Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits

These biscuits are awesome! I've made them half a dozen times now. They have been a huge hit at all the recent family gatherings. I often have to double the recipe, because these don't last long!
Apparently this is a very widely sought recipe. Just a disclaimer, I did not come up with this on my own, but rather found it online a while back when a news show did a special on Red Lobster and they shared the recipe. When I did a search today to see if I could find it again, it was gone! There are many, many other recipes out there that people claim to be the right one, but by looking at them I can tell they are not them same. This recipe calls for whole milk, but I just use skim, since that's what's in the fridge, and it works just fine.






Ingredients: 
 2 1/2 cups Bisquick baking mix
4 tablespoons cold butter
1 heaping cup grated Cheddar cheese
3/4 cup cold whole milk
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
Brush on Top
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
pinch salt

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Combine Bisquick with cold butter in a medium bowl using a pastry cutter or a large fork. You don't want to mix too thoroughly. There should be small chunks of butter in there that are about the size of peas. (If you don't have a pastry cutter, it helps to cut the butter up smaller to start with). Add Cheddar cheese, milk, and 1/4 teaspoon garlic. Mix by hand until combined, but don't over mix.
3. Drop approximately 1/4-cup portions of the dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet using an ice cream scoop. (It's important to drop the dough onto the sheet rather than balling it. If you flatten the dough too much, the biscuits are not as light and fluffy). Bake for 15 to 17 minutes or until the tops of the biscuits begin to turn light brown.
4. When you take the biscuits out of the oven, melt 2 tablespoons butter in a small bowl in the microwave. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder and the dried parsley flakes. Use a brush to spread this garlic butter over the tops of all the biscuits. Use up all of the butter. Makes about a dozen biscuits.

Corn Chowder

This yummy soup recipe makes only about 6 small bowls, so I often will double the recipe. You can add just about anything you like to this soup. Sometimes when I make this, and end up cleaning out the fridge in the process, Mike likes to call it "Everything but the Kitchen Sink Soup".

Corn Chowder
3 cups of corn (frozen, canned or fresh)
1 large chopped onion

1 medium chopped green pepper

1 14.5 ounce can of chicken broth

2 cubed potatoes (any kind, skin on or off)

1 1/2 cups of milk (if you want it thicker you can use half and half or cream)

2 Tablespoons flour

1 cup of your favorite shredded cheese

garlic, pepper and salt to taste

1 cup ham or bacon

Saute the pepper and onion in large saucepan, with a little butter or oil, till the onion is translucent and tender. Stir in potatoes, corn and broth. (At this point, you can also add any other vegetables that you enjoy, or need to use up. I will sometimes add carrots, or peas and even chopped spinach. If you want to add broccoli, you may want to cook it separately and then add it to the finished soup, otherwise it will become mushy. If you like garlic, now would be the time to add it.)

Bring to a boil, and then reduce the heat. Simmer, covered for about 10-15 minutes or till the potatoes are tender. Be sure to stir occasionally. (If you simmer too long, your potatoes will start to break down. This is okay if you want a much thicker soup).

In a small bowl or your measuring cup, combine flour and milk. Stir together well. Add to the corn mixture. Cook and stir till slightly thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir for another minute. Add in cheese, and heat until melted and smooth. Spice to flavor. Add bacon or ham, and simmer till warm. (If you want your soup thicker, you can add a little more milk and flour mixture).

This soup tastes very good served with flavored croutons.

If you plan to refrigerate leftover soup, be sure that it has cooled completely before you store it; You'll want to separate it into smaller containers, and place them in ice baths (a saucepan with cold water and ice, and stir it often) OR you can put it into a shallow metal pan, so long as the soup is no more than 1-2 inches deep. Do not cover it till it has cooled completely. The goal is to get it to cool as quickly as possible. You don't want it to sit at room temperature for more than 30 minutes, or it's at risk for bacteria or other germs.



Roasted Corn Salsa

We’ve got a wind advisory today, and boy is it chilly! I’m very thankful to have a warm home today. One of the best places to be on a day like today is in the kitchen with the oven on.  I thought something a little spicy would help to warm me up too.

6 Ears Sweet Yellow Corn or 6 cups of frozen sweet corn
1 Poblano Chili
1/2 Red Onion
1 Red Jalapeno (more or less depending on how much heat you want)
1/4 Cup Chopped Cilantro
1/2 Tablespoon Lemon and Lime Juice
Salt and Pepper to Taste

 

The poblano peppers typically have a mild flavor. However, sometimes they can have a significant heat, which can be very surprising. The flavor of the poblano is more complex than the green pepper, but you can substitute it in nearly any recipe that calls for a green pepper. To cut the poblano you want to cut off both the top (near the steam) and the tip at the bottom. Then slice it length wise. Open the pepper and remove the core, white ribs (which can be bitter) and the seeds. Often times the seeds from store bought peppers are no good to save, because the plant was a hybrid, and these seeds will not grow. Slice the pepper into long, thin slices. For this salsa I turned the long thin slices sideways and then diced it very small. Depending on how much heat the poblano has, might determine how small you want your diced pieces to be.

