Croutons

Awhile back, I wanted to attempt a recipe that called for croutons. It was the only ingredient missing from my list (or so I thought - brought down by marinara sauce!) and I didn’t want to make a special run to the store just for croutons. So I dug around in my refrigerator and found the Parker House Rolls and brioche I’d made a few days earlier. Then I set about to finding out how to make croutons.

It’s actually ridiculously easy. And the results are really tasty - while waiting for the chicken parmesan dish I needed them for to finish, I couldn’t resist dipping the extra croutons into the marinara sauce I made. And dipping. And dipping. And oh god, did I really eat that many croutons!?!?

Yes, yes, I did.

I found recipes both simple and complicated online and did a sort of weird hybrid mash. I actually made 2 batches of croutons, one to use the brioche and one to use the rolls. My techniques varied slightly, but not much. The first time, I didn’t bother to look up a recipe and just sort of drizzled olive oil and garlic salt on top. Then I decided to look up a recipe and ho-boy. I was way off. I had my oven at 350-degrees, way too hot for the slow baking the croutons needed. I might have just barely avoided crouton-disaster!

Also, the recipes all say to place oil and croutons in a bowl and mix to coat. Probably because my bread was hard, it was difficult to get an “even coating” as the recipes called for. So I just sort of mixed my second batch for a little, gave up, and threw it in the oven. I couldn’t tell a difference between the croutons drizzled with oil and the ones I actually attempted mixing. I think the high butter content already present in the bread may have helped with that. So here is the unpatented Melanie version of homemade croutons. It really is ridiculously easy.

Homemade Croutons

Bread, cut into 1” cubes
Olive oil
Garlic salt
Onion powder

1- Preheat oven to 275-degrees.

2- Place bread in large pan and coat / drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with garlic salt and onion powder.

3- Place pan in oven and let slowly cook. Shake croutons up every 10 minutes or so. If starting to brown too quickly, lower heat. After 20 minutes, taste crouton to see if it is sufficiently cooked through. If not, keep cooking.

Servings: Varies

Magnolias Biscuits

As many of you may remember, I was the happy recipient of a new cookbook at Christmas, from the chef of the famed Charleston restaurant, Magnolias. I had such a great experience there in 2006 (no longer last year!) when we were in town for Tommy and Penney’s wedding and regarded this book with excitement.

I decided to start with the simplest recipe and make their biscuits, which had 3 ingredients: flour, butter and heavy cream. I am not joking about this.

I was so excited about the idea of fluffy biscuits a la Bojangles but without the pesky cutting of butter. The recipe promised 24 1″ biscuits, which confused me, as I halved the recipe, rolled it out to perhaps 1/4″ and got 5. Granted, they were bigger than 1″ square, but still. Who eats 1″ square biscuits? Blasphemers, that’s who.

I popped them in the oven, popped them back out when they were golden brown and looked on in disappointment at biscuits that rose hardly at all and that were crisp but flavorless. Perhaps this is because I did not brush butter on top - but they looked so sad on the baking sheet I felt they weren’t worthy of putting on a good coat of butter.

Later, when trying to describe them to Amy, I fell short in trying to explain how flat and … weird these biscuits were. So I looked on Flickr for a picture.To demonstrate their flatness, rather than ideal-buttermilk-biscuit-buttery-fluffiness, here is a somewhat good representation.

I can’t write these off biscuits completely, however, because I didn’t quite follow the instructions. I made them the previous night, to go along with the steak I was cooking, but forgot to roll them out for dinner. I stuck them in the refrigerator and tried to salvage them the next day to go along with our Meatball Soup. In the process, I re-rolled them. Perhaps this affected the texture, though we may never know until I try again.

ONE LAST CHANCE is all you get, Magnolias biscuits.

Magnolias Biscuits

2-1/4 cups self-rising flour
1-1/2 cups heavy cream
Butter for brushing later

1- Preheat oven to 400-degrees.

2- Mix flour and heavy cream gently until it comes together as a dough.

