Couscous Salad -- Our Favorite Summer Meal

Summer Couscous Salad

A bright, healthy side salad or main dish. Perfect for a sunny day.

Years ago, when my MIL was vegan, she made this simple couscous salad. She doesn't even remember making it, but I loved it and figured out how to make something like it. My kiddos love this salad, and we have it about once a week in the summer. It's perfect for summer because there's no oven needed.

We always serve this with the cucumbers on the side because the leftovers don't hold up as well with the cucumber added into the salad.

Add cheesy quesadillas and call it a meal.

Ingredients

Serves 4 people

Dressing

• 3 T. extra version olive oil
• 2 T. lime juice
• 2 t. red wine vinegar
• 1 t. cumin powder
• 1 t. chili powder

Salad

• 1 c. prepared couscous (Israeli or regular)
• 1 red pepper, chopped
• 1 can corn
• 1 can black beans
• 1/4 c. cilantro, chopped
• 1/2 c. feta
• 1 cucumber, chopped

Preparation

• Prepare couscous by brining 1 1/2 c. chicken broth to boil. Add 1 cup dry couscous and simmer, covered on Low for 8-10 minutes.
• Whisk all dressing ingredients in a large bowl.
• Chop veggies.
• Add cooked couscous, red pepper, corn, black beans, cilantro, and feta to the bowl.
• Mix and adjust seasoning as needed.
• Serve with chopped cucumber!

Mom's Healthy Cheesy Potato Soup

There's nothing like a good bowl of soup on a cold day.  I remember so many delicious soups from my childhood.  Taco soup, white chili, traditional chili, and mom's cheesy potato soup were my favorites.  My mom's cheesy potato soup is hearty and filling, especially with a side of cornbread.  

But, the soup calls for milk or heavy cream plus Velveeta.  I love this recipe, but eating healthier means cutting the unhealthy food, even when it is a favorite comfort food.  So, I thought I would have to save my mom's cheesy potato soup for special occasions.  But then I made a vegan zucchini bisque using cashews to add creaminess.  I was skeptical, but the cashews really did make it creamy.  Nevertheless, the soup tasted really healthy and was just missing something.  With this in mind, I decided to adapt my mom's cheesy potato soup recipe into a healthy version, but to balance the healthy changes while maintaining the original flavor.  The cashew cream takes the place of the milk or heavy cream, but this is not a vegan recipe because I kept the Velveeta instead of using a vegan cheese substitute. 

The new and improved version of Mom's healthy cheesy potato soup was an absolute success with my husband and kiddos!  It will be added back into the regular rotation of soups this fall and winter!

Mom's Healthy Cheesy Potato Soup 

Ingredients
3-4 potatoes, chopped into cubes
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 carrots, sliced
1/2 onion, diced
2 c. water
1 chicken bouillon cube
1 t. parsley flakes
rosemary
thyme
salt
pepper
2-3 inches Velveeta loaf

Cashew Cream
1 c. cashews
1 1/2 - 2 c. water

Directions
In large soup pot, combine potatoes, celery, carrots, onion, water, and bouillon.  Add parsley, rosemary, thyme, salt, and pepper to taste.  Simmer 15-20 minutes or until potatoes and carrots are tender.  

In the meantime, boil cashews with water just covering the nuts.  Simmer for 15-20 minutes.  The cashews will plump up and be ready to be made into cream.

Using a food processor or blender, blend the simmered cashews with water.  Use leftover water from boiling.  Blend until smooth.  Continue adding water until mixture reaches a consistency that is near heavy cream or whole milk.  (I used a magic bullet and did this step in batches.  In all, I added about 1 1/2 cups of water.)   You should end up with about 2 cups of cashew cream/milk.  

Add the cashew cream/milk to the vegetables and stir.  Add 2-3 inches of a Velveeta loaf.  This works best if the cheese is cubed first.  Stir until melted.  

Variations and Additions
1/2 c. mushrooms
1 c. fresh spinach or kale
1 can sweet corn kernels 

I could not tell a difference between using milk, cream, or cashews.  And if you're not convinced yet, Mom's Healthy Cheesy Potato Soup has been endorsed by Baby Prez!

 

*The post "Mom's Healthy Cheesy Potato Soup" originally appeared on HarveyEverAfter.com*

Modern Cowgirl Macaroni and Cheese

Who doesn't love mac'n cheese?

