Posted in Food, Uncategorized

Buttermilk Biscuits

These really are as good as they look. We love them served right out of the oven but they also freeze really well! If you freeze them unbaked, they can be baked straight from the freezer. Talk about a time saver!

  • Preheat oven to 450 degrees F
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 2 tbsp sugar
  • 1 tbsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 1 cup buttermilk

Mix dry ingredients in a mixer bowl. I use my Kitchen Aid mixer because it makes this process easier. Use the paddle attachment and mix it on stir or 2 for about 30 seconds or so.

Cut the cold butter into tiny pieces like I’ve shown above. Except you should finish the job! The tinier the better but about this size will do. When it’s all cut up add the butter pieces to the dry mixture.

Mix the butter in at a low speed until the butter looks like pebbles in the flour.

Pour the buttermilk into the butter and flour mixture. Mix on a low to medium speed until the liquid is absorbed and the mixture looks similar to the above photo. This happens sooner than you think, so keep an eye on it. Once the mixture doesn’t have any obvious liquid in the bowl and the dough sticks to the paddle stop mixing.

Put the dough on a lightly floured surface. I’m a fortunate girl because we remodeled our kitchen last year and now have quartz counter tops. Quartz is a fantastic surface to roll dough on and it seems to require less flour, if any at all, to keep the dough from sticking. Roll the dough out to about a 1/2 inch thickness. Use your best judgement.

Use a biscuit cutter or even a small glass will do, and cut the dough into biscuits. Try to keep your circles close together. Then place the biscuits onto an ungreased baking sheet making sure that they aren’t touching each other.

biscuit dough scraps

This part is a little like playing with Play-dough. Take the scraps in your hands and form them back into a lumpy ball and then roll them out again just like you did the first time. Repeat cutting the biscuits out and placing them on a baking sheet. Gather the scraps again, roll out the smaller lumpy ball, and cut out what biscuits you are able to get.

When you get to the end and only have a tiny bit of dough just take that piece of dough and roll it into a ball in your hands and call that little thing your last biscuit!

Bake the biscuits at 450 for about 12-15 minutes. Below is the color we are looking for so start checking them at about 12 minutes so that they don’t over bake.

Enjoy them warm, split them in half and spread with butter, jam, or whatever you choose!

Posted in friends and family

Thankful Thursday No. 1

I know, I’ve been MIA for a little while. Getting ready for two graduations, hosting a graduation party, and then a surprise birthday party for my mom . Wheew! However as thankful as I am for being able to celebrate these accomplishments with our family and friends, I am so thankful to have my family and friends.

Nothing brought their importance home to me more than my recent bout with calcific tendonitis. What?!?! Basically calcium deposits on my rotator cuff. No bueno. I was in lots of pain and brought to tears quite a few times during the initial days of this beast. However, I am so thankful for connections that led me to try a vitamin k-2 supplement. Huge disclaimer right here. I am not a doctor or any type of medical professional so I am only stating that this worked for me . If any of you lovely people want to look into this get professional medical advice so you know if it will be appropriate for you.

As I continue to recover from this icky stuff I have been counting my blessings each day as I regain the full use of my arm. Each little step forward I have been showing off to my husband and girls. I think they are humoring me but I’m sure they are also happy to know I’m improving. But probably also tired of hearing me call out, ” Look, I put my own hair in a ponytail! ”

Here are some flowers from my Mom’s gardens. Enjoy the view and count your own blessings!

Posted in Food

Dutch baby

Minutes after coming out of the oven it begins to deflate.

Oven pancakes (or Dutch babies as they are otherwise called) are a very easy meal to put together when I am lacking ingredients, time, or both. I first had one of these almost 30 years ago in California while visiting the godparents of my travel companion. What on Earth is a Dutch baby? Are we supposed to eat it? Yes you are my friend, with powdered sugar, maple syrup, or almost any type of berry.

