Hubby Likes My New Biscuit!

I have to be honest, Hubby’s never really been that thrilled with my biscuits.  Oh, they’re good enough that he doesn’t complain when I make them, but I hear the occasional, “These aren’t like the ones I grew up on.”  With that in mind, I’ve been trying to keep my eyes open for biscuit recipes that are different than the usual cut in butter, add cream and/or buttermilk.  Recently, I stumbled across exactly what I was looking for.  Ok, so I didn’t immediately realize it was what I was looking for.  In fact, when I saw 7 up in the ingredients list, I was more than a little skeptical. 

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 ¾ cups flour
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 Tablespoons butter, cold
• ½ cup sour cream
• ½ cup lemon lime soda
• ¼ cup butter, melted

Preheat your oven to 425°.  Melt ¼ cup butter and set it aside to cool.  In a mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. 

Cut your cold butter into little chunks and throw them in. 

Turn the mixer on lowish speed and mix until you have something that sort of resembles moist sand.

A pastry blender will also work fine for that, but as you know by now, I’m lazy.  Add the sour cream.  Now, ordinarily I use low fat sour cream.  For tacos or whatever, I just prefer the texture.  However, biscuits need fat, so make sure you use regular, full fat, sour cream. 

Mix that in until it’s incorporated and you have basically a crumbly mess.

Pour in the soda.  It’ll foam up quite a bit as you add it, but don’t worry. 

I know you’re questioning my sanity at this point, and perhaps you should.  But stay with me on the biscuits, you’ll be glad you did.  Stir just until it comes together into a soft, sticky dough. 

Pour your melted butter into the bottom of an 8x8 pan. 

Dust your countertop with plenty of flour.  Scoop the dough onto it, and sprinkle it with flour as well. 

Pat it into a disc about ¾ of an inch thick.  The dough is soft enough, you won’t need a rolling pin. 

Flour your cutter and push it straight down through the dough.  Gather the scraps and repeat.  You should get 9 biscuits. 

Place the cut biscuits into the pan. 

Then flip them over so both sides are liberally coated with butter.  Oh shush, they’re biscuits, not health food. 

Into the preheated oven for 15 – 20 minutes.  They should be nice and golden brown when they’re done.

You could eat them just as they are, they really are fabulous.  Crispy on the outside and soft and tender within.  We had them with sausage gravy, but honey or homemade strawberry jam are also good accompaniments. 

What childhood recipe does your hubby wish you could make? 

Once upon a time

in Mexico.

A dude named Roberto Rodriguez decided he wanted to make movies (okay, no, it wasn't Mexico, it was Texas, but that didn't work with the titles). And he made some awesome flicks. Low budget, strong characters, bizarre and yet entirely believable plotlines... including, in one, a scene in which one character kills another because he made his dinner too good.

I'm not kidding.

Killed him right there in the kitchen as he stood over the stove.

Brilliant.

Wanna know what he made?

Puerco Pibil

according to Roberto Rodruiguez (srsly, watch the video)

What you need:

• 5 tbsp annatto, aka achiote, seeds (or about 3 tbsp pre-ground, which is what I used)
• 2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tbsp peppercorns
• 8 whole allspice seeds
• 1/2 tsp whole cloves
• 2 hatch, anaheim, or poblano chiles (or habanero if you're feeling spicy)
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1/4 cup white vinegar
• 1/4 c white wine vinegar
• 1 tsp salt
• 8 cloves garlic
• juice of 4 limes (or lemons, or some combination thereof)
• 2 oz tequila (or jalapeno wine, or some other booze that you like to have with mexican food)
• 5 lb of pork butt (also known as shoulder)

What you gotta do:

Grind the spices in a coffee grinder, or do it old school in a mortar and pestle.

Combine everything else, except the pork, in the food processor and whiz until it's nice and liquidy. No chunks allowed!

Dump the ground up spices into the food processor and use it to mix them in. Annatto is one of those fabulous spices that's often used as a natural food colour. The Kashi granola bars I bought last week have "annatto colour" listed as the last ingredient. And holy crap, no kidding. This dish would just not be the same without it.

Okay, so, I left out the lime juice so I could get a nice pic of something being poured into something else. This recipe is apparently a little too easy. I had to add steps so I could make food porn.

Chop the butt into 1-2 inch chunks. You can trim some of the fat from the meat if you want to, but you don't have to.

Mix the pork butt into the fabulous saucey marinade.

Um, there wasn't room in the fridge for the giant bowl, so I transferred everything to a 9 x 13 pan. You're going to cook the whole thing, marinade and all, so you may as well let it marinate in that pan.

Let the pork marinate for at least a few hours or as much as a whole day. This is one of those dishes you can put together at night, and toss into the crock pot in the morning. In fact, I think next time I make it, I'll use the crock pot just to prove it.

If you really want to, you can line your baking dish with banana leaves first. If you can find them. Mine were in the frozen section, but if your regular grocery doesn't have them, try an Asian market. Apparently they can be plentiful in groceries that specialize in Thai food...

I didn't do the leaf thing. I just covered mine completely and tightly with a double layer of heavy duty foil. You want to keep as much moisture in as possible. You aren't roasting so much as you are stewing in the oven.

After about 4 hours at 250F it's absolutely fork tender. Falls apart when you try to stab it.

Now, if you can resist temptation, let this sit in the fridge overnight again.

Apparently, there are people in Recipe Guy's house who can't resist temptation.

Shred the meat with a couple forks and stir it into the fabulous spiced juices.

Serve over rice, and top with tomatoes and cilantro.

What movie recipe would you like to see made??