There are so many delicious recipes out there for macaroni and cheese.  Seriously, I think I could make an entire Pinterest board dedicated to macaroni and cheese.  I could, but I won't.

This evening I was pondering what to make for dinner.  I have a menu, but as usual, I didn't realize that I was out of a key ingredient for tonight's dinner.  Thus, the pondering.

After a quick check of the pantry and fridge, I pulled out some pasta and a variety of cheeses, intending to make a four cheese macaroni and cheese, but I knew that the recipe was missing something.


But, what?


The answer was Cowgirl Ride 'Em Rub.


I purchased it awhile back even though I don't ever make ribs or any other barbecue for that matter.  I'm a sucker for cowgirl or cowboy things.  (Go Pokes!)  So I'm always looking for ways to add it to recipes.  Tonight's macaroni and cheese recipe. . . success.  I was able to incorporate the Cowgirl spices with a modern twist on macaroni and cheese with the prevalence of the feta cheese.

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Modern Cowgirl Macaroni and Cheese

Pasta of your choice 

1 inch queso blanco Velveeta

1 T butter

1/4 C sharp cheddar

1/2 C feta

1/4 C milk

salt

Cowgirl Ride 'Em Rub

Prepare pasta according to instruction.  After draining, return to hot pot and add Velveeta, butter, cheddar, feta, and milk.  Stir until melted and then add spices to taste.  

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I was so pleased with this easy, modern twist on the classic macaroni and cheese!  This will definitely go in the recipe box for the future.

Linked up @ Friday Food Frenzy, Foodie Friday, and #FoodieFriday.

photo credit

**This post contains affiliate links.**

Pinterest in Practice: Freezer Tater Tot Casserole

While I was pregnant, I put together some freezer meals to get through the first month or so of having an infant.  We were blessed to have help for a couple of weeks, so the freezer meals have lasted longer than I expected.

Most recently, we ate the Tater Tot Casserole that I found at Just A Little Nutty.  Here's the original pin from Pinterest.

I adapted the recipe for more vegetables in an effort to add veggies to our diet, so here's the recipe:

Tater Tot Casserole

1/2 lb ground beef, browned

1/2 small onion, chopped

2 T milk

1/2 can cream of mushroom soup

4 oz Velveeta

8 oz fresh or frozen vegetables

1 1/2 c shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 package frozen tater tots

Place all ingredients in freezer bag and freeze.  

To use, place frozen meal in slow cooker on Low for 6-8 hours.

Pros:

• Taste: The casserole tasted as expected.  It was full of cheesy, potato-ey goodness.
• Prep: The preparation for this meal was incredibly easy and fast.

Cons:

• Appearance: As you can see in the photo below, the casserole ended up looking like a gooey mess, which is fine if you are expected it, but I wouldn't serve this to company.
• Healthiness: I added extra vegetables to this recipe, but it is still rather unhealthy with the cheese and tater tots.
• Texture: Though the casserole tastes delicious, the tater tots lost all form in the crock pot and did not have the crispiness normally associated with tater tots. 

Because I didn't have 6 hours to cook the casserole, I put it in on high for a couple of hours and then switched it to low for another couple of hours.  Though I often use this little shortcut, this time it backfired.  The casserole was looking great after the first couple of hours on high, but after another couple of hours on low, it burnt!  I can only imagine that it would have been worse had I cooked it on low for a whole 8 hours!  The other major complaint that I have is the loss of tater tot form, not only were the tater tots not crisy, they simply fell apart when I stirred the casserole together.  Finally, even though I added almost twice as many vegetables as the recipe called for (about 16 oz), the casserole definitely could have used more.  The flavor was great if you are looking for yummy comfort food.  

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Taste/Flavor:  A
Ease of Preparation:  A+
Prep Time:  A+
Presentation:  D

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Overall Grade for this Pinterest in Practice Project: B-

Alternative Recipes:

To improve this dish, I would recommend:

• Double the vegetables
• Omit the tater tots from freezing.  Prepare them according to package instructions and add to casserole immediately before serving.

Pinterest in Practice: S'mores Popcorn

For Independence Day, the hubby and I were invited to two barbeques, so I made a couple of Pinterest inspired desserts to take - Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie, which I reviewed previously, and S'mores Popcorn.

