Nori Biscuits

Recently I was preparing dinner when I thought it might be nice to have some extra nibbles to snack on beforehand– nothing complicated, just something savory and quick to throw together. I thought about cheesy biscuits, but that seemed boring– going through my pantry, I spotted a jar of furikake seasoning– a combination of roasted seaweed, sesame seeds, and (in this case) bonito flakes– and was struck with the idea of a savory seaweed biscuit!

Since I was short on time I decided to go with the easiest and quickest biscuit recipe ever– one where you add heavy cream to flour with a little leavening, and that’s it. No grated/cubed butter, no buttermilk (or milk with vinegar), just three ingredients (four if you count salt) that are mixed up by hand in minutes. The resulting biscuits are always tender and surprisingly buttery in flavor despite the complete absence of actual butter.

I decided to add some pulverized bits of regular nori– the roasted seaweed sheets you wrap sushi in– for additional umami flavor, and it really added a nice savoriness and depth to the biscuits. Overall, the hot biscuits were a perfect addition to my evening meal, particular when smeared with a homemade scallion cream cheese that freshened them up just a tiny bit.

I will say that for me, furikake and nori are pantry staples, but even if you don’t ordinarily use them in your cooking I would highly recommend getting them– not only for this recipe, which I will totally be adding to my recipe box, but for sprinkling on other things. Omelettes, rice, and pasta are all great with furikake seasoning– give it a try!

Bacon Fat Biscuits

I fried up a bunch of bacon last week to make a savory bread pudding (for the record, it was kale/bacon/onion bread pudding and it was amazing), and found myself with almost half a cup of leftover bacon fat. I poured it into a ramekin to chill in the fridge, and set about trying to figure out what I could use it in.

With the advent of chillier weather, biscuits seemed to fit the bill nicely. I decided to substitute chilled bacon fat for butter, and to punch up the flavor with some wilting green onions and some cheddar cheese I found in the fridge. Basically these biscuits were a delicious way to use my leftovers, and they turned out wonderfully!

Easy Apple-Cinnamon Biscuits

Last weekend I woke up before everyone else in the house (except for the cats, they were bugging me for food), and decided on a whim that I wanted to bake something for breakfast. Biscuits seemed just the thing, but they sounded kind of boring, so I tried to figure out a way to spice things up a bit. I considered jam– in college I used to whip up a jam scone-type thing that was always well-received– but didn’t have enough of any one flavor of jam in the refrigerator to make it worthwhile.

Instead I decided to go with cinnamon sugar, and to evoke the classic cinnamon roll I ended up doing a cinnamon swirl rather than just a topping. At the last minute, I added one small apple, chopped, which I think added both flavor and textural interest. All in all, a pretty decent result that took less than an hour from start to finish, though in all honestly it wasn’t so incredibly delicious that I’ll be crowing about it to all of my friends. Will I make it again? Perhaps, if I’m ever in the mood for something sweet at breakfast and have limited time to make it in.

Cheddar and Parsley Biscuits

I love tiny baked goods– especially ones with some kind of dainty little decoration on top. Sweet or savory, I can’t resist them! So it was only a matter of time before I tried out an idea that I think I first saw in one of Martha Stewart’s books– tiny little biscuits with a sprig of parsley baked right on top. So adorable! I served them at a picnic last weekend and they were a perfect addition to the menu!

Cherry Blossom Biscuits

So I was making pink biscuits to go with the pink molded salad— it was originally just a one-off so I would have something else in the photo, but then I was adding food coloring to the buttermilk when I decided that I’d inadvertently made the milk too pink. I had to add extra buttermilk until the color was right, but I ended up with twice as much buttermilk as I needed before I was done! Since I had all my ingredients out already I decided to make a double batch of biscuits, but to avoid repetition I decided to change things up a bit and make these sweeter for a more springtime feel! I added sugar to the dough, cut the second batch out in flower shapes, and put on a powdered sugar glaze at the end.

The biscuits didn’t hold their shape as well as I’d have liked, but they did end up being vaguely flowery-looking, enough so that I felt comfortable dubbing them  “cherry blossom biscuits” (though I didn’t have any cherry blossom essence, so it’s just for looks, unfortunately).

Reader’s Digest(ibles): Pink Molded Salad for Mrs. Piggle Wiggle

When I was a little girl I greatly enjoyed reading the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books, which featured chapter after chapter of misbehaving children and their hapless mothers who turned to good old Mrs. Piggle Wiggle for help. The cures ranged from “let the kids stay up late as long as they want until they’re too tired to do anything fun, so they’ll stop complaining about bedtime,” to “I’ll let you borrow my pig with lovely table manners to act as a model/shame your child into eating politely,” to “here are some magic pills that will turn your child invisible whenever he’s showing off.” The books were hopelessly dated even back when I read them– they all involved happy housewives and mostly absent husbands, and everyone wore gloves and attended luncheons and ate ridiculous 1950’s food. Which is what brings me to this, um… masterpiece.

Because really, the 1950’s produced some seriously awful stuff, and while I think that the foods mentioned in the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books were deliberately exaggerated (prune, noodle, and sardine surprise, anyone?), this one was just too bizarre-yet-plausible to pass up.

The table was decorated with pink tulips, a pink tablecloth, pink candles, pink napkins, and pink nut dishes. The main course was a maraschino cherry, walnut, marshmallow, pineapple, strawberry, cream cheese and cabbage molded salad, accompanied by pink biscuits. There were also pink mints and pink gumdrops. And luckiest of all, Mrs. Harroway just happened to be dressed entirely in pink with even pink gloves and pink roses on her hat. All through lunch she was so happy and gay everybody said, “You look adorable, Helen dear, I wish I’d worn pink.”