Derivatives

Spring is teasing us in Mankato. Yesterday was an INCREDIBLE 65 degrees, today we are back down to 30. But that brief whisper of spring fills me with a lot of hope.

I've been meaning to write for, well months. I always want to write more. But I spend all day at work, and school, staring at a screen so then somehow the idea of staring at a screen for pleasure just turns me off. Instead, I cook. Last night was Jamie Oliver's salmon cakes - which were unbelievably easy and delicious. (This blogger also expounds on their wonder). Matt & I decided though that they need a new name - "salmon cake" just doesn't sound appetizing, and certainly is not fitting for this easy, satisfying supper. I feel like someday I will lie to my children and tell them they are "Mom Cakes" and only when they are old enough to discern that the pink is, in fact, fish will they be disgusted.

However, despite the recent foray into spring - we've done quite a bit of winter eating, and perhaps not unsurprisingly derivative to my friend Murph's cravings. The week she made biscuits and creamed chicken, we had fried chicken strips, biscuits and cream gravy. Her miso soup adventures paralleled our discovery of easy egg drop soup. Coincidence? I think not. Lastly inspired by her pie crust, I made a chocolate pie (that riffed off of Lisa Fain's) around the same time as Murph's valentines cake. Kindred spirits indeed.

Below you will find my winter derivatives of Murphy's fine recipes - between the two, you should be able to find at least one option to suit your taste (and likely two).

Here's to putting Winter behind us!

Mark Bittman's Fast Egg Drop Soup
What you need:
4 cups good chicken broth (of your liking, homemade, canned, or you can do like me - herboux.)
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 scallions, sliced
1-2 thin slices peeled ginger
1-2 beaten eggs
1 tbsp. sesame oil
Garnishes of choice (watercress, snow peas, etc.)

What you do:
Heat broth, soy sauce, scallions, and ginger in a saucepan. Simmer mixture for ten minutes. Turn off heat. Spoon beaten egg into hot broth with a soup spoon and steady hand (this trick comes from Cook's Illustrated). With a full spoon full and at an even pace, pour egg from spoon in circles. Repeat until all egg is distributed into broth. This should produce long whisps of egg. Let rest for a few minutes. Add sesame oil, stir gently, and serve in bowls with desired garnishes.

Quick Chicken, Biscuits and Cream Gravy
What you need:
4-6 thawed chicken tenders per person (you can generally find these in the freezer sections of the grocery in big bags, or you can cut your own by slicing a boneless, skinless breast length wise)
1 cup corn meal
olive oil
butter
2-3 biscuits per person
Peppered cream gravy (see below).

What you do:
Set a sturdy skillet over medium-high heat. While the skillet is heating, put your corn meal in a pie pan or shallow bowl. Salt and pepper both sides of the chicken tenders. Next, add oil and butter to skillet. Swirl it around to coat the skillet. When skillet and fats are hot, dredge each side of a chicken tender in corn meal, and add immediately to the skillet. Do not do more than two or three tenders at a time, as it will slow the cooking. Also, do not dredge in advance, or coating will fall off and become soggy. Cook each side of the tenders for 3-4 minutes until coating is crispy and browned, and chicken is firm to the touch. Remove from pan and cool on paper towels. Repeat process until all the chicken is breaded and cooked.

Split biscuits down center, arrange tenders on top. Serve smothered in gravy and watch as your eaters grin as they dig into this southern staple (makes a decent breakfast too!)

Peppered Cream Gravy
(for two! If preparing for more, multiple recipe accordingly.)

What you need:
1 cup milk
3 tbsp butter or bacon fat
3 tbsp flour
salt
pepper

What you do:
In a small skillet, melt fat and flour together. Just before the mixture starts to bubble, remove from heat. This can be prepared in advance and stored in the fridge until needed.

Warm milk in a sauce pan on the stove over medium heat. When milk is warm to the touch, add fat/flour mixture. Stir constantly with a whisk, making sure to get down to the very bottom of the pan. Continue mixing over medium heat until milk begins to thicken. Thicken over heat until desired consistency is achieved. Season to taste with salt and pepper (I recommend more rather than less pepper).

Makifish Reinterprets Grandma's Chocolate Pie
First, let me just say the best chocolate pie I've ever had was in Texas at the Monument Cafe. And I will search from now until my dieing day for a recipe that replicates its splendor. This one comes close (but still not quite! Damn you Monument and your pie, so distant from my current home.)

What you need:
1 cooked pie crust, Murph's kicks booty (I know - I've messed around with A LOT of pie crust).
4 tablespoons of cocoa
3/4 cups of sugar
5 tablespoons of flour
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 1/2 cups of milk
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
2 egg yolks, beaten slightly
1 tablespoon of butter

What you do:
On the counter, sift together sugar, flour, salt, cocoa into a sauce pan. Briefly beat eggs and milk and then add to dry with a whisk.
Put the saucepan over medium heat and cook while stirring. When it bubbles and thickens, you are good to go. This took longer than I expected and I started to stress out - but like magic, it thickened up, almost all at once. Remove from heat and beat out any lumps. Then stir in your vanilla and butter.