The batter

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Take a shallow pan, I think mine might be meant for quiche, and either spray it with non stick spray like Pam or put about a tablespoon of butter in the middle of the pan and place it in the oven for a minute while the oven is preheating . I tried the butter method tonight and it was not too hard. Let’s be honest, most things taste better with butter!

Butter melted in the pan. Yes, you will need to tilt the pan back and forth, side to side and let the melted butter coat it. These things don’t just happen. Wear oven mitts please, the pan has been in the hot oven if only for a minute.

1 cup all purpose flour ( I use King Arthur)

1 tablespoon sugar

1 1/4 cups of milk ( I used 1 percent because that’s what is in my fridge. Use whatever kind you happen to drink. Plain almond or soy will work as well.)

2 eggs

1/4 teaspoon salt

In a mixing bowl add the dry ingredients first and mix them together with a whisk or a fork. Add the eggs and the milk. Mix together well, scraping the sides of the bowl to make sure it all combines. The mixture will not be entirely smooth. There will be pebble size chunks and that is okay! My goal is to not leave flour at the bottom of the bowl. Pour the batter into your prepared pan and place in the preheated oven on a middle rack. Be sure to have about 2-3 inches of space between the top of the pan and the rack above. It will puff up as it bakes. Bake for 30 minutes.

Before it is baked. Notice the pebbles?

Take it out after 30 minutes at 375 and you will have a yummy oven pancake ready for the toppings of your choice. While this is great warm, it’s also good straight from the fridge the next day spread with Nutella. Enjoy!

Baked and ready for toppings.
Posted in backyard, cleaning, deck

Deck Cleaning at a snail’s pace

Every project has a beginning.
The tools..plus a lot of elbow grease!

Our deck is in need of some TLC. It’s been a few years since it’s been pressure washed and sadly we have yet to stain it since it was built about six years ago. I’ve called a local exterior cleaning company but he is completely behind schedule with all the rain we’ve had. So until he is able to get around to our project I’ve decided to de-grime the deck on my own. The railings are truly what I’m trying to attack but the floor boards of the deck are what really stand out after minimal scrubbing.

Another hour of scrubbing and a little more accomplished. Hopefully I will get the entire perimeter of railing cleaned and just need someone on a ladder to clean the outside of the railing as well stain the outside of the railing . Unless of course I get tired of waiting and try it myself. We’ll see… if I’m feeling brave I might even tackle the pressure washer.

Still a long way to go! Thankfully the weather looks clear and warm for the next week ahead because I’m going to need it!

Posted in gardening

So I did a little digging…

The onions have got to go!

Can I just take a moment to ask why onions are growing in our front yard??? I didn’t plant them and I’m not sure who says, let me grow onions right in the front yard. Hmm.. I will blame it on the squirrels who transplanted these tulip bulbs in the same location. Squirrels are a whole different topic that will get me going so I will leave that right there.

Mission accomplished!

Posted in kitchen remodel

Planning…it takes longer than you think.

Tear out for our project started February 12, 2018 but the planning began over six months earlier. We had no idea exactly what we wanted, we just knew that our kitchen needed a massive redo. In July 2017 we contacted Megan, an interior designer who was recommended to us. She was cute as a button and had some interesting ideas about redesigning our kitchen. Coffee bar? Sign me up! We were intrigued and eagerly awaited her plans.

She delivered these plans a couple weeks later. Shiplap… you either love it or hate it. This trendy decorating tool was prominent in her computer generated drawings of our future kitchen and nearby family room. I love Chip and Jo but shiplap has never been my favorite. Our designer explained that it was a function of the program rather than her vision for our home. Reasonable explanation but I couldn’t see past the shiplap and I think that’s when the damage was done. Still, we wanted to put a price to these big dreams for our kitchen so we scheduled the walk through for her contractors.

Did I only say kitchen? We had expanded the remodel to include the adjacent family room and the powder room off the hallway between the garage and the family room. This was growing faster than our budget that was for sure. The family room plans included taking down the wood paneling that covered the perimeter of the room and scaling back our massive floor to ceiling brick fireplace by reducing the size of the hearth and converting the log storage space into an entertainment center. No big deal, right?

August 21 was our walk through. In 15 minute intervals electricians, dry wallers, window installers, plumbers, flooring people, and a brick mason all trooped through our first floor measuring, taking notes, and tossing around terms that were definitely new to me. It was a bit overwhelming to realize the amount of people who would be involved in the project. Everyone was pleasant and polite but it was still an odd feeling to hear our home being dissected in their various conversations with Megan. The only trade not present was the cabinet maker. This is funny to me in retrospect because the cabinet maker that we chose in the end was honestly one of the most involved people in our project.

Megan told us that she had a gentleman who could make shaker style cabinets for all the rooms involved. I’m embarrassed to say that I wasn’t crystal clear what a shaker style cabinet meant. After a quick Pinterest search my husband and I discovered we were not fans of the shaker style cabinets. They looked fantastic in some settings but shaker did not square with the limited vision that we had for our kitchen. This was another nail in the coffin.

While waiting for the estimates to return to us a potentially costly plumbing repair popped up with our washing machine drain in the back hallway. We suffered from sticker shock to say the least when the estimates came back and we were still missing estimates for the windows and brick work which we knew wouldn’t be cheap. We made the decision to delay beginning any work until the Spring. We talked to Dan Miller our painting and dry wall guy who originally recommended Megan and explained our issues with the cost and our reluctance to use her cabinet maker. He pointed us in the direction of Cabinet Concepts. Once we met Brad and saw the first detailed plan (minus the shiplap!) he created after just one visit to our home we didn’t look back.

Posted in kitchen remodel

Remembering the Reno…

A year ago our kitchen remodel was almost complete and I couldn’t wait to put our house back in order. Of course nothing is ever that simple and it dragged on until the end of June. I’ve had enough time to live in the kitchen and stop telling my family every 10 seconds how much I adore it ( but I still do love it!) so it is time now to look back at the process.

This is the kitchen that we moved into over 15 years ago when we bought this house. We told ourselves that the kitchen would be the very first part to get updated… two more beautiful girls, tuition, travel sports, a basement flood, and you get the picture.

The island cooktop had stopped functioning properly years ago, our cabinet doors did not close properly, stained and warped laminate countertops, and a host of other issues drove us to completely redo the kitchen. Back in the seventies I’m sure it must have been a fantastic kitchen. Fast forward to the early 2000’s and beyond, it was clear this kitchen was stuck in a time warp and just replacing appliances as needed wasn’t going to cut it any longer.

So in 2017 we bit the bullet and decided to get some help for our dysfunctional kitchen . I’ll tell the tale over the next several posts so you can learn what we did right and the mistakes that we made that you can hopefully avoid.

Posted in Food

Irish Cheddar Soda Bread

We recently visited Dublin, Ireland and it was fantastic! I miss Dublin already so to console myself I made Irish Cheddar Soda Bread. This recipe is great because it freezes beautifully and can be made in smaller loaves or muffins.

  • 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I use King Arthur all purpose flour)
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp caraway seeds
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/4 tsp ground red pepper ( although I’ve baked my entire married life I only just realized that this is the same as cayenne pepper…..go figure!)
  • 1/2 cup grated Irish cheddar cheese ( I used Dubliner Reserve Irish Cheddar)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/4 cups buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9 inch cake pan and put aside. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, seeds and spices in a large bowl. Stir in cheese. (I am a lazy cook. This is all mixed in a Kitchen Aid stand mixer bowl.) In another medium sized bowl mix eggs and buttermilk. ( I use a large batter bowl from Pampered Chef and use an immersion mixer to blend it all together.) Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until well blended. Spoon batter evenly into the prepared pan.

Bake for 30-40 minutes at 350 until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Place the pan on a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes. Remove from the pan and let the bread cool completely on the wire rack.

Makes 12 servings.

*If you decide to use smaller loaf pans or muffin tins, decrease the baking time to 20-25 minutes using the toothpick check as your guide.