January - February Food

With Chinese New Year upon us, I cooked homemade dumplings, plus tried a new recipe called corned beef and cabbage soup (it was just "okay").
For the Super Bowl (02/05/17), we made two batches of chicken wings, mine were Asian and Ford's were the traditional hot sauce.
Homemade pork dumplings - so yummy, we ate every one!

The new slow cooker recipe for corned beef soup:

A double batch of our favorite sloppy joe!

My new biscuit recipe was a hit! Ford said they were my best yet. Made with buttermilk, frozen grated butter in a cast iron skillet.

My New Buttermilk Biscuit Recipe

Adapted from http://www.thekitchn.com

Makes 6 large biscuits (I made seven)

2 cups (10 ounces) all-purpose flour, plus 1/4 cup more for dusting

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda     (I added a teaspoon of Bakewell)

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, frozen (use box grater to grate butter)

1 cup buttermilk

3-inch round or biscuit cutter (I used 2.5”)

Heat the oven: Arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and heat to 450°F.

Mix the dry ingredients: Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl; set aside.

Grate the butter: Place a box grater over a small piece of parchment paper. Grate the frozen butter on the large holes of a box grater. When you get down to a small nub of butter, chop that nub into 5 to 6 small pieces.

Add the butter to the dry ingredients: Use the piece of parchment paper to transfer the butter to the dry ingredients (I grated over bowl of flour, directly). Use your fingers to sift the butter into the flour and break up any clumps of grated butter.

Mix in the buttermilk: Pour in the buttermilk and beat it in with a wooden spoon until the dough comes together and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Fold the biscuits: Transfer the dough to a lightly floured cutting board. Pat the dough into a 1-inch-thick rough rectangle. Sprinkle the dough with a little more flour, if needed. Fold the dough in half from top to bottom, then pat it back down into its original shape. Repeat with the folding and patting, alternating folding from each side, the bottom, and the top until you have completed a total of 8 folds. At the end, the dough should be a little springy to the touch.

Cut the biscuits: Pat the dough into a 1-inch thickness. Use a 3-inch round cutter to cut the dough into 6 biscuits. If you don't get 6 the first time around, refold and pat down the excess dough and cut more as needed. Discard the scraps of leftover dough.

Bake: Arrange the biscuits in a 10-inch cast iron skillet so that the biscuits touch each other, but not the sides of the pan. Put the skillet in the oven and increase the oven temperature to 500°F. Bake until the biscuits are golden-brown, 15 to 18 minutes.

Serve: Remove the skillet from the oven and immediately remove the biscuits from the pan to a clean tea towel.

Super Bowl Patriots vs Falcons. From Facebook: The chicken wing challenge has begun!! Mine are fried then baked with Asian Hot sauce; Ford's are baked then fried, with southern style hot sauce. We are always the opposites. May they all be tasty for the Super Bowl game! AA will eat them both, she loves chicken wings!

Asian wings (a bit stickier as they have some sugar in the recipe):

Hot wings:

01/26/17: Ford loves Pad Thai so he joined this cooking class at EH Talons:

Sushi:

 I stayed home with AA, so Ford was assigned a partner:

He can make sushi and Pad Thai for us now!

Cooking class group photo: