My mother asked me to make biscuits this morning! I was flattered!

     On this morning, my mother knocked on my bedroom door.  After I opened the door, she asked, "Would you make some biscuits?" 

     "You want ME to make biscuits?"

      "Um hum," she replied nodding her head up and down.

     I was flattered!  Really, I was, and I told her so!  You see, my mother has been the biscuit expert in the family.  Her biscuits demonstrated that clearly.  

     Mom, I would say, was a country cook who cooked a lot while she was young and added, while we were a military family living here and there, some international entres to her repertoire.  Most of her recipes were in her head, although she did read (and sometimes followed) recipes, and sometimes she bought a mix, a frozen version of something, or even an instant-just-add-water version.  In my mind, what made her a good cook was that she could really stretch the pennies, recycle the left overs, and put meals together with a variety of tastes, textures, colors, hot, and cold using whatever we happened to have in the pantry.

     I learned a lot from her, sometimes by listening and watching her show me how to do something, sometimes just by observing her in action, or even by just listening to her talk about the latest prices per pound for meat, tomatoes, and whatever else made up the family pantry.

     Instead of using butter (which is more expensive), I used vegetable shortening to make the biscuit on this morning.  Also, instead of baking them on a cookie sheet, I baked them close together in a retangular glass cake dish.  They took a few minutes longer to bake (same temperature of 400 degrees).  Still, I followed my usual procedure.

     Let me add that mom doesn't follow the same procedure as mine.  She makes biscuits the way many country cooks do by stirring the shortening with the milk /buttermilk into the self-rising flour.  Then, she forms each biscuit in the palms of her hands, kneading them very gently one at a time.  

     In the picture above and below, I was pinching the self-rising flour into the shortening to make gazillions of flakes before adding the buttermilk and forming the dough.

     Usually, I just eyeball the amount of milk / buttermilk I add to the mix.  After you follow a recipe many times, you get the idea of what it should look like. 

     I do the kneading while I'm folding the mix together into a dough.  To do that, I use a rubber spatula, so I can scrape the bowl as I'm folding.  WARNING:  Kneading the dough too much prevents the biscuits from rising as much as they should and it makes the biscuits tough / hard.  Why?  Because kneading the dough builds muscle into the dough (by strengthening the gluten in the flour).  That's a good thing for yeast bread, because you might want a bread that can hold a sandwich together.  For biscuits (and muffins and pancakes), too much kneading is not such a good thing.

     I baked them for about thirty minutes at 400 degrees.  

I'll make the bisuits. You're on your own for anything else!

1. put self-rising flour in a BIG mixing bowl, so you'll have plenty of stirring room.  
2. slice up a stick of unsalted butter (there's salt already in the self-rising flour).
3. pinch the flour and butter together.  don't hurry.  keep pinching until you get a lot of little flour coated butter beads throughout.
4. pour in the buttermilk.
5. use a rubber spatular and fold the mix.  keep folding until it all comes together as one mass of dough.  it should not be too dry.  it should not be too moist.  it should be just right.
6. roll out the dough and cut out the biscuits (I used a glass to do the cutting).  place biscuits on foil (shiny side up) on the pan.
7. set the oven temperature at 400 degrees, and let the biscuits sit out while the oven preheats.
8. wash the dishes, and clean up the table when you rolled out the dough.
9. put pan of biscuits in the oven to bake for about 20 minutes.
10. make coffee and sip on it while the biscuits bake.
11. check the bottom of one of the biscuits.  when they're brown enough, remove the pan from the oven.
12. use a spatula to separate biscuits from the foil.
13. after a few minutes, place biscuits in a paper towel lined container.  cover with a lid.
14. I cooked a couple of sunny side up eggs and drizzled some molassis on my biscuits.

Mom asked me to make some chocolate chip cookies!

Most cookie recipes I know follow a drill similar to this one:

1. two sticks of unsalted real butter
2. 1.5 cups sugar (usually they tell you to do half white and half brown sugar)
3. couple teaspoons of vanila
4. one egg (I used two)

Cream the above mixture, so that you end up with every ingredient well distributed and a sort of fluffly like mix.  I started with the mixer on low.  I gradually increased the speed, until I was satisfied with the mix.

After creaming, I placed the mix into a BIG mixing bowl, so that I would have plenty of room for stirring.  Then I started stirring in the chocolate chips and the flour.

1. I used a pack of chocolate chips (I think the pack was 12 -16 oz.  Sometimes, I use M & M candy instead.  Sometimes I mix up some goodies and stir in about 2 cups of them.
2. I stirred in about 1 cup of old fashioned oats (I love that stuff!)
3. I used about 2 cups of self-rising flour.  I could have used a little more (maybe a half cup or so) and ended up with a cookie that kept it's shape while baking.  But, I chose to have cookies that would melt down and spead out a bit.

When I baked a pan full at 350, the cookies spread out more and took about 15 minutes to brown on the bottoms.  When I baked a pan full at 375, they didn't spread out as much and took about 12 minutes to brown on the bottoms.  

Altogether, I ended up with about 46 cookies, and I ate only three to "test for quality." (yea right!)

Potato Salad: Some people like green peppers, some don't! How do you like yours?

Apple pies don't have to be round!