I found the recipe for S'mores Popcorn on Pinterest from the Nest of Posies blog.  The recipe sounded delicious and was too good to pass up with only four ingredients!  I already loved to add chocolate chips and marshmallows to my popcorn, so adding Golden Grahams to the mix sounded like a perfect addition to make something resembling s'mores.

And who doesn't love s'mores?  

Pros:

• Super easy: This recipe is uncomplicated and requires almost no cooking skills.
• Attractive: The end product looks yummy.
• Taste: Overall, the taste of the s'mores popcorn is, in fact, yummy!

Cons:

• False advertising: Even though this tastes great, it does not taste like s'mores, at all. It tastes like popcorn, marshmallows, and cereal with some chocolate.
• Unclear instructions: The recipe seems simple with only 4 ingredients, and it is. BUT, you'll notice that there are no quantities of ingredients listed.  So I just had to guess on how much to add because the recipe is not clear on what size the box of cereal should be, what size the bag of chocolate chips should be, etc.  
• Kernels: Simply mixing the ingredients is not enough, which I guess goes back to the clarity of the instructions, but I found that it is extremely important for the success of the recipe to remove each and every unpopped kernel of popcorn prior to adding any other ingredients.

When I was preparing this recipe, I found that the lack of clear instructions was quite frustrating, especially since I was trying to tweak the recipe just slightly.  Instead of just using normal semi-sweet chocolate chips, I also used white chocolate chips to which I added food coloring, resulting in some red and blue drizzle for Independence Day!  It worked great to add the food coloring, but I was unsure how much total chocolate drizzle was needed.  Also, drizzling the chocolate was harder than it looked.  I didn't know how long to microwave the chips to get them to the correct consistency to pour.  It turns out that I never found the magic number and ended up adding a small amount of vegetable oil to the melted chocolate to make its smoother.  Even then, it was difficult to get it smooth and melty enough to drizzle like in the photo.  Adding the oil also introduced another problem - the chocolate did not set up and harden as expected.  Instead it stayed in a liquid-like form, which made the final product very, very messy.  Finally, the popcorn kernels presented a problem.  Since I did not think about picking each one out before spreading the dry ingredients on the sheet pans, the melted chocolate stuck to the kernels along with the other ingredients.  Then, when the dessert was served and eaten, the kernels were also served and (not) eaten.  In other words, I had to spit out kernels with each bite.  

Overall Grade for this Pinterest in Practice Project: B-

While the flavor of this dessert was yummy, it did not taste like s'mores as expected and the unclear instructions resulted in a product that I wish I would not have served to friends.  

If you try this recipe, heed my cautions and learn from my mistakes!


Alternative Recipes

Alternatively, I think the ingredients of the recipe could be combined in other ways to create better dessert options.  

S'mores Bars 

Melt the marshmallows and mix with the Golden Grahams (with or without the popcorn) to make Rice Krispie-like treats.  Then melt the chocolate chips and spread on top for a chocolate icing.  Don't forget to remove the kernels if using popcorn!

S'mores Chex Mix 

Follow the original instructions, but Nix the popcorn and add Chex to the recipe instead. 

S'mores Popcorn  

Instead of melting the chocolate chips, simply mix them in with the marshmallows, popcorn, and Golden Grahams.  

photo credit

{Prepping for the Bean} Freezer Cooking #1: Ground Beef + Printables

Everyone, and I mean everyone, we have talked to has mentioned stalking up on freezer meals for the first month or so after the Bean arrives.  Since we do not have a chest freezer, and only have the freezer space in our side-by-side refrigerator, lots of pre-made, commercial frozen meals seemed like a rather inefficient idea.  Plus, since I'm super frugal and hate spending extra money on the decent frozen dinners, not to mention that they are usually unhealthy as well as mushy.  So, my first freezer cooking adventure began.

I found a local grocery deal on ground beef for $1.98/lb.  The catch was that to get the deal required a 10 lb purchase in one of those gross rolls.  I sucked it up and brought home my giant roll of ground beef.

I started by browning all 10 pounds of ground beef, and from that 10 pounds, I made 3 pounds seasoned with onions, 4 pounds of taco meat, 2 pounds simply seasoned, with 1 pound leftover for spaghetti last night!  

