Green Onion, Cheese, and Sour Cream Drop Biscuits

I made these awhile ago, and they were delicious. Then I promptly lost the recipe.

Lucky for you, the last time I pulled out the bread machine this tattered stained recipe made it's appearance. Note how you can see through the paper. This is thanks to the half a cup of oil I probably spilled on it.

Since I am nice, I shall decipher this scribbled mess into something readable.

You will need:

1 cup flour
1/2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking powder (don't use the Dutch kind, you will be sad)
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tbsp butter, cut into small pieces
2 oz shredded cheese (the scribbled recipe says Cheddar, but I'm 93% certain I used gouda)
1/8 cup green onions, chopped finely
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup sour cream

In a bowl (I like to use a bowl with a lid), mix together dry ingredients. Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or knife (or if you're untechnical like me you can use a fork) Add the cheese and onions and toss well until it's evenly mixed (if you use a bowl with a lid you can put the lid on and go crazy here). Add buttermilk and sour cream and stir until moist. Drop by 1/4 cupfuls onto a baking sheet covered with parchment and bake at 225 C (450 F) for about 15 minutes. The edges should be browned when you're done.

Menu Plan Monday- September 29, 2008

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A rundown of last week:

The Red Pesto works really really well with whole wheat spaghetti. I imagine it will be equally delicious on other forms of pasta. I highly recommend it.

Brunch Enchiladas are also good. We put this recipe in the keep box too.

Lemon Garbanzo Bulgur Pilaf- Bleh, don't bother.

Shoarma was on sale this week so we had that instead of the Felafel sandwiches since it's easier!

For this week:

Bourbon Chicken and fried rice

Tater Tot Casserole- this recipe minus the milk. And you need to sprinkle the cheese on TOP of the tater tots for it to be truly authentic!

Macaroni Mix thingie- It's basically a spice mix for macaroni, I don't know how else to explain it!

Low Carb Pizza- I'm going to give this a try but I may make a couple substitutions because it seems awfully high in fat.

Crockpot Chicken and Brown Rice- this is a new recipe for me too, but if the Crock Pot lady says it is good, I'm gonna try it.

Hairy E-mail

I have a confession to make. It took a great long while before I realized that the Thunderbird icon in my quickstart tray was not a little envelope with blue hair.

An envelope with hair?! "Why would they make the icon an envelope with hair?" you are likely thinking. Well, I don't know. It never occurred to me that an envelope with blue hair wasn't a brilliant plan for an e-mail client icon. I'd even seen the fullsize icon and not made the connection.

I'm a little slow.

Cobbler

This is a bit of a stretch for my "Vintage Thingie Thursday" post, but it's baked in a vintage JAJ Pyrex dish! It's a "June Rose" pattern put out by JAJ (the Pyrex guys in Great Britain).

Everyone seems to have their own method of making a peach cobbler, so I combined a few different recipes and here's what I ended up with.

3/8 cup butter, melted and slightly browned
1/2 cup brown sugar (1/4 cup brown sugar Splenda)
1/2 cup sugar (1/4 cup Splenda, or just leave it out if you use the brown sugar Splenda- it's really sweet).
1/2 cup self rising flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup milk
6 nice fat peaches, peeled, pitted and sliced

For the topping:
2 tbsp butter, melted
1/3 cup oats (quick or regular, not instant)
1-2 tbsp brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 175 C (about 350 F).

Pour the melted and slightly browned butter into a high sided baking dish. Mix the sugars, flours, baking powder, cinnamon and milk. Pour the mixture over the butter. Don't stir it together! Spread the peaches over the top of the batter (again, don't stir it together).

For the topping, mix the oats, butter, and brown sugar together until you get a somewhat crumbly texture. Sprinkle it over the top of the peaches.

Bake for 40-45 minutes.

This is good served hot or cold and it would probably be really nice with ice cream too! It works well with nectarines too.

