I had a really wonderful friend in a woman I met through one of my ex-boyfriends... She was a kindred spirit to me and even when him and I were moving away from each other in our relationship, she continued to stick by me as a supportive friend. I grew to love her like she was my big sister, and she did so much to enrich my life. Sara not only gave me comfort during hard times, but she did it while suffering through her own demons. Sara took her own life in November... It's now August in the next year, and I am just now able to type a post like this, and even now, I feel my eyes fill with tears in remembrance of my dear friend. I want to honor her with this blog post because she always encouraged me to play with food. It was one of the things we connected over, cooking and working with recipes. She absolutely loved medieval things. She was a member of SCA and attended an annual event called Pennsic, which is a giant, Ren Faire, in essence. She wanted me to help her with food for a party she was throwing for her SCA friends, which included my boyfriend(at the time), and a handful of people I hadn't met yet. She wanted help with stew and asked me to come up with a medieval food to make that people could nibble upon... I chose Scottish Oat Cakes, and she was right there with me as I embarked on making this cool, historical food I had never tried before. I made a sweet version that resembled drop biscuits, so I am not sure whether they were accurate or not, but they did turn out delicious and seemed to go over okay (as far as I remember). I decided that I would try this again, only I would try to be closer to the traditional recipe. It is said that Scottish Oat cakes have been around since at least 43 AD, and they are a flatbread made with oat, oat flour, fat, water, salt, and leavener. They are like dense crackers or biscuits and are quite filling and can be served sweet or savory. ( Click Here for Oat Cake Wiki ) ( New York Times Article: FARE OF THE COUNTRY ) For more information on the history of the oat cake, I suggest the NYT article, but the Wiki is the closest I could find to an encyclopedia entry *cringe* and I do not claim any accuracy to said Wiki. I ended up having to adapt my recipe from two other recipes, I will do my best to give you original ingredients along with my substitutions. THE RECIPE
THE METHODIf you are going to bake them.... Preheat your oven to 375F/190C... In your large mixing bowl... Add all of your dry ingredients and mix them. Drizzle in your rendered fat (I used butter, but the best substitute is bacon grease)... Mix well until it forms a thick paste... Add a little bit of water at a time until mixture becomes a ball... Turn out onto your work surface and toss dry oats onto board and onto dough... Knead dough, adding oats as needed until your dough is no longer sticky. Split dough in half, roll each half (at a time) to about 1/4 inch thick. Cut into rounds (or you can cut into squares if you like)... Bake for 45 minutes or until brown, or pan fry in a small amount of fat for 3 minutes each side on medium to medium high heat. One of my favorite pictures of Sara... This was from before I met her, and I borrowed it from her timeline. I do not claim credit. I made these today instead of waiting around to do it because I found myself thinking of Briney (Sara) and the time I spent in her company. They tasted pretty close to what I had made, but without sugar, and it kind of brought me back to the day we bonded over oatcakes and venison stew. I miss her so very much and I hope that she is at peace now... I know that she didn't have it easy in life, but she was and will always be in my heart as an inspiration.
Thank you for being my friend, Sara. Love, Kimmie
Warning: This recipe is buttery! This is not diet food. Proceed with full disclosure!
I promised you biscuits to go with your gravy, right? Keep in mind that sausage gravy 'n' biscuits isn't exactly for those who are watching their waistlines... But you are missing out when you ignore a fluffy biscuit, and the gravy that goes with it. This recipe is something I use for dumplings as well. I like my dumplings to be fluffy, like a cloud. There is an art to making both cut biscuits and drop biscuits... The butter (or shortening if you must use that), the amount of flour you use, the seasoning, and the amount of time you work your dough/batter. But the great thing about the drop biscuits is that you will know just by looking at it if it is too wet or too dry, if you did just the right amount of mixing, etc. It's more of a "fritter" style, though not fried, than the flaky style. I don't have this awesome, nostalgic story to tell you about what made me like drop biscuits... I just like them. I like how soft and fluffy they are, and how they are the perfect vessel to hold sauces and gravies as there are so much more nooks and crannies to speak of. That is not to say that I dislike the flaky style biscuit, those have advantages too! But I am saving that recipe for another time. This one will have a few alternatives to flour, milk, and butter, for those of you on gluten free, dairy free, or vegan diets! First, the recipe. The Recipe
The Method
Preheat your oven to...
350 F or 175 C
In your mixing bowl...
You can sift your dry ingredients in if you desire, but you can just put them in.
Add the melted butter...
Cut it in with a fork or pastry cutter. It should look like wet sand when you are through with that.
Add half of your milk all at once...
Mix and keep adding until you have a thick batter that hold's it's shape when you have it on a fork or spoon. Do not worry about lumps, lumps are good. You do not want to over-mix or your biscuits will be chewy!