The savings was great, especially compared to buying meals out of the freezer section at the grocery store!  Overall, I spent about $40 on the meat, produce, and a few other items, and was able to find everything else in my stockpile.  


9 lb Ground Beef Freezer Menu

• 2 tater tot casseroles (adapted from Just A Little Nutty)
• 1 spaghetti meat sauce
• 20 burritos (adapted from Money Saving Mom and Pennies and Pancakes)
• 20 taquitos (made by Prince Charming)
• 2 pounds browned for later use

You can find the printables for the grocery list and recipes here:

Ground Beef Freezer Cooking Grocery List

Ground Beef Freezer Cookies Recipes

**Update**

Freezer Cooking Recipe Reviews

Tater Tot Casserole Review

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Pinterest in Practice: Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie

For Memorial Day weekend, the hubby and I went over to some friends for a little pre-Bean barbecue.  I offered to take dessert, and I was super excited about finding a new recipe to try.  It seems like I am always looking for main dish recipe ideas, but I just don't have the time (nor do any of us need the extra calories) for finding sweet recipe ideas for dessert.  

My two loves for recipe ideas are All Recipes.com and Pinterest.  Thanks to a recommendation from a friend AND a Pinterest recipe, I decided to try and test Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie from A Little Bit Crunchy!

Sounds delicious, right?!

The best part is that has less than 10 ingredients, and most of them I already had on hand (and you probably do, too).  I even had a pie crust in the freezer that I bought on a couponing run awhile back.  

The only negative was that it was already humid and warm outside, so having the oven on for an hour was uncomfortable, and I couldn't justify turning on the air conditioner yet.  

The result was well worth it!  The pie really does taste like a chocolate chip cookie with a slightly more moist texture.  I didn't serve it right out of the oven (which would most likely be awesome), but microwaving each piece for 15 seconds melted the chocolate again and really took it one step above amazing!  

The recipe is:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie

1 unbaked pie shell (I used a premade Pillsbury one)

2 large eggs

1/2 cup flour

small pinch salt

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Pie:

Beat the eggs, on high, until foamy.  Beat in the flour and then both sugars on medium or medium low.  Then, beat in the butter.  Stir in the chocolate chips.  Spoon into the pie crust and bake for 55-60 45 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack.

Topping:

Melt 1/4 cup chocolate chips.  Add 1/2 teaspoon oil.  Stir and pour into a piping bag zipper bag, and use a narrow tip.  Cut off a tiny corner and drizzle over the pie.

As you can see I made a few small changes.  I eliminated the nuts from the recipe altogether.  Also, thanks to my friend's suggestion I removed the pie after 45 minutes instead of 55 minutes.  Next time, I would probably even check it at 40 minutes because the crust was slightly darker than perfection.  If it had baked any longer than 45 minutes, it would have burnt.  The other big suggestion I would make is that if you have cake decorating supplies, a piping bag and narrow round tip would work much better than a ziploc baggie.  This time I was lazy and tried using a baggie.  While it did work, the drizzle would have looked much better and more consistent if I had used a piping bag instead.  Next I will make the effort to get out extra supplies.  If you don't have access to cake decorating supplies, I would suggest starting small when you cut the corner of the ziploc.  I thought I was cutting small, and the hole turned out bigger (i.e. the drizzle was thicker) than I would have preferred.

Overall Grade for this Pinterest in Practice Project: A-

The pie was delicious, but if I had followed the instructions perfectly, it would have burnt and likely been ruined for our Memorial Weekend BBQ.  

Adventurous Eating

Growing up, I was never an adventurous eater.  Well, compared to my sister, maybe I was :-).  Now I've found that I love many types of food that I wouldn't have thought about trying only a few years ago.  I love Thai food.  I love Indian food.  I love curry.  I love calamari.  I even like mussels.

At this point, I would try almost anything.  ALMOST.  Forget trying bugs.  I will not try bugs.  A couple of weeks ago, Alex and I were at the Farmer's Market, and one of the vendors was selling farm-raised, dressed rabbit.  Yes, that's right.  I said rabbit.  Did we buy one?  Yes, of course we did.  The woman at the farmer's market stand told us that rabbit can be prepared any way that you would prepare chicken.  So, we decided to make oven roasted rabbit.  Here's a picture of the finished, plated product.

