Recicember Day 31: Southern Biscuits with Chicken and Honey Butter
It’s day 31 of the 30 day challenge! Well, if I’d picked a month with the right number of days in it, that would have worked out better. Anyway, for the final day, we’re having Southern biscuits!
These are of course American-Southern biscuits, as opposed to digestives from Cornwall.
They look a bit like scones, have a similar texture, but are usually eaten in place of a potato product.
Ably assisted by The American, we’re going to use a recipe from by Alton Brown on the Food Network website. So, let’s give this Jammie Dodgers and chicken thing a whirl!
‘Murica!
Here’s what we do. Bang on the oven at gas mark 8, grab a single solitary bowl. Chuck in some flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt – I’m already thinking this is going to taste salty. As in, very salty.
Butter and shortening are carefully lobbed in, then rubbed in to make lovely crumbs. Then you have to dig a well.
No, wait, it was make a well in the middle. That’s easier. A cup of buttermilk is poured in, and stirred with a non-walloping spoon.
The sticky dough is then juggled onto a floured board.
Flour is sprinkled on the top, and the dough is folded like a piece of paper several times. It’s then flattened out, and circles are cut out of it. I discovered at this point that I still have no pastry cutters, and so used an empty and clean jar to cut the shapes. This worked well, until I tried to remove the cut shapes and place them on a baking tray.
I managed this with the help of a small spoon, but it did mean that none of them were round.
Sling them in the oven for a bit, along with some chicken, and start making the honey butter! This is made by mixing butter, honey, and cinnamon together – there are many recipes online, and nobody seems to agree how it should be done. So I just did it anyway.
When it’s all cooked, hurl it at a plate, and either spread the honey butter on the biscuits, or put it to one side and dip them in. I chose the latter.
I was right – they were a bit salty. But also delicious. So that’s OK.
TL;DR: Chicken and hob nobs, US style.
Recicember Day 30: Cheese, Pesto and Tomato Sandwich a la Starbucks
Starbucks! What are they good for?
Absolutely nothing!
No, wait, that’s war. Starbucks are good for coffee. And sandwiches. Toasted sandwiches, or grilled sammiches if you are reading in US English. I don’t understand how you grill things in a frying pan.
And what a selection of sandwiches Starbucks have! Let’s not forget they have the classic Marmite and cheese panini! Pro tip – if you try and make one at home, get a spoon of butter, and a half-spoon of Marmite, and mix it into a paste before spreading on the bread. Just like mama Starbucks used to make!
Anyway, here’s my twist on another Starbucks sandwich – the Roasted Tomato and Mozzarella Panini!
Let’s not get carried away…
Roasted tomato and mozzarella is a bit pretentious, so let’s scale it back a bit. We’re going for regular tomato. And proper sliced bread, not a panini. And we’re not using mozzarella – we’re using Emmental, a Swiss cheese. But that’s fine, because they speak Italian in Switzerland.
So, let’s fire up the George Formby Foreman grill and get started!
Obtain two slices of bread. Chop a tomato into slices. Sling some green pesto on the bottom slice of bread. You can go quite close to the edge with it, as it doesn’t tend to leak.
Cover it with cheese. Neatly arrange the tomato on it.
Put the lid on, and place it in the grill. See? An actual grill!
Remove from grill once toasted, chuck it on a plate.
Slice diagonally for that professional look.
Enjoy with a cuppa…
And it’s just as good as Starbucks. Except, it’s made with different stuff. But at least the drinks are cheaper. And you can pick the music too. You can even add extra fillings if you want. Pesto and Marmite, anyone?
TL;DR: Toasted a grilled sandwich in a grill. Starbucks.
Recicember Day 29: Basic Waffles in a Christmas Present!
What do you get the highly attractive man who has everything? Well, according to my son, a combination treat maker that makes waffles!
It looks like a mini George Foreman Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine, but it’s red.
Oh, and you can’t grill things in it. But you can make mini-doughnuts, cake pops, and…waffles!
And I am tremendously good looking.
So how do you make waffles? Let’s look at the instructions!
Basic Waffles
The instruction manual contains a recipe for basic waffles, which is pretty much what you’d expect – 150g flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tbsp sugar, an egg, 300ml of milk, 2 tbsp veg oil, and a pinch of salt.
The method insists you need two bowls, and that you need to sift the flour, stir in the sugar and salt, and make a well in the middle. In the other bowl you beat the egg with the milk and oil, and then pour it in the other bowl and mix it up.
This is inefficient.
I put all the liquid ingredients a jug…
…and put the dry ones on top. Then I walloped it around with a hand whisk.
Meanwhile, the treat maker was heating up.
By the time, I’d finished mixing, it was warm enough.
I poured some of the mixture in the middle of the tray-thing in the treat maker, closed the lid, and waited.
And waited.
Five minutes is a long time when you want waffles.
The first waffle was slightly misshapen. Never fear! Waffle two will have more batter!
