Back from a Whirl Wind Vacation

I will post more on the website about our vacation including lots of pictures from the Keys, the Cruise to Mexico and Belize and the Miami Boat Show.
I did promise a few people I would start the food blog as they were very interested in the adventures of a yankee woman into the world of Southern Cuisine. I do approach Southern Cuisine with a classic French and Italian background, but you will see no pretentious mingling of Souther Cuisine with French sauces and such unless I warn you first! Instead I have used my classic experience to refine and improve on cooking techniques. I am interested in southern ingredients that have an African , Caribbean and South American heritage and I am guilty of getting creative with them (Okra and boiled green peanuts with corn and habanero pepper)
Let me get started with a simple ingredient synonomous with southern cooking and often over looked as an improvement to many recipes that would normally call for milk. Buttermilk.
Get buttermilk and keep it in your 'fridge. It has a long shelf life because the domesticated bacteria culture used to ferment it uses all of the nutrients in the milk to reproduce and leaves none left over for any undesirable bacteria. If it gets mouldy, then you can chuck it. If it sits a while and seperates, I often pour off the clear liquid to have a more concentrated buttermilk. Yummm.
The lactic acid produced by the bacteria will gently cut the palate and perk food up while still maintaining the smooth creamy taste of milk. It is magical in fresh, cold fruit soups and I use it as a base instead of palate cloying cream. Any time a recipe calls for milk, ask yourself if buttermilk can be substituted for the milk. You will be pleasantly surprised ( mashed potatoes ie.)
Southern Buttermilk Buisquits

This recipe is different from any other one you will ever see and it goes back to classic pastry technique. Keep the butter COLD as you work it into the flour. The less you handle it the easier is to keep it cold and it will remine seperate from the flour which will absorb the liquid (buttermilk). The butter, upon baking, will melt and produce the fluffy exquisite layers and texture found in buttermilk bisquits and other pastries. You will be able to get an idea of what the the texture of your buiscuits will be when you roll them out. This recipe is for four people. You can halve it for two. I make square buiscuits because I can't stand waste. They are soooo good.
1. Preheat the oven to 450. I use a baking/pizza stone, but a cookie sheet is fine. I put this in to heat up as my oven preheats and I will put the buscuits on them right in the oven. I find this makes a crispier bottom and helps them get hot faster and rise higher.
2. Take a generously large bowl and chill it in the freezer or 'fridge for a few minutes. You can also fill it with ice water, dump it out and dry it to have it cold quickly
3. Sift toghether ( I use a screen colindar or a little old fashioned hand sifter):
2 cups cake or all purpose flour

I use Southern Buiscuit Flour ( available at Food Lion) it works better than cake flour . I have even used bread flour and the recipe will still work and be good. Bread (high gluten, high protein flour) will yield a tougher, crunchier biscuit. I recommend low gluten cake flour for delicacy. Southern Buiscuit is the best or a general all purpose flour. Avoid Robin Hood. I have never had a good baking experience with that flour. In other words, if you want to make buscuits on the spur of the moment make them with the flour you have and don't stress. "Better to have made slightly imperfect biscuits than to never have made biscuits at all" No one will know and next time they can be better. If you are using them for sausge and biscuits at breakfast with a heavy sauce, really don't worry.
If they have to stand on their own with a fine black raspberry jam, a steamed veg. and chicken for dinner, better to use Southern Buiscuit.

2 cups sifted Souther Biscuit Flour or all purpose flour.
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon salt

A note on measuring teaspoon and tablespoons. I can't always find my little plastic measuring sets and, yes, I have more than one set . A small every day coffee or teaspoon that you use everyday is a standard teaspoon. Use it. A large soup spoon ia a standard tablespoon. Use that and don't stress. It will work.
Dump the dry ingredients in the chilled bowl .
Now here comes the best part. Most recipes will tell you to cut in the butter which is a pain in the ass, takes too much time and nobody knows what that means. It usually involes two knives held side to side and cutting the butter into little inconsistant pieces. This is what I do:

4. Take 10 tablespoons butter and make sure it is straight out of the 'fridge and COLD. Just use the markings on the paper wrapper to measure. Take a hand grater and using the large holes of the grater grate the chilled stick of butter on top of the flour / baking soda/ powder mixture in the big chilled bowl as you might grate cheese. Very quickly, toss the butter and flour so the individual butter strands are dusted with flour and don't stick together. This accomplishes the "cutting into the flour " step and gives you beautiful long consistent, strands of butter which will yield a much better texture.

5. Add all at once 3/4 cup buttermilk. Using an open hand with extended fingers mix /toss coursly until ingredients at least stick together and form a ball. If you feel the dough is a little unevenly drier or wetter in some areas, don't worry. Lightly form it into a slightly flattened patty and put it in the 'fridge for 30 mins.

6. Roll it out quickly about 3/4 inch thick. Cut into squares and place each one individually onto the hot oiled cookie sheet/baking stone and bake for about 10 min.s or more or until it is lightly or strongly golden brown; your choice. My husband likes his very lightly browned where as I preffer them crispier.

These biscuits have a distinctive soda taste. If eaten on their own, they taste best with a fine sweet berry or apple jelly( not jam). I have served them as an appetizer with a sweet hot habanero apple jelly. Crab apple is good. Black berry or raspberry jelly is best. Forego the butter.