Spoon into 1/4 cup- 1/2 cup lumps onto your sheet pan (Greased if needed)...
Bake for 12-15 minutes or until you see nice brown bits on the tops!
Substitutes and Add ons!
The reason I don't have a set amount of milk or flour is that sometimes it varies on how much of each you need. This recipe is super forgiving unless you overmix the dough! Just be careful not to mix too much if you have to add flour or milk.
This recipe is super easy and versatile, which is what I absolutely love about it. They taste really awesome in a stew, as a dessert, or used for sausage gravy. I hope you enjoy as I do. Let me know what you think! Hit that "Like" button, share it, love it, eat it. Thank you, foodie friends!
Much Love, Kimmie P.S. See that "Yum" button? If you have a Yummly account, please do tap that button! Gravy... My old foe. I hated gravy when I was a kid... It didn't matter that it was sausage gravy, or brown gravy; it didn't matter if the gravy was in a stew or on a piece of bread... I found gravy to be the most foul of all beasts. I remember my dad's face at what happened when he made me eat some on my mashed potatoes one time. My mom did warn him not to force feed me anything. Let's just say that I was quite picky when I was a kid, and I had several nono foods that nobody should have made me eat.... In the order of least to most loathed: Gravy, Beans (Baked Beans most of all), Bologna, Hot Dogs, and Offal. These are things that I refused to eat as a kid, and the top three are still on my no-no list to this day. I learned how to make gravy properly in school... You know, with roux and milk or stock? The minute I tried it, I found out just how much I was missing out on. Gravy wasn't this gross, lumpy stuff, and it wasn't a glue like substance that I loathed... It was a nice, shiny sauce with tons of flavor that had a nice mouth feel. I used to think I would never be able to master the art of the sausage gravy, but I was also trying to fru fru it up like one of those french cuisines, when really, it didn't need to be so complicated. My husband even convinced me one time to eat the gravy that you make from a pouch, and I was not amused. It was the pouched version that got me to understand why I despised gravy as a kid... Let's just say that it was slimy and off tasting, and had way too much sodium. Gravy making, specifically sausage gravy, is easy... You don't need all those frills to make it delicious and you don't need to make it from a pouch. KISS. Keep it simple, silly. Lastly, this is not diet food. Proceed with full disclosure. THE RECIPE
THE METHOD
Over medium high heat....
Brown your sausage
If you don't have enough drippings (you need at least 2 TBSP)....
Add the appropriate amount of butter... Yes... Butter. Told ya this wasn't diet food!
Add the 2 TBSP of flour...
And cook out the raw flavor....
Pour in the milk...
Bring that to a boil and then let simmer until thickened to desired thickness.
Don't forget the pepper!! Seriously, pepper that beast!
Serve over your choice of starch! I prefer biscuits, especially fresh drop biscuits. And yes, those are easy too! I will add the recipe for that in a separate post.
Tip: If your gravy gets too thick, add a little bit of water to thin it out or more milk. If you add milk, add it right before you serve.
I hope you enjoy how quick and easy it is to make sausage gravy. Please let me know how it turns out! Enjoy, my foodie friends.
Much Love, Kimmie
While I know how to make mousse from scratch, it is generally not my favorite thing to do because it takes FOREVER, okay? Yes, there are sometimes where shortcuts aren't going to kill you. Like, for instance, if I can get away with making chocolate mousse without having to bloom gelatin, I will. This recipe will take a little more effort than making pudding and folding whipped cream in, and it tastes almost as rich and is about as decadent as the original. You ready for it?
Easy Mousse w/Variations
Ingredients | Equipment
METHOD
In your mixing bowl...
Place your cream cheese and whip it.
In your double boiler....
Put your chocolate chips in, make sure the water is not touching the bottom of the container or bowl, and that your water is at a light boil. Melt your chocolate gently, stirring constantly with your wooden spoon.
Pour the chocolate over the cream cheese...
Using the whisk or mixer to incorporate chocolate and cream cheese together thoroughly. Make sure to scrape as much chocolate from the one bowl into the other.
Make your whipped cream by whisking vigorously into another bowl...
Or use premade stuff... Put that into your bowl and fold into the chocolate and cheese mixture to make a nice, fluffy mixture. Place top on bowl, then put into the fridge and let it sit for at least an hour.
FOR OTHER FLAVORS:
Add instead of chocolate
Have fun licking the bowl!
Much Love, Kimmie |
The Eccentric Foodie
Food Tip
Cooking bacon in the oven is the easiest way.
Recipes
These are various recipes that either I created, or I found and adjusted to what I thought would be awesome or even healthier. Archives
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