Bickies

The oven is finally fixed!  It's been thirty-seven days since I've been able to bake anything!  The whole family has been grumpy and going through withdrawal for bread and scones and, most of all, biscuits.

We love our buttermilk biscuits around here.  They are probably everyone's favorite breakfast treat.  We all have our favorite way to eat them, too.  

Peter likes his with a different kind of jam on each piece and then stuck together like a sandwich.  I like to put either jam or honey on mine but I like them separate, not sandwiched. 

Paul likes to eat his sopped in an over easy fried egg.  Any way you eat them, they are delicious. 

Here is the recipe:  

Buttermilk Biscuits

Preheat the oven to 450º.  

Combine 1 3/4 cups of flour, 2 t. baking powder, 1 t. sugar, 1/2 t. baking soda, and 1/2 t. salt in a bowl and stir until blended.

Cut in 1/4 cup butter until the mixture resembles very coarse cornmeal.   A pastry blender works best for this.

Add in a generous 3/4 cup buttermilk and mix with a fork until the ingredients just come together.

Pat out the dough to a 1" thickness on a lightly floured board.  Cut biscuits with a 2" cutter (I use a 2 1/2" size).  Push the dough together and keep cutting out biscuits until you've used  all the dough.  Try not to handle the dough too much or the biscuits can get tough.  It will make 8-10 biscuits depending on the size of cutter you use.  Transfer the biscuits to a baking sheet and brush the tops with cream or some more buttermilk (This is what I do).   Bake until puffed and golden, about 10 minutes.

At our house, biscuits for breakfast is one of life's lovely pleasures and we went without them for way too long.  Thankfully, they're back.

Blah, Blah, Blah

Not much has been going on around here lately.  I think I have the blahs.  My oven is STILL not fixed.  It's been over a month now although the repair person is coming on Wednesday.  We're all keeping our fingers crossed that this time it's the right part.  We miss our baked goods!  Especially the biscuits.  We love buttermilk biscuits for breakfast around here.  I'll do a post about them as soon as I can make them again.  Sigh...

And it is still winter.  As someone I know posted on Facebook, "stupid groundhog."  Just last week I saw snowdrops poking up and pussywillows emerging and heard the redwing blackbirds chirping.  Now the robins are shivering in the cherry tree, puffed up to keep warm and snow is coming down as I type.  

I've been doing some long overdue reading.  I love to read but have found that I don't do as much as I used to.  I think it's because when I read, I get lost in the book, whatever it is, and hate to be interrupted.  But this household is full of interruptions, that's just life.  I've been reading a book of short stories; The Red Convertible by Louise Erdrich.  I really like her writing.  The nice thing about it is I can stop easily because they are short stories.  

I'm still stitching, too. I'm just finishing a beautiful piece.  It will be a pillow soon.  The next two will be gifts. 

Anyway, I do have a bit of the blahs, feeling like I'm not really accomplishing much and wishing for spring.  Luckily, I know that it is on it's way, just taking its own sweet time.