Waffles two and three turned out very nicely, especially with the addition of some maple syrup.
Waffle five used up the dregs in the bottom of the jug, and tried to take over the house in a similar fashion to the beignets. Turns out you can use too much batter in one waffle. Who knew?
So there it is. Quick and easy fresh waffles. As long as you don’t overfill the thing…
TL;DR: House nearly engulfed in batter. Again.
Recicember Day 28: Turkey Curry
As eating turkey for Christmas dinner is traditional in the UK, it is quite common to have leftover turkey well into January (and possibly beyond). And so the internet searches begin for leftover turkey curry recipes…
All I’m looking for is a quick turkey curry recipe. Nothing fancy, nothing over the top, just a straightforward simple turkey curry recipe. So with that in mind, we’ll probably be avoiding Jamie Oliver and Delia Smith, because I said so.
But we might take a look at this one from the Hairy Bikers.
Well, actually it’s from Abdul Yaseen, but the Hairy Bikers seem to have included it in their Christmas party show. I can’t confirm this as I didn’t watch it, and more importantly, it seems to have been broadcast in 2011, so I can’t even watch it on iPlayer.
Turkey Curry From Leftovers!
Well, the turkey is a leftover. The rest of the stuff isn’t. I mean, who has “leftover” cardamom? Let’s empty the spice drawer!
And speaking of cardamom, here’s where I made my first “mistake”. The recipe calls for each of the spices to be dry roasted one by one. Ain’t nobody got time for that. And I ain’t got no star anise either. Nor do I have enough turkey. Abdul, buddy, 500g of turkey isn’t leftovers. It is a small turkey in itself. A tur-turkey-key, if you will. I had about 170g of turkey, so I put in about a third of everything the recipe asked for. Except the things I didn’t have.
Next up, we begin to suffer from let’s-put-50-things-in-one-step syndrome, otherwise known as MKD-IKEA disease. So in goes garlic…
…onion and ginger (ground, because a ginger root is something I don’t have)…
…spices and jalapenos…did I mention I didn’t have any chillies? No? Oh. Jalapenos from a jar made a decent substitute.
Then a red bell pepper, and some tomato puree…
…and the turkey.
And then just stir it around a bit so it all gets warmed up. Lob it in a bowl and you’re done.
Turns out it’s a curry that doesn’t have a sauce like gravy. Or maybe I just did it “wrong”. Certainly didn’t serve it with rice, because even a third of the original recipe was more than enough for a meal.
Tastes delicious though, and very spicy – but is it the best turkey curry ever? Maybe, maybe not. You’ll have to make your own to find out because you’re not getting any of mine!
TL;DR: Spicy turkey curry. Burn your gob off.
Recicember Day 27: Chocolate Peanut Balls
In this entry to the Recicember blog, I will be assisting (or being assisted by) The American. These things are like Reese’s peanut butter cups or something, but ball shaped. So Reese’s Balls, perhaps.
Right, American, what do we need?
One and a half cups of peanut butter, two cups of icing sugar, and half a cup of butter, to start with.
Unfortunately, nobody specified what size cup we should be using, or if we should use the same cup for each item. Oh well.
The ingredients were hurled into an electric mixer. In this lighting, the peanut butter looks…appetizing. Or something.
And the icing sugar and butter looked like yellow snow.
The lovely looking items were walloped around with a dough hook, mostly because I fancied a change. Final mixing was performed with a spoon.
The resulting goopy thing was rolled into many little balls, and placed on a baking sheet covered with greaseproof paper. The sheet was then thrown swiftly into the freezer.
So more of a freezer sheet than a baking sheet.
After 10 or 15 mins, some chocolate chips were melted, and the balls were removed from the freezer and covered in the resulting molten cocoa.
Once the chocolate had set, the Reese’s balls were ready to consume. They don’t half clag your mouth up, but taste delicious.
Also, the dog is very interested in trying them.
TL;DR: Reese’s balls clag your mouth up. Now the dog wants a go.
Recicember Day 26: Boxing Day Gammon Cob
Gammon, or at least some variant of ham, seems to be a Christmas tradition in both the UK and the US. So after the large amount of food consumed on Christmas Day (that spills over to Boxing Day, the 26th of December), I think we’ll have a gammon cob for Recicember today.
You may not know what a cob is depending on where you’re from – it’s not even a word used in the whole of the UK.
It’s not anything to do with corn. You might know it as a roll, a bread roll, a bread bun, a barm, a bap, or something similar.
But how does one make a delicious gammon cob?
Easy!
- Obtain delicious cob
- Slice delicious cob
- Spread delicious butter on delicious cob
- Slice delicious gammon
- Gently hurl sliced delicious gammon at sliced delicious cob
- Put delicious lid on delicious cob
- Push delicious gammon cob down your delicious throat
See? That was easy.
TL;DR: Put pig meat in a bun.