it. Another one is the yamagata roll with asparagus, shitake, avo and spicy mayonaise.

There is always somewhere to get sushi – you can get small boxes of it premade in grocery store deli’s. All-you-can-eat chinese buffets have a few selections on their menus. One of my neighborhood stops has a sushi on their buffet – three types: 1-fried shrimp, mayo and a raw green bean; 2-fried fish, mayo, and a raw green bean; and 3-Krab, mayo, and a raw green bean rolled in the tiny (and delicious) orange egg things. Gotta look up the correct teminology…LOL Not bad, but does get monotonous.

Then we ate at the sushi restaurant near Sis’s house. I don’t think I can go back to really enjoying my neighborhood sushi. It is like eating a fine steak and then a Happy Meal. No comparison. Definitely time to explore and find another sushi outlet! But my neighborhood hangout is used to me coming in solo and claiming a booth to read and eat, so I shall be back.

Anyway

This brings me back to how this train of thought started. I was checking out one of the crafty blogs I enjoy and noticed Spam Sushi. Really. No Joke. http://zakkalife.blogspot.com/2008/04/spam-musubi-101.html.

Doesn’t this look delicious? Go check it out as it includes the recipe and pictures to guide you through the assembly process. The Blogger is an excellent writer and so creative. A nice person, too, as she is allowing me to post her photo on my modest blog.

I’m new at sushi, but an old hat at spam. Nothing like pan-fried spam sandwich on white bread with mayonnaise…sends your salt levels over the weekly limit, but a handy way to eat the spam from last year’s hurricane supplies. Didn’t think there was spam sushi as we usually see precisely sliced slivers of quality fish.

Then I remember that you could get Spam almost everywhere in Hawaii – Sis and I visited there a LONG time ago and had one of the best vacations EVER. Seeing Spam used in all the Pacific cuisines was kind of a shock and we were told it became part of the culture during WWII.

We even made sushi at bro’s house during one visit years ago, and it was FUN. One of those nice meals where each person can select from dishes of sliced and chopped veggies and strips of COOKED meat (no spam) to compile into a sushi roll. My niece was the teacher, and guided us in the proper techniques. She was pretty good, and my roll held together and sliced nicely. I went back for seconds.

In order not to sound like a total ignorant person, I googled and found a sushi and sashimi FAQ. Very interesting reading.

Hmmm. Must be hungry to be talking about food again! (family joke) and supper is almost ready.

Night all.

Crispy Rice Cereal Marshmallow Treats

We are all familiar with the Treats and how easy they are to make. When I visited Sis last, she bought some pre-packaged Name-Brand Crispy Rice Cereal Treats and we inhaled the box within a day or two.

After returning home, making a batch and eating the WHOLE THING in two days I thought it would be easy to cut down the recipe. It is. Eating them still warm from the microwave is also GOOD. Here is my recipe cut-down to about 4 servings. When and how much you eat is up to you!

Since I’ve been watching Rachael Ray cook – who measures? This isn’t rocket science, folks! No pictures as my camera is safe and sound at Sis’s house – right in the dining room at the front edge of the bench where I left it last…

- 5 marshmallows

- somewhere around 1 Tablespoon Butter (the butter company is so nice to put these markings on the wrapper)

Put in microwave safe container (I used the 3 cup Glad microwave safe plastic tub because it was clean. It turned out to give me plenty of room to stir in the cereal). Nuke about 30 seconds and watch the marshmallows GROW! Remove from microwave, stir to mix up the butter/marshmallow mixture and add:

- Little over 1 cup of rice cereal – use more if too “wet” or less next time if not sticky enough. I used too much cereal, and I liked it better as it wasn’t as teeth-achingly sweet as the normal recipe.

Stir thoroughly and press into the bottom of the dish. Eat while warm if you can’t wait.