Fill cooled pie crust with filling. Lisa Fain puts a meringue on hers - I didn't bother. I let everything cool slightly on the counter, and then popped it in the freezer. After a few hours of chilling, slice up and serve.

The Epitome of Comfort Food

"What are we having for dinner?" My thirteen-year old self yelled from the living room into the kitchen.

"Creamed chicken and biscuits." Mom called back. She was pulling containers out of the fridge, washing her hands, tying her apron, and sighing now and then. Long day?

"Awww, really? Again?" I cried.

"Yes, we are. It's been a long day, there's leftover chicken that needs eating. Will you please come in and set the table?"

I put my nose back in my book and scowled. Chicken and biscuits. How uninspiring. I got up and dragged my feet into the kitchen. I hated setting the table.

In the kitchen, mom was scraping chopped, cooked chicken into a thick, warm gravy. She opened the freezer, dug out some frozen vegetables and added them to the mix. She put the lid on the saucepan and opened the oven to check the biscuits. They were done: fluffy, flaky, buttery goodness. My stomach rumbled.

"Where's dad and Katherine?" I asked.

"They're coming home from track practice. Should be here any minute. Will you please set the table?"

"Aww do I have to..."

"Judy, I don't want to ask you again."

I got the silverware out of the drawer, set it out on the table, lit the candles, and made sure everyone had a napkin. Then dad and Katherine came in the door, sweaty and hungry. They'd been out high-jumping or long-jumping or doing some kind of jumping, running around in circles, throwing things, you know.

"Smells good!" Dad said.

"Okay, we're ready to eat!" mom cried. I stood with my plate in hand, hungry, and no longer "uninspired". She opened up a biscuit, put it on my plate and poured the thick chicken gravy over the biscuit. It smelled so good. Then we all sat down.

No one said much; it was the end of a week in February. The rain poured down, the candles flickered and Joni Mitchel sang about bows and flows and angel hair. After we'd finished eating we ate the leftover biscuits slathered in Smuckers raspberry jam for dessert.

"Can I be excused? It's been 15 minutes," I piped up, breaking the quiet.

"Yes, you may." Mom said.

"Me too?" said Katherine.

"It's Katherine's night for dishes! Katherine's night for dishes! Haha!" I broke out into song, dancing around the dining room. My sister groaned when she remembered this was true.

I scampered off into the evening, delighted I didn't have to do the dishes or sit a moment longer at the table. But my belly was full and I called out as I pounded downstairs to my room, "Hey mom! Thanks for dinner!"

"You're welcome," I heard her call as I shut my door and disappeared.


Creamed Chicken and Biscuits

Because I have class at night, I often cook during the day. I also try and make meals that are nourishing, inexpensive, comforting and easy. The answer? Chicken and biscuits. No wonder my parents made it so often. And even though I've never really liked frozen vegetables, I quickly realized that this dish isn't the same without some added frozen peas, corn, or carrots, or all three.

Despite my resistance throughout my teenage years to sit for longer than 15 minutes with my family at the table (that was the rule anyways), I now value eating with people above all, and the meals I share with my family when I go home beat any meal I've ever eaten by myself. In the meantime, I'm focusing on enjoying eating alone, because that too has value: Being comfortable with you are.

for 2 people

1 TBS butter
1 TBS flour
1 C chicken stock

1 C cooked, chopped chicken
1 C frozen veggies
1 tsp dried thyme (or to taste)
salt and pepper to taste

1 recipe for biscuits

- Make biscuits.
- They may be done before the gravy is. No problem! Take them out of the oven, wrap them in a towel and set them aside in a bowl until you're ready to eat.

For the gravy

- Over medium heat, melt the butter in a medium sauce pan.
- Add the flour and stir vigorously to combine it with the butter until bubbling.
- Slowly add the chicken stock, stirring constantly. As the chicken stock heats up and the flour cooks, a gravy forms. The sauce may take 10 minutes or so to thicken. It is important to stir the sauce while it thickens. Otherwise, it will burn on the bottom.
- Add the salt, pepper and thyme.
- Add the chicken and veggies.
- Turn the heat down and put the lid on the pot and cook until the veggies are soft.
- Taste for seasoning. (I've heard you can add some cream here, if you're not too fat, but I've never done this. I don't consider myself too fat, either. I bet it's delicious.)
- Cut open two biscuits, place them face up on a plate and smother them with the creamed chicken.

- After, have a little dessert why don'cha! I've been eating huge oranges every day, because they're in season in some far off place, and delicious. And then a couple squares of chocolate never hurt anyone.

