Tips and Biscuit Recipe

In my constant attempt to blog more (I blog a bit too much on my personal blog and not enough here!) I've decided to share a couple random tips and one of my husband's favorite recipes.

Did you know that if you separate a bunch of bananas, the bananas won't ripen as fast? So if you keep finding that you can't finish a bunch of bananas before they get all brown and mushy, try separating them! They will last a few days longer. I do this everytime we buy bananas and I've never thrown one away because we couldn't eat them fast enough.

Many of you might already have known that, and I'm sure even more know this next one!

I made BBQ spare ribs for dinner last night. The night before I remembered that our brown sugar, which I would be needing, was as hard as a rock. I used a well known tip that never fails and put in a piece of bread with the brown sugar over night and woke up to perfectly soft brown sugar ready for use.

Along with our ribs, we made baking soda biscuits. My husband LOVES these, but I hate to make them often, they have a whopping 9 grams of fat and 160 calories in each biscuit! They are well worth the splurge ever now and then though!

Baking Soda Biscuits:

2 c all purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 c shortening
3/4 c milk

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Mix flour, sugar, salt, and soda. Cut in shortening until mixture looks like fine crumbs. (I use a pastry blender, or you could use two knives in a criss-cross motion if you don't have one). Stir in milk until dough leaves side of bowl, the dough will still be soft and sticky.

3. Knead dough lightly about 10 times on a lightly floured surface. Roll dough about 1/2" thick using a lightly floured rolling pin (or a flour your hands a bit and pat out the dough). Cut biscuits using a floured round cookie cutter (or if you don't have one like me, I use the top of a glass). Place biscuits on an ungreased cookie sheet right next to each other so they are touching.

4. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown, immediately remove from cookie sheet.

Here's a few things I've learned while making these that might help you!

*Do NOT over work the dough or you will end up with tough crumbly biscuits.

*The original recipe I used said to bake biscuits for 10-12 minutes, but I found 8 minutes was best. I would bake them for 8 minutes your first time and then see if they need to bake longer, don't over bake or they will be dry and crumbly!

*After you cut your first set of biscuits, take the remaining dough and cut more, but again don't over work the dough when you roll it out. Just lightly patting it out will work just fine! Depending how thick I cut mine I make anywhere from 12-18.

*If you have a small family like mine, freeze extra unbaked biscuits in a freezer Ziploc bag. Its just me, my husband and my daughter so I bake a few and freeze the rest. Next time we are ready to have biscuits with dinner, I pull out a few more and bake them and they come out perfect each time, no need to thaw.

*These are killer biscuits to have with breakfast if you are a biscuit and gravy lover!