Verdict: No more rabbit.

It was not terrible, but it also was not good.  We'll see what they have at the farmer's market next time to add to our cooking repertoire.

A better experience was our sangria experiment.  After having a glass of blackberry sangria at Outback Steakhouse that tasted like pure blackberry flavoring, we decided to make our own sangria.  Strawberries, blackberries, pineapple, ugli fruit, apples, and red wine.  Yum.  It was definitely an improvement over the restaurant sangria.

In other news, my laptop screen shattered awhile back much to my dismay.  I had been plugging it into my 40 inch TV to use it, which means I had to sit about 3 feet from the TV on the floor staring up at the screen.  Not so much fun.  But... my amazing boyfriend installed a new screen, and now it works perfectly again!  Yay!

Yummy!

It's been so long since I've posted on here...so I'm forgetting the update and moving on!

Lately, I've been trying really hard to make a menu, make few trips to the grocery store, eat out less, and cook more.  This post provides a couple of awesome recipe recommendations!

Things I've tried recently:

• Chicken Tikka Masala 
• Slow cooker Mexican
• Breakfast pizza
• Spinach & ricotta-stuffed shells with shrimp
• Pita pizzas

Most of these have been from a friend's food blog (which I would HIGHLY recommend, in general).  Overall, we've like all of the dishes above with the chicken tikka masala easily taking 1st place!  Her blog is at sarahwalbridge.wordpress.com.  Seriously...check it out!

I also just got a bread machine from someone on Craigslist for free!  What a great deal.  It works perfect and is so easy...even easier than running to the store for bread!  I've been using a recipe from allrecipes.com, which was rated 5 stars by hundreds of people.  They were right.  It's great.  (You can find the recipe here.)

My biggest struggle is actually using all of the produce I buy for each recipe before it goes bad.  It seems like I always have too much celery or green onions.  I've found that cheesy potato soup loaded up with lots of extra veggies works great.  We also threw a bunch of stuff in the crockpot (with chicken and ground pork making of a majority of it) last weekend, spiced it up Indian style, added veggies at the end, served it over rice, and it was delicious.  It was one of those things that I'm not sure could be recreated if we tried.

I'd also like to find a good curry recipe, so if anyone out there could send one my way, I'd appreciate it.

Well, it's time to get back to writing my thesis!

Summer

It's officially summer because school is out and the big news is that I have a roommate.  My sister Kiley is living here for the summer!  She has a job as a counselor for a kids' camp, which sounds like a blast.

I also recently had some visitors to my house.  My maternal grandparents and my parents came up for a weekend to help Kiley move in and for my grandparents to see my home.  We had a lot of fun and I enjoyed showing them around Lincoln and taking them to my favorite local restaurants. 

Last week I saw Wicked in Omaha with one of my best friends here and my sister.  It was fantastic!  Even better than I remembered and what a great day with friends.  After the show, we walked down to the Old Market area and found a restaurant for an early dinner.  Stokes was wonderful; we got to sit outside on the patio, take advantage of happy hour specials (like a raspberry mojito and ahi tuna tacos), and had great service.  We finished off the day with ice cream from Maggie Moo's and I have to say that the chocolate peanut butter was delicious. 

For Memorial Day weekend, we headed back home for a wedding reception and to celebrate my mom's birthday.  The reception was so much fun; it's always entertaining to go to a traditional hometown reception.  We also hit up the usual places like Taco Shop (yum!!!).  Kiley and I made a German chocolate cake from scratch for our mom's birthday from Trisha Yearwood's recipe.  It was amazing, but I would recommend making a little extra frosting.  

