Cuisine: Pepper and Cheddar Biscuits

I've been playing around with biscuit recipes. I LOVE them in all there forms. This recipe I created to go alongside pork chops I was making. The chops were ok. These were excellent. I had one today with chicken salad and curtido. Mmm... A mouth-watering lunch. Hope you enjoy and let me know what you think!

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Ingredients

• 2/3 cup milk
• 1 jalapeno, minced
• 1/2 pasilla pepper, minced
• 1/3 cup fried dried garlic (found in Asian grocery stores)
• 1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
• 2 1/4 cup Bisquick

Directions
In a small bowl, mix together milk, fried dried garlic, jalapeno, and pasilla pepper and set aside for 15 minutes. Add cheddar cheese to milk mixture and let sit for 15 minutes.

In a separate bowl, measure out Bisquick. Gently fold milk and cheese mixture into Bisquick. Mixture should separate from the sides of the bowl and be slightly sticky. If the batter is too sticky, add a little more Bisquick and gently work in. If the batter is too tough, add a little more milk and gently work in.

Heat oven to 425 degrees.

Grease a small glass baking dish. Create 8 roughly equal balls and place them in greased baking dish. It is ok if they lightly touch. Bake for 15 minutes. Check for doneness by inserting toothpick into center of a biscuit. If not done, check every 2 minutes. Biscuits should be golden brown with small specks of dark brown on top.

Enjoy with butter. Mmm....Butter.

Cuisine: Sweet Potato, Pear, and Ginger Biscuits

So...since I have been un(der)employed, I have been trying my hand at new things and slowing down. One of those things is baking. This weekend, I experimented with biscuits and surprised myself. These are fantastic! It may sound like an odd combination of ingredients, but the end result is a delicious, moist, and succulently sweet biscuit. In fact, we ate them all in two days. Not that we should have, but we did.

As many of you may know, my cooking always entails a lot of steps and takes a wee bit of time. I am also lousy at writing recipes down. Well! Here is a recipe that is fairly simple and written down exactly as my memory recalled. And as I age, my memory fails me more and more.

So...Let me know how these turn out for you. I'd love to hear the stories they inspire.

Xo,
Jason

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Ingredients

• 3 small sweet potatoes, peeld and cut into 2 inch sections
• 2 pears, peel, quartered, and cored
• 2 inch piece of ginger, peeled and diced
• 1/2 teaspoon ground clove
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3/4 cup oats
• 2/3 cup milk
• 2 1/2 cups Bisquick, plus additional 1/3 cup
• 1/3 cup butter, soft
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, plus additional 1/2 cup
• Real maple syrup (optional)
  

Directions

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add ground ginger and let seep for 5 minutes. Then add cut sweet potatoes and boil for 10 minutes. Next, add pears and boil until sweet potatoes are soft, about 3-5 more minutes. Drain and mash the ginger, sweet potatoes, and pears with the clove and cinnamon. Set aside to cool.

In a small mixing bowl, combine oats and milk. Soak for 5 plus minutes.

In a large mixing bowl, combine 2 1/2 cups Bisquick, 1/3 cup butter, and 1/2 cup brown sugar. Mix together lightly. Add sweet potato mixture and oat mixture. Gently stir together ingredients. If mixture sticks to the side of the bowls, add additional Bisquick one tablespoon at a time. Stop when mixture is still slightly lumpy and pulls away from the edges of the bowl.

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Grease a cast iron skillet or a heavy glass pan with butter (or spray with Pam). Using a 1/3 cup, scoop the biscuit mixture into a large ball and place on skillet or pan. Pan should hold 5 to 6 biscuits. Then sprinkle about 1 tablespoon brown sugar and drizzle a little maple syrup over each biscuit.

Bake for about 15 minutes. Check at 12 minutes. Biscuits are done when toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Enjoy with butter. Mmm...Tasty!