Biscuit Cinnamon Rolls

It's 12:39 at night and I'm about to eat a biscuit cinnamon roll. It was perhaps insane to make them so late, but I've been thinking about them for a week and there was no one in the kitchen. Plus tomorrow I'm going to Florence, Oregon - land of blackberries, sand dunes, pie, sun tans, family and greatness - which means I'm way too excited to sleep and that I need a snack for the plane. (Treats for snacks are the greatest things about plane rides.)

Mmmm! The first bite: the biscuit is perfect, very light and buttery, moist. A slight crunch of sugar and dark jeweled raisins. We're two bites in now. Oh so good! Warm right out of the oven, crumbling apart in my hand, sweet and an excellently honest cinnamon taste. Third bite, fourth bite, fifth bite, and she's gone. I'm left with my tongue searching for every last morsel and licking my lips, a sticky keyboard and a cake pan FULL! of buns for tomorrow. Perhaps I will share?

I first experienced biscuit cinnamon buns with my sister Katherine about a year ago exactly. I took a (much needed) vacation from tree-planting and joined my family for five days in Lake Tahoe where my uncle lives. Kath and I hadn't seen each other in a long time and didn't want to put up with the usual family shenanigans where someone suggests an activity and then everyone takes four hours to decide if they want to participate in it or not, and then no one really ends up doing what they suggested in the first place. A lengthily breakfast project seemed like a great escape. Immediately upon my arrival I started talking incessantly about cinnamon buns. This is a common occurance where I get an idea and then berate others around me until they give in and participate. But cinnamon buns take a while and Katherine really needed some convincing. All that yeast and letting things rise can be intimidating. So we opened up the copy of The New Best Recipe by Cooks Illustrated that was lying around (an excellent reference by the way) and discovered that they suggest making a biscuit dough, rolling it out flat and slathering it with cinnamon, sugar and raisins (but don't quote me on the raisin part, I can't remember if the recipe calls for them or not). This is exactly what we did and an hour later we had beautiful, delicious biscuits wrapped around a delectable layer of your token cinnamon bun filling. A pot of coffee? Good company? We were just recalling on the phone this evening that it was one of the better four hour-long breakfasts that we've both ever had.

Here is my adapted (by memory) version of the recipe.

Biscuit Cinnamon Rolls


Oven: 450 F

Make your favourite biscuit recipe (not drop). I doubled the Joy of Cooking's Buttermilk Biscuits. If you add the liquid in parts, flicking it with a fork to incoporate wet with dry, you'll discover that you may not need as much. This depends largely on your flour. I know the dough is right when I give it a pat and it's soft and springy, still moist, but not sticky, and the flour almost all mixed in.

NOTE: I DID add a TBS of sugar to this recipe. Usually I leave it out, but considering we're going for a sweeter affair here, I think it's kosher. Also, you might not want to add salt if you're using salted butter, or at least use less.

Then:

Mix together two TBS brown sugar and 1 TBS cinnamon. Chop up a good cup full of raisins (Depending on their size. I had very plump ones.)

Roll or pat out the dough on a clean, floured surface. Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over top. Cover with the raisins and kinda pat them into the dough.

Starting along the longer length of the dough, roll until there is nothing left to roll. Cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces, put into a cake pan. I made more than one 9 inch cake pan's worth, so I just stuck the remainders on a baking sheet. However you wish to cook them is fine.

NOTE: I started these at 450 and then immediately feared that they would over cook. I thought I turned the oven down to 400 but I guess I actually turned it off. They finished fine and were delicious, but I recommend just cooking them at 450. It will be much shorter (mine took half an hour!) and they are biscuits after all.

The time? Is now 1:24. WAY TOO LATE. I can't help it, I'm an enthusiast. At least Kelsey slept enough for the two of us.

PS Good sweet plums! I almost forgot to suggest the addition of nuts, or whatever else your little heart desires. Chocolate chips!

Good night my dears.

Good Man. Makes Biscuits.

This is what greets me most Sunday mornings. And although it pains me a bit to admit it, he makes a better biscuit than I do. When I read "cut in butter" I say, "hello, food processor," which ultimately heats the butter up too much resulting in little to no flaky layers. But when Matt reads "cut in butter," he hunkers down with two table knives and pyrex bowl and dutiful cuts the butter into the flour he until he achieves small pea sized bits. What a man, what a man, what a mighty fine man.

Matt's Sunday Morning Biscuits
an economical breakfast for 2
a la The Joy of Cooking

3-4 Tbsp. cold butter
1 cup flour
1 and 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup milk, plus a bit

Preheat oven to 450. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl, and then cut in butter with two knives or a pastry cutter. When mixture resembles bread crumbs, mix milk in with a fork until mixture forms a ball. Flour hands and surface and need gently until dough is uniform. Flatten dough out until uniformly 1/2 inch thick. Use jar, glass, or cookie cutter to cut out round biscuits. Collect and flatten out scraps, continuing process until there is not enough dough left to be flattened. Place on a greased baking sheet and bake until golden. Serve with lots of butter, honey, and jam as well as a good pot of black tea.