(no subject)

[nonelvis]

The weather is really, really weird today. It was gray when I got up, turned bright and sunny, slipped back into gray, degenerated into a 20-minute snow- and rain-storm so fierce all the precipitation was moving sideways across the street, was bright and sunny again, and has reverted to heavy snow. No wonder my sinuses are all screwed up.

Inside, however, it's nice and warm, and I'm making chicken broth for poor columbina, who has acquired his boss' nasty cold. The broth will turn into chicken noodle, chicken barley, or possibly Thai chicken and coconut soup; I haven't decided yet. But it's nice to have a quiet weekend in which I actually have time to cook, because I find it relaxing and meditative, and god knows I could use more relaxation in my life.

I was thinking about this on Friday night as I made biscuits to top a chicken pot pie. Making biscuits is easy -- flour, butter, salt, leavening, buttermilk. You can do it in a food processor, but as with making pie crust (the first dough I learned to make), it's almost as fast to do it with your hands, and I think you learn a lot more about the process this way. Do it often enough, and your fingers know when the butter is finely and properly distributed, how sandy the dough should feel, how moist you have to make it before it's too moist, how much to handle the dough before too much gluten forms to toughen it. And it only takes fifteen minutes. That's fifteen minutes during which I'm not thinking about work, or whatever other responsibilities I might have, because I'm concentrating on making lovely, buttery food.

Biscuit therapy: cheaper than massage. Though perhaps not so great for my waistline.

Comments

[kalleah.livejournal.com]

As Lewis Black would say ... "it's not weather, it's malaria!"

[nonelvis]

Not two minutes after I finished writing this entry, the snow disappeared and the sun came out again. I decided to stop looking out the window after that in case a plague of frogs started dropping from the sky.

[kalleah.livejournal.com]

in case a plague of frogs started dropping from the sky

My bet's on locusts.

Does everyone in Boston agree on everything?

[elainetyger.livejournal.com]

On my friends page, directly below your post is this:

http://urbpan.livejournal.com/672054.html

Re: Does everyone in Boston agree on everything?

[nonelvis]

Ha! And that post reminds me that I forgot about the thunder. We definitely had that, too.

Right now there are high winds outside, enough that I can hear the windows rattling. I swear to God, this probably means it'll be 80 degrees out tomorrow.

[mmancuso.livejournal.com]

Please hand over the recipe for the biscuits, because all my fingers are broken and can't search the net myself.

Also, since tonight's leek and potato soup came out fairly well, I'd offer it to him if I didn't know for a fact that your soup will be all better and stuff.

I had the cat type this because of aforementioned broken fingers. Do you know how long it takes to get a cat to type "aforementioned"? (Twice?)

[nonelvis]

We ended up with Thai coconut milk and chicken soup. It was full of deliciousness, as I'm sure your leek and potato soup was, because you are an excellent cook.

In the biscuit recipe below, I should tell you that I substituted buttermilk powder for liquid buttermilk, because I never have the latter lying around. Fortunately, the former is perfect for baking.

Biscuit recipe, from Cook's Illustrated, May/June 1996:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup cake flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
8 tbsp. chilled unsalted butter, cut into bits
3/4 cup cold buttermilk, plus 1-2 tbsp. extra, if needed

Preheat oven to 450.

Pulse first six ingredients in workbowl of food processor fitted with the steel blade. Add butter pieces; pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal with a few slightly larger butter lumps.

Transfer mixture to medium bowl; add buttermilk; stir with fork until dough gathers into moist clumps. Transfer dough to floured work surface and form into rough ball, then roll dough 1/2" thick. Cut (or roll by hand) 12 biscuits and place on metal baking sheet. Brush tops lightly with milk or melted butter and bake 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown.