Baking Soda

These are delicious and easy to make.  Just stick to a couple basic techniques and you will have fluffy biscuits each time!  Plus they make the whole house smell fantastic!

The most important thing about making biscuits, is to keep the ingredients as cold as possible before putting them in the oven.  The butter has to stay cold throughout or you wont get flaky biscuits!

Ingredients

• 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/4 tsp Baking Soda
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1 Tbs Sugar
• 3/4 cup Cheddar, grated
• 1/4 cup Parmigian, grated
• 1  stick butter, cubed and kept cold
• 3/4 cup Buttermilk, kept cold

Directions

Preheat oven to 450F and line a cookie sheet with some wax paper.

Sift all dry ingredients into a large bowl(Flour, Baking Powder, Baking Soda, Salt and Sugar).  If you have a Kitchen Aide mixer, that’s the best.    Add the cold cubed butter into the mixing bowl and mix with the Kitchen Aide wire mixer until the butter has been incorporated into the flour.   It is very important that the butter is added cold and kept cold.  After the butter has been cut into the flour, set aside in the fridge to keep it cool.  If you don’t have a Kitchen Aide mixer, you can cut the flour with a fork using some muscle.

Grate the cheddar and mix it with a little flour so that it wont stick together into a small bowl.  Add the grated Parmigian into the bowl.

Combine the dry ingredients with the cheese and mix briefly with a wooden spoon.   With the kitchen aide bread attachment mixer add the cold buttermilk to the dry ingredients until a bread ball forms.  Or mix them together with a wooden spoon and again some muscle.  You want to mix till it just until a bread ball forms.  Do NOT over work the dough as it will melt the cold butter.

Take the ball and knead on a floured surface for just a minute or two.  Roll the dough so the dough is evenly spread out about 1/2 an inch thick(no one is measuring).   Then either cut it into squares or take a glass cup and make circular biscuits.

Place biscuits on the cookie sheet with the wax paper.  Brush a little cold water on the top of each biscuit and sprinkle with a little bit of salt.

Bake for 20 minutes.

Take out and set aside for 10 minutes before serving.  You can keep it warm by placing it in a hand towel lined bowl, covered.

Delicious.

2 firm/ripe mangos, peeled and chopped

2 tomatoes, firm/ripe, chopped

1 firm/ripe avocado, peeled and chopped

1/2 vidalia (sweet) onion, chopped

1 plum firm/ripe, diced

1/2 red bell pepper, diced

1 stalk cerely, diced

1 bunch cilantro, washed, dried, chopped

fresh ground pepper – to taste

fresh ground salt – to taste

1/2 tsp Mrs. Dash original seasoning

2 limes, juiced

1 splash seasoned rice vinegar

Directions:

Prepare the fruit & vegetables.  Place in a bowl.  Sprinkle the salt, pepper & Mrs. Dash over the mixure.  Pour the lime juice & spash of seasonsed rice vinegar over all.  Mix everything together gently with a soft spatula to avoid bruising the fruit.

This has a lot of flavor but is not picante.  You could spice this up a bit by adding a diced jalapeno or adding a dash or so of hot sauce.

We ate this as a side dish with roasted pork tenderloin.

These are really moist, delicious cookies.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp cloves
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 sticks butter
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 bag white chocolate chips
• 2/3 cup walnuts, chopped

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 and prepare cooke sheets.
2. In a mixing bowl combine:  flour, cinnamon, cloves & baking soda, and set aside.
3. In a large mixing bowl beat:  butter, white sugar & brown sugar
4. Beat pumpkin, egg & vanilla into the butter mixture
5. Slowly beat flour mixture into the butter mixture.
6. Stir in the chips & walnuts.
7. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto cookie sheets and bake for about 11 minutes.
8. Remove from cookie sheets to wire racks immediately and let cool.