3- Pour out onto lightly floured surface. Sprinkle surface with flour and roll flat.

4- Cut into biscuit-shapes.

5- Bake in oven until golden brown.

Servings: It claims 24 1″ biscuits.

Sorry folks, no picture today.

Beer Bread

Here’s another recipe that will go in the pile of “Things to Try.” A recent visit from beloved friends, Amy and Brian, resulted in an awesome dinner that Brian made: yummy steak and mashed potatoes and, the topper, berries with whipped cream on top of his signature biscuits. That resulted in LOTS of self-rising flour for me and a need to get rid of some of it. So here goes!

Beer Bread

1 (12-oz.) bottle of beer
3 cups self-rising flour
⅓ cup white sugar
1 handful jack-and-cheddar cheese blend (optional)

Preparation: Grease two 9” x 5” loaf pans and preheat oven to 350-degrees.

1/ Technique 1: In a large bowl, mix flour and sugar. Add beer and continue mixing, switching to hands after a bit. Pour into loaf pan. Bake until top is crunchy.

2/ Technique 2: Mix flour and sugar. Add cheese and mix to combine. Add beer and mix to combine again. Split into two portions and let sit for half an hour, until doubled in bulk. Brush with butter and sprinkle with garlic salt halfway through baking. Repeat after removing from oven.

3/ In both instances: Mix until just moist. Be careful not to overmix!

4/ Beer guide: light beer – fresh, white bread taste; thicker lager – rich.

Servings: 1 loaf

Shepherd’s Pie and Cheddar Bay Biscuits

The weather has turned abruptly cold in California, leading me to want some good old-fashioned comfort food. Poking through my kitchen, I had some potatoes - putting my Captain Obvious cap on led me to shepherd’s pie.

I looked up several recipes online and kind of mish-mashed one together from available ingredients. I’m not sure if this was the right idea, as the meat was appropriately gravied and the mashed potatoes nice and crisp on the outside but the recipe still lacked a certain oomph. Still, it filled us up. I’ll have to try tweaking this recipe a little bit more because I am rather fond of shepherd’s pie. I keep going back, trying to recreate the magic that was my first experience with it, with a lot of failure.

At least the Cheddar Bay Biscuits I made with them were fairly tasty.

Shepherd’s Pie

Ingredients
5 small potatoes
1 lb. ground lamb
1 small can peas
1/2 onion
Handfull of mushrooms
1 clove garlic
1 small can cream of chicken

Optional
Butter
Sour cream
Milk

Preparation: Prepare skillet to cook meat and baking dish. Preheat oven to 350-degrees.

1/ Mince garlic. Chop onions. Slice mushrooms.

2/ When oil is hot, add garlic and saute for one minute. Add vegetables, sauting for a little bit.

3/ Add ground meat and saute until mostly cooked. Drain of fat and liquid.

4/ Add cream of chicken and can of peas. Spoon into baking dish.

5/ Boil potatoes until easily pierced by a fork. Drain of water. Mash potatoes until smooth, with choice of butter, sour cream or milk.

6/ Scoop mashed potatoes up and dot surface of meat-veggies mixture. With spoon, slowly work the dots of mashed potatoes together until a smooth surface is created.

7/ Bake in oven for 20 - 30 minutes, until top of potatoes are crisp.

Servings: Too many for 2 people

Cheddar Bay Biscuits

Ingredients
2 cups Bisquik mix
2/3 cup milk
1/2 cup shredded cheddar
1/4 cup butter
1/2 tsp. garlic
1/2 tsp. parsley flakes

Preparation: Prepare baking sheet and preheat oven to 350-degrees.

1/ Mix first three ingredients. Add more milk as needed if mixture is slightly dry so that it is moist (but not squishy-wet). Beat vigorously for a few strokes to ensure well mixed. Mixture will be very thick.

2/ Drop by spoonful onto baking sheet. Bake 8 - 12 minutes or until golden brown.

3/ Melt butter. Mix in garlic and parsley. Brush tops of biscuits with them while they are still warm.

Servings: 12 - 5 biscuits