My Coveted Broccoli Salad Recipe

Apparently this is the most delicious salad on earth because everyone asks me to make it for them. Then they ask me for the recipe and I look at them helplessly because I've made it so many times that I just throw stuff into a bowl without thinking. Well my faithful readers, you are in for a treat because I sat down and figured out what I use for this and I will now share it with you. Don't you feel special?

You will need:
1 good sized head broccoli, cut into florets (the smaller the florets the better)
125 grams (1/4 lb) bacon pieces, fried up and drained
125 grams (1/4 lb) mozzarella, shredded
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/3 cup golden raisins (regular ones work too)
1-2 red onions, chopped finely (the ones here are the size of very small eggs, so I use two)
1/2-3/4 cup mayonnaise (start with a half cup and work your way up)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 1/2 tsp sugar (Splenda works well for this too)
1/4 tsp liquid smoke (optional)

Toss the broccoli, bacon, mozzarella, sunflower seeds, raisins and red onion into a bowl and mix everything well.

Whisk together 1/2 cup mayo, vinegar, sugar, and liquid smoke. Taste your dressing and see if it suits your tastes. If not, add a little more mayo/vinegar until you get it how you want it. I find if you use too much dressing it makes the salad soggy, and it's better if it still has a little crunch to it. Pour the dressing over the salad and mix well.

This really tastes best if it's had some time to sit in the fridge for a few hours before you eat it, but I'm usually not that patient.

The picture above has little bits of cauliflower in it, which works well too.

Menu Plan Monday- September 22, 2008

click the banner and "Menu Plan Monday" for more menu planning ideas

Last week went okay. I ended up finding whole chickens on sale so the taco soup and the squash chili didn't get made. I was a little disappointed in the Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic. It wasn't bad, but it was lacking a little something. That said, it was -very good- as leftovers in the chicken pot pies we had later in the week.

This week:

Whole wheat pasta and Red Pesto Sauce- maybe I'll do roasted cauliflower as a side.

Brunch Enchiladas- I made this over the weekend with chorizo instead of ham and added bell peppers. I had some leftover that I'll finish preparing and we'll have this week. It's VERY VERY good!

Taco Soup (cause I didn't get to it last week)

Lemon Garbanzo Bulgur Pilaf- this is a new recipe for me, but it looks like it'll be good!

Baked Felafel Sandwiches- because I'm sure I'll manage to over estimate the amount of chickpeas I need in the previous recipe. I don't like the sauce listed on this recipe so I use thick Greek yoghurt and garlic and onion.

Pestolicious

This weekend, I explored the wild world of Pesto (in the process, I killed my good trusty sidekick Little Choppy by dropping him on the floor *sniff*).

For the Green Stuff:

2 cloves garlic
2 cups fresh basil
1/2 cup pine nuts
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup olive oil
85 grams (3 oz) cream cheese

In a food processor or blender (a stick blender will work for this too, as I had to learn the hard way) combine the garlic, basil, pine nuts, salt, and pepper. Pulse until everything is chopped and combined. Add the olive oil and pulse again. Then stir in the Parmesan cheese and cream cheese.

Serve spread on freshly baked bread. If you leave out the cream cheese, this is a darn good plain old pesto recipe too! I had a small amount of pine nuts leftover when I finished this, so I just stirred them in without chopping them at the end.


For the red stuff:

55 grams (2 ounces) sun-dried tomatoes
2 tbsp fresh basil leaves
1 tbsp fresh parsley
3 garlic cloves
1/8 cup pine nuts
1/2 small onion
1/8 cup balsamic vinegar
1 whole tomato, peeled and quartered
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

Put the sun-dried tomatoes in a bowl of warm water and let them soften for 5-10 minutes.

In a food processor or blender (again, stick blender will work) combine the softened sun-dried tomatoes, basil, parsley, garlic, pine nuts, and onion. Pulse until well blended. Add the vinegar and tomato pieces and pulse again until well blended. Finally, add the olive oil and pulse once more! Stir in the Parmesan cheese.

This was a good bread spread, but this recipe made enough that even with 6 of us eating off of it, Martijn and I will have enough to have it over pasta sometime this week.