Trisha Yearwood's German Chocolate Cake
 
4 ounces sweet dark chocolate
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup warm milk
2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 medium egg whites
2 cups sugar
5 medium egg yolks, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup buttermilk, well shaken
 
For the coconut frosting:
1 cup sugar
4 medium egg yolks
1 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
10 ounces fresh or frozen and thawed grated coconut
1 1/2 cups finely ground pecans, walnuts, or almonds
1/4 cup warm milk

1. Prepare the chocolate by melting it in the top of a double boiler, stirring until it is smooth. Add 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) of the butter and stir until it is melted and blended. Add 1/4 cup of warm milk and stir until smooth. Set the chocolate aside to cool.
2. Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
3. Line the bottoms only of three 9-inch cake pans with circles of parchment paper, or grease each pan bottom only with solid shortening and dust lightly with flour. 
4. Sift together the sifted and measured flour, baking soda, and salt.
5. Whip the egg whites until stiff using the wire beater of the mixer. Transfer the beaten whites to a separate bowl and set aside.
6. In the mixer bowl, cream the remaining 1 1/2 sticks of butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the melted, cooled chocolate and the vanilla. Mix well.
7. With the mixer on very low, stir in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk. Do this by adding about a third of the flour and slowly stirring it in completely. Then add about half the buttermilk and stir it in. Continue adding flour and buttermilk in this manner, ending with flour. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and stir again. With a long-handled spoon or spatula, fold and stir the beaten egg whites into the batter until the batter is smooth with no visible clumps of whites.
8. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans and bake for 30-40 minutes. Bake on the middle rack of the oven, allowing at least 1/4-inch clearance between the pans and the oven walls. The cake will rise above the pan edges as it bakes but will not spill over and will settle back down as it continues to bake. The cake is done when it begins to pull away from the sides of the pans and springs back to a light touch. Cool layers in the pans for about 8 minutes.
9. Run a knife around the edges of each pan and turn the layers out onto wire racks that have been sprayed with cooking spray. Cool layers completely before frosting.
10. To make the frosting, combine the sugar, egg yolks, and evaporated milk in the top of a double boiler. Stir with a wire whisk until the yolks are fully incorporated. Add the butter. Place over simmering water and bring to a boil (see Note below). Simmer for 12-15 minutes longer, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens. Add the vanilla, coconut, and nuts. Cool.
11. To assemble the cake, place one layer on a cake stand and spread with frosting. Frost each layer completely, top and sides, as it is added to the cake.

Note: You can also make the frosting in a regular saucepan, but be sure to stir it constantly, as it scorches quite easily. Also, you must use the finely grated fresh or frozen coconut, not canned or shredded, to be able to spread the frosting on the sides of the cake easily.

   

AND Kiley made incredible chicken enchiladas tonight!  Unfortunately, I didn't think of taking pictures until after we'd eaten, but they were great and super easy!

Sam's Mom's Chicken Enchiladas

3-4 chicken breasts, shredded
1 tub fiesta dip or jalapeno sour cream dip
1 tub sour cream
tortillas
shredded cheese
Louisiana hot sauce

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix the fiesta dip and sour cream in a bowl.  Now you are ready to assemble!
3. Spread a layer the sour cream mixture on a tortilla.  Now add chicken, hot sauce (to taste), and shredded cheese down the middle.  There are no specific quantities for each, we just make it look good. :)  Wrap the tortilla and put it in a 9x13 glass pan.  
4. Repeat until the pan is full.  Put the remaining sour cream mixture on top and add a layer of shredded cheese.  
5. Bake covered for 30 minutes; then remove the foil and back uncovered for 10 minutes.  Yum!

Biscuits

So far, this blog has served only the purpose of keeping friends and family up to date.  I'm going to start adding some new things like recipes, both for fun and to add some substance to the blog!

Today's feature recipe is biscuits!  This is my go-to recipe whenever I want biscuits.  They are perfect as a side with chili or scrambled eggs or as the main meal with jam or honey or sausage gravy for breakfast.


Elise's Biscuits

Dry:
1 cup flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sugar (I use a full teaspoon if I plan to eat them with jam or honey)
1/4 teaspoon salt (the original recipe calls for 1/2 teaspoon, but I always halve the salt)

Wet:
6 Tablespoons milk
2 1/2 Tablespoons oil (I usually substitute applesauce for half the oil)

400 degree oven

1. Stir together the dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately.
2. Add the wet mixture to the dry and stir until moistened.
3. Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a slightly greased cookie sheet.
4. Bake for 12-15 minutes (12 is usually enough).

Step 1                                                 Step 2

Step 3

      

Yum!  I use unbleached flour, so the biscuits come out a little darker than when using bleached flour.

Also, I'm looking for a great gravy recipe for biscuits & gravy.  If anyone has one, please point me in the right direction!