biscuits: are you kidding me - so tasty

2 c flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt (plus a sprinkle on top)
8 Tbsp cold butter  (6 Tbsp and 2 Tbsp)
3/4 c buttermilk

preheat oven to 450 degree fahrenheit.  in a bowl, combine all dry ingredients and stir to mix.  cut 6 Tbsp of butter into chunks. combine butter with dry ingredients with a fork.  when butter is evenly distributed, pour in buttermilk and stir until just combined.  portion into 12 balls.  place balls close together.  melt remaining 2 Tbsp of butter.  brush half of melted butter on top of the biscuits and lightly sprinkle the top of each biscuit with a small pinch of salt.  pop in the oven for 10-12 minutes.  as soon as the biscuits are golden brown on top, take them out of the oven brush the tops with the remaining butter.  enjoy!

While living in Russia, Michael and I decided to throw a sort of southern dinner for a group of friends.  Instead of fried chicken, I made chicken nuggets (recipe to come), french fries, biscuits, and cucumber and tomato salad.  Taryn, an American friend who we met in Moscow, brought cole slaw to make it an all the more southern affair.  Everything worked out really well except the biscuits.  We later had the full blown southern dinner with fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, and cucumber and tomato salad because Annie sent me a youtube video of chefs making fried chicken that I couldn't get out of my mind - so I had to make it.  And there was no way I would serve a mediocre biscuit with this dinner.  So I kept searching for a better recipe and found one close to this and tweaked it to be perfect.  This is a great dense, southern biscuit, that I kept slightly fluffy by using a fork to mix in the butter rather than putting everything in a food processor.  The first few times I did use a food processor but the biscuits turned out more dense and heavy than desired.  I made it even tastier by adding the butter and salt to the top.  

crispy lemony chicken for 3 (or a couple + third wheel)

buttermilk bath

thinly sliced chicken breast

1/3 c buttermilk

1 Tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp lemon zest

pinch of salt and freshly ground pepper

crispy crust 

6 saltine crackers

1/2 c corn flakes

1/4 c flour

pinch of salt and freshly ground pepper

1 Tbsp butter

2 Tbsp olive oil

not wanting to pound an entire chicken breast thin, i purchased thinly sliced chicken breast and pounded it to an even thin-ness between two sheets of plastic wrap.  in a plastic zip lock bag, combine buttermilk, lemon juice, zest, and salt and pepper.  zip, mix, and then add chicken breast.  let sit in the refrigerator for 3 hours.  in a food processor, pulse crackers and corn flakes until fine.  pour crumbs into a dish suitable for breading.  mix in the flour and salt and pepper.  pull chicken out of its buttermilk bath.  let the buttermilk drip off.  lightly salt one side of each piece of chicken and evenly cover in crumbs.  melt butter in oil over medium heat.  pan fry for 3 minutes on each side.  yum yum yum!

Okay so here's where this recipe came from.  I had the best lemon pepper chicken in El Paso, Texas years ago when my sister Aimee' and I were traveling on a massive triangular road trip all over the country (Atlanta,GA to Los Angeles,CA to Pierre,SD and back home with lots of stops in between).  I have never had anything like it (and I've tried for well over 12 years).  It was grilled but I can't grill.  So I decided to tie in another favorite type of chicken, crispy, with this lemony and peppery one.  The lemon is complimentary and not overpowering.  It pairs perfectly with the lemon, butter, white wine, and caper sauce over penne.  

(it's been a long time coming...) lemon, butter, white wine, and caper sauce

1 large garlic clove - smashed and minced
1/4 c shallot - diced
2 Tbsp butter

1 tsp flour

1/3 c chicken stock

1/2 c white wine (i used chardonnay)

1 Tbsp + 1 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tsp lemon zest

2 Tbsp capers

salt and  freshly ground pepper to taste

over medium-low heat melt butter.  saute garlic and shallot for 2 minutes.  add flour and brown for 1 minute.  raise heat to medium and bring chicken stock and white wine to a boil.  reduce to a simmer and stir continuously for 5 minutes.  stir in lemon juice and continue to simmer for 2-3 minutes.   in the last minute, stir in lemon zest and capers.  pull off heat and add salt and pepper. when served over pasta, toss past in the sauce with a handful of parmesan cheese. yum and enjoy!

I have dreamed about making a lemon, butter, and white wine sauce for quite some time.  I tried to make a simple sauce with only butter, lemon juice, and white wine.  But truth be told, it was very wine-y.  My sweet husband, Michael, choked it down and said it was good but I knew better.  So in this recipe, I cut the overpowering wine flavor by adding chicken stock.  In addition, I tossed the sauce with a more substantial noodle, penne, and not angel hair like I did the first time.

And there's more to this tasty gem of a recipe.  The desire to make this simple sauce was complicated when my sister-in-law made a caper sauce for Christmas dinner (her blog - pimentocheeseplease.wordpress.com).  Delicious was the only way to describe that sauce (especially when beef tenderloin was placed under it).  So the desire to make a lemon, butter, and white sauce now had to incorporate capers.  With so many dominant flavors, I wondered how it would all come together.  It did and very nicely.  Sadly Michael wasn't here to taste the finished product but my father-in-law was which might have gotten me even more in the family (if that's possible)!

how this blog came to be...

As baking my own sweets when growing up was the only way to get desserts in the house, I have loved baking since I was little.  The desire of cooking new treats by following recipes to a T comes from my dad.  The ability to mix random leftovers until a tasty new dish appears comes from my mom.  But the love of being in the kitchen (for cooking not cleaning) I inherited straight from my Gram.

I married the boy of my dreams (maybe I should say man), and we almost immediately moved to Moscow.  While living overseas, we managed to recreate many of our favorite dishes from back home; however, inevitably we would not be able to find many of the necessary ingredients.  While in Russia, I learned an important lesson about recipes and their amazing flexibility.  As I found substitutions for certain ingredients, I wrote down the new recipe so I could make it again.  This quickly turned into looking at lots of different recipes and making up my own based on what I could find and what looked tastiest.  So proud of how delicious the food was (and a fair amount of free time) I took tons of photos of the finished dishes and made a cookbook for our parents as a Christmas present. 

That was supposed to be the end of my obsession of taking pictures of food but it wasn’t.  Just ask Annie.  So instead of just showing pictures of mouthwatering food, I’ll include the recipes too because once you see the picture you’ll want to make it!

yum and enjoy!