Buttermilk Duo (Biscuits and Honey Bread) and Pot Roast Leftovers

I was tempted by a liter of half price buttermilk (even if the best before date was a few days later) and made a couple of new recipes I had found on FB and the internet.

Buttermilk Biscuits – tasty enough but a bit too much butter for my taste and a fussy technique with results that didn’t make me want to repeat the recipe.

Buttermilk Honey Bread – a 2 loaf bread recipe found on the Spruce web site. No eggs were used in the bread itself, but I used one for a glaze. Instead of using all the dough to make two loaves, I reduced the amount so that I only used 500 gms of dough for each loaf and divided the rest (~640 gms) among four hoagies

Grilled cheese sandwich

Pot roast hoagie with mushroom gravy and Brie cheese – a Philly cheese steak inspired sandwich using leftovers from my Christmas dinner. All it was missing was some french fries and a pint of cold beer. Prior planning would have helped.

As you can tell … I LIKE Brie … a lot.

Wrapped in foil and baked in a hot (400 deg F) oven for about 10-15 minutes until the pot roast has warmed through and the cheese is melted. Messy as the mushroom gravy seeps out, but SO delicious.

Advertisement

Buttermilk Marinated Fried Chicken and Gravy

Fried chicken … just thinking about it makes me happy and sad at the same time.

I’d never made actual fried chicken, in my life, but I decided to finally make the attempt with two weeks left of my summer vacation. Perhaps it was because I had buttermilk in the fridge, that I wanted to use up, and four plump drumsticks in the freezer. In any case, something just clicked.

Drumsticks marinated overnight in buttermilk, salt, pepper, ground sage, dried rosemary and parsley and then dipped into a mixture of flour, salt, pepper and a bit of cayenne pepper.

To make a long story short … it was messy as I suspected it would be. The results were tasty … hot or cold. Nibbling on a cold drumstick at 10 pm was a guilty pleasure.

And, I’m  never frying chicken again.

As to the buttermilk gravy … again, there were issues. By itself, the buttermilk made the gravy too tangy for my taste. About 1/2 cup of buttermilk to 1 cup of regular milk is pretty good though.

‘Spicy’ Chili and Sweet Cornbread

When I’m happy … I want sushi.

When I’m sad … I want sushi.

When I’m bored … I want… I think you can pretty much figure out where this is going.

BUT, sushi is pricey, so I go digging through the pantry and the freezer for inspiration, and then I come up with dishes that will fill my tummy and not empty out my wallet.

I haven’t made chili in a while and a recent exchange with “The Frugal Hausfrau” about chili and the obsession of some people over what makes the perfect chili came to mind.

So, I decided to make chili and NOT use any commercial chili powder. Instead, I soaked and pureed the last mulato chile in my pantry, and combined it with some frozen chipotle in adobo sauce, ground cumin, minced garlic, and Mexican oregano. All ingredients in the commercial chili powder in some form or other.

‘Spicy’ Chili – makes about 8 servings

1 pound red kidney beans, soaked and cooked until tender
1 pound lean ground beef
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2-1 cup finely diced onion
1-2 garlic cloves, finely minced
1 mulato chile, stemmed and seeded, soaked in about 1 cup hot water then pureed in ~1/4 cup of soaking liquid
1 tsp chipotle in adobo sauce (or more if desired)
1 tsp ground cumin powder
1 tsp Mexican oregano, stems and flowers removed and roughly rubbed between palms
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
1 tsp salt to start, more as needed

Mulato puree and Mexican oregano

In a large dutch oven, over medium heat, saute the onion and garlic until the onion is translucent. Add half (or all) of the mulato chile puree, chipotle, cumin and oregano and fry for a few minutes.

Add the crumbled ground beef and salt and brown, breaking up as you do so.

Add the drained, cooked beans and tomatoes with all their liquid. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat so the contents simmer. Partially cover the pot and simmer for 30 minutes or until the chili is the consistency you prefer. Taste and add more salt if needed.

You may choose to add hot sauce to the pot or to individual servings.

Garnish with diced avocados, grated cheddar or Monterey jack cheese or sour cream and serve with cornbread.

PS: My definition of spicy is ‘flavourful’ NOT ‘hot’. If you want heat, a few splashes of your favourite hot sauce will do the job.

And what bowl of chili is complete without a square or two of sweet cornbread? No jalapeno peppers, whole kernel corn or grated cheese to doctor it up. Just a bit of honey in place of the sugar and I was in chili nirvana. Martha Stewart’s cornbread recipe is almost identical to the one I used but I’ll post it if anyone is curious.

Plain Corn Bread – 16 2-inch squares

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup cornmeal
2-4 tbsp sugar (depending on how sweet you like it to be)**
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1 cup milk or buttermilk**
1/4 cup vegetable oil or melted butter, margarine or shortening

** I used 1/4 cup wildflower honey this time cause I wanted it sweet and buttermilk cause I had some available.

Stir together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together eggs, milk and oil. Add to flour mixture and stir just until batter is moistened, no more.

Pour into greased 9″ round cast iron skillet (or an 8 inch by 8 inch baking pan, but really, the cast iron makes it taste better) and bake in a pre-heated oven at 425 deg F for 15-20 minutes until golden brown or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Even better … I now have several containers of chili to stash in my freezer. And a tub of cornbread.

Buttermilk Cheddar Cheese Biscuits

The dog days of summer … when you need to make something to eat but can’t motivate yourself to try a new recipe so you go back to the old favourites.

I bought a liter of buttermilk cause I had some vague idea of making buttermilk marinated friend chicken but after the frying that I already did … cannoli and arancini … the thought of doing any more frying is making me nauseous.

So, I made buttermilk cheddar biscuits with some of the buttermilk. You can also make ice cream or pancakes with buttermilk. (Click on the LJ ‘buttermilk’ tag to see the posts.) But I wasn’t inspired to do so this time.

They’re great, because you can just eat them on their own, with a piece of cheese, slather them with butter or jam, or drizzle honey over the top or dunk them into a bowl of soup. You can even stick a chicken or sausage patty inside for breakfast. And everyone should know how to make biscuits, whether or not you use buttermilk instead of regular milk.