Buttermilk Pancakes

Continuing on with our Sunday morning brunch tradition, I have discovered the perfect buttermilk pancake recipe!  I'm usually not much of a pancake person (I actually don't like the pancakes from breakfast restaurants), but these hot cakes are amazing!  I have made them two weeks in a row now!

The picture below isn't that pretty because I'm still not very skilled with the "pancake flip," but I'll get it right someday.  :-)

 

Buttermilk Pancakes

Recipe adapted from All Recipes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 egg
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/8 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions:

1. Preheat and lightly grease a large skillet or electric griddle (medium-low works best for me).
2. Mix the flour, salt, and baking soda together in a bowl. Add the egg, buttermilk, milk, and butter; stir together lightly, but keep it lumpy. The batter should look thick, spongy, and puffy.
3. Drop 1/3 cup of the batter onto the cooking surface, spreading lightly with the bottom of the cup. Cook until lightly-browned on each side, 1 to 2 minutes per side.

Creamy Pesto Eggplant Quesadillas

This is a great, quick week-night meal!  We don't do vegetarian meals very often (which I actually feel guilty about -- see this clip for my feelings on the matter), but this is a good one that my carnivore husband, Alex, even approves of. 

Prego now makes a Basil Pesto sauce that's really good, though Target also has an Archer Farm's Creamy Pesto sauce that's divine.  Both are delicious, so either one will work wonderfully!

 

Creamy Pesto Eggplant Quesadillas

Recipe adapted from Lauren's Latest

Ingredients:

• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 tsp. kosher salt
• 1 eggplant
• 1 zucchini
• 1 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded
• 4 Tbsp. creamy pesto sauce
• 4 flour tortillas

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425.  Line baking sheet with aluminum foil, and grease lightly with cooking spray. 
2. Slice eggplant and zucchini into 1/4 inch slices.  Places slices on cookie sheet and using a pastry brush, brush each piece with olive oil.  Lightly sprinkle kosher salt on top.   
3. Turn over each piece, and repeat step 2. 
4. Bake for 20 minutes, turning slices over at least once during baking. Veggies will be done once they display a slight browning on each side. 
5. When veggies are done, heat non-stick skillet on medium-low heat.  Lightly grease with cooking spray. 
6. On a tortilla, layer 1 tablespoon creamy pesto sauce, mozzarella cheese, eggplant, and zucchini.  Fold over to make a quesadilla. 
7. In non-stick skillet, heat each side of quesadilla until tortillas start to brown and cheese is melted through.  Enjoy!

Biscuits & Gravy

Now that we have 1 o'clock church (boo), Alex and I have taken to making Sunday brunch each week.  Alex makes the best buttermilk bisuits, and his sausage gravy isn't too bad either.  :-)

This is one of Alex's favorite meals, and for good reason!

 

Southern Buttermilk Biscuits

Recipe from Food.com

Ingredients:

• 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the board
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt or 1 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, very cold
• 1 cup buttermilk (approx)*

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 450°F.
2. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl, or in the bowl of a food processor. Cut the butter into chunks and cut into the flour until it resembles course meal.  Add the buttermilk and mix JUST until combined.  If it appears on the dry side, add a bit more buttermilk. It should be very wet (*we always add a few more tablespoons of buttermilk).
3. Turn the dough out onto a floured board. Gently, gently PAT (do NOT roll with a rolling pin) the dough out until it's about 1/2" thick. Fold the dough about 5 times, gently press the dough down to a 1 inch thick. Use a round cutter to cut into rounds.
4. Place the biscuits on a cookie sheet- if you like soft sides, put them touching each other.  If you like"crusty" sides, put them about 1 inch apart- these will not rise as high as the biscuits put close together.
5. Bake for about 10-12 minutes- the biscuits will be a beautiful light golden brown on top and bottom.  Do not overbake.
6. Note: The key to real biscuits is not in the ingredients, but in the handling of the dough.  The dough must be handled as little as possible or you will have tough biscuits.  I have found that a food processor produces superior biscuits, because the ingredients stay colder and there's less chance of overmixing. You also must pat the dough out with your hands, lightly.  Rolling with a rolling pin is a guaranteed way to overstimulate the gluten, resulting in a tougher biscuit.
7. Note 2: You can make these biscuits, cut them, put them on cookie sheets and freeze them for up to a month.  When you want fresh biscuits, simply place them frozen on the cookie sheet and bake at 450°F for about 20 minutes.