I used frozen corn, and boiled it for 5 minutes, then drained the water off. You could also use sweet corn on the cob. I placed the corn and poblano on cookie sheet (or you could put it on tin foil) that I wiped with Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Put just a little bit more oil over the top of the mix, and toss it with your hands to coat. Then place it in the oven at 375 for about 18-20 minutes to roast. But watch the corn carefully; it will go from roasted to burnt very quickly! You want it to be just lightly browned, and still juicy. You will need to stir it a couple of times to keep the browning even.   

Dice the onion, cilantro and red jalapeno.

·         Taste the onion to decide how small you want it. The onion I had today was especially strong, so I diced it even smaller than usual.

·         When chopping the cilantro (and all herbs) be sure to use a sharp knife. You want to cut the herbs cleanly, rather than tearing and bruising them. Bruised herbs loose much of their flavor on the cutting board, and can also make their color dull. When cutting up the cilantro, you don’t have to pull the leaves off the stems. The steams have a great deal of flavor too. However, in this recipe I have chosen to remove the leaves from the stems and just chopped the leaves into very small pieces. This is only because I don’t like the flavor of large pieces of cilantro.

·         Cut the jalapeno the same way you did the poblano.

Combine the above with the corn and poblano mix. Add lime juice. Stir together, and then add salt and pepper to taste.  If your corn wasn’t sweet enough to start with, you can add about a tablespoon of sugar.  You can serve it either warm or cold. We noticed that as you let it sit, and cool the flavors started to come together more. I’m excited at how well this turned out!

As I get better at this, I will post more pictures of the recipes as I make them.

A Twist on Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

Here we go! I always seem to spend at least one day of the weekend cooking or baking something new. And this of course means that my taste testers (usually my family) almost always want a copy of the recipe. I’m really bad about getting them copies of things, especially since I don’t always cook from a recipe. So I thought I’d try keeping a blog as I try new things, or tweak old recipes.  

For today, I’m baking a twist on the Peanut Butter kiss cookies.   When we say goodbye to kids that we work with, we usually always bring a treat of some kind. Pizza, cookies, donuts, cupcakes, you name it, It’s always their choice. (For those of you who don’t know, I’m a Marriage and Family Therapist, and I currently provide children considered Severely Emotionally Disturbed (SED), In-home family therapy. In Wisconsin “SED” is the criteria these kids have to meet in order to qualify for in-home services. 1) It means that they are under the age of 21, have an emotional disability(mental health diagnosis) that has persisted for at least 6 months, and that same disability is expected to persist for a year or longer. 2) They also must have either psychotic symptoms, be violent, or suicidal. And 3) they have to have impairments in two of the following areas: self care, functioning in the community, school, family, social relationships).

The kids I work with can be very challenging. Some families make a great deal of change, and others don’t. Either way we like to thank them for welcoming us into their home, and allowing us to challenge them.  We work in teams of two, and it can be very intrusive to have us coming into their homes up to four hours a week.

Which brings me back to why I’m making a twist on the Peanut Butter kiss cookies:  Tomorrow I say goodbye to one of my teenage boys. When I asked him last week, what treat he would like he said, “You know those cookies with the Hersey Kisses or mini Peanut Butter Cups in them? I’ve always wondered what they would be like with the big Peanut Butter Cups. Those would be awesome” We joked and he finally decided that it probably wasn’t possible, and that cookies from the store bought pre-made cookie dough would be just as good.  I think his dream is possible!

I started by preheating the oven to 375°. I placed my large baking bowl with my butter in it, on top of the stove to soften it since I had just taken it out of the freezer.  Don’t let the butter melt though, because you will want to be able to cream it together with the sugar; this won’t work if the butter is a liquid. This can cause your cookies to end up flat. (Butter has a low melting point and goes from solid to liquid very quick. Because of this, when you put the cookies in the oven, the butter melts and the dough spreads out before the cookie can bake and set its shape. So if you’ve already melted the butter, your cookies have no hope! You also don’t want to microwave your butter. It can get way too hot. If your recipe has egg in it, you could end up cooking your egg in the bowl if your butter is too hot. ) If you do accidently melt your butter, you can always place the bowl in fridge for a few minutes.  

Add the peanut butter to the butter, and beat till creamy.  Add both sugars, and beat till fluffy. Add egg, milk and vanilla, beat well. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt in smaller bowl. Slow mix dry ingredients into the large mixing bowl. Once wet and dry ingredients have been combined, shape dough into 1 inch balls, roll in sugar, and place on ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake for 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned. While they are baking, unwrap your candy for the middle.  Immediately when you pull the cookies out of the oven push the candy into the middle of the cookie. The cookies will crack slightly around the edges.  Remove the cookies from the cookie sheet to cool on a wire rack. Be sure to cool them completely before storing them.