Down Home Sausage Gravy
Recipe from Very Best Baking

Ingredients:

• 1 (16 ounce) package fresh breakfast sausage
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
• 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 (12 fluid ounce) cans evaporated milk
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• hot pepper sauce to taste

Directions

1. Combine sausage and onion in large skillet. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until sausage is no longer pink. Stir in flour; mix well. Stir in evaporated milk, water, salt and hot pepper sauce. Cook, stirring occasionally, until mixture comes to a boil. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes.
2. Serve immediately over biscuits.

Garlic Roasted Potatoes

I love mashed potatoes, but they are a lot of work.  So when I'm in a rush, this is my go-to potato recipe.   It's a nice side to a Sunday roast or meatloaf. 

Garlic Roasted Potatoes 
Recipe adapted from the Food Network

Ingredients:

• 3 pounds small red or white potatoes
• 1/4 cup good olive oil
• 1 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic (6 cloves)
• A generous pinch of dried parsley

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Cut the potatoes in half or quarters and place in a bowl with the olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic; toss until the potatoes are well coated. Transfer the potatoes to a sheet pan and spread out into 1 layer. Roast in the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until browned and crisp. Flip twice with a spatula during cooking in order to ensure even browning.
3. Remove the potatoes from the oven, toss with parsley, season to taste, and serve hot.

Mom's Mint Frosting

Growing up, we always got to pick out just what birthday cake we wanted my mom to make us on our special day (luckily, we were never exposed to those awful grocery store cakes with the thick fake frosting -- ick!).  Almost all of us would request chocolate cake with mint frosting. 

My mom makes the best mint frosting - it's not too rich or overly sugary, just a subtle minty thin layer of sweet goodness!  She doesn't use a recipe, and just kind of wings it.  I was craving it a few weeks ago, and decided to try to make a cake like mom's.  I'm happy to say that I think I've been able to quantify the ingredients!  Give this a try - you won't regret it!

 

Mom's Mint Frosting

From the Kitchen of Carol Hutchins

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 4 tablespoons milk
• 1/8 teaspoon mint extract*

Directions:

Beat the butter and powdered sugar until blended, slowly add the milk until desired consitency.  Stir in mint extract. 

*You may want to use more or less than this amount of mint extract.  This proportion came out to my desired minty-ness, but it was a touch stronger than mom's.  

Amish Roast Beef

A few years ago, Alex and I took a weekend trip to an Amish town called Nappannee (Indiana).  We had a lovely time, but one of the highlights was eating a "Thresher's Dinner" at an Amish restaurant in town.  The meal was a humongous feast of roast beef, fried chicken, homemade bread with apple butter, and more.  Apparently it was meant to feed the farmers a hot, filling meal after working in the fields all day.  Makes total sense, but not for us - we would probably need to burn off about 3000 calories to make up for this meal!

One of our favorite things on the menu was the roast beef. It was so tender and juicy, and had been roasting on a low temperature for several days - as per our waitress. 

Once we got back to Chicago, I couldn't stop thinking about that roast beef.  I looked for a recipe online, and found a cookbook sold through the restaurant. A few days later the cookbook arrived, and I excitedly bought the ingredients to make a Sunday roast.  Luckily, the directions did not require me to cook the meat for several days - but it turned out just as good!

 

Amish Roast Beef

Recipe from Amish Acres

Ingredients:

• 5 lbs chuck roast
• 3 T beef base*
• 2 T meat tenderizer

Directions:

Cut roast in sliced 3 inch cubes. Put roast in casserole dish. Add meat tenderizer and beef base on meat. Fill with water and cook at 300 for 4 to 5 hours (start checking the beef after 2-3 hours).

*This is not beef broth, it's a short, squaty bottle labeled "Beef Base," and found in the soup aisle.