Best banana bread ever

Posted on 11/03/2014 by Randomly Edible

Most banana bread recipes go something like this: Smash up some bananas with eggs and flour and bake for a while. That approach works well enough, I suppose, but that’s what everybody does. Don’t you want to be a different? Of course you do. The recipe I am posting here adds a few more steps, but those steps are very much worth it. Out of all the different banana bread recipes I’ve tried, this one produces the best results. There are easier recipes to make and ones that mess up fewer dishes in the process, but if you want truly amazing banana bread then look no further. There are many versions of this recipe posted around the interwebs, but the original recipe was apparently published in Cook’s Illustrated Magazine at some point in time I can’t be bothered to look up.

Skip to the short version

Spots = sweet = delicious.

” Ten pounds of bananas stuffed into a five-pound sack “

Before we get into the details of the other ingredients, obviously you are going to need bananas. Good, ripe ones, maybe even over-ripe. Sometimes it can be a challenge to collect exactly the correct number of correct-ripeness bananas precisely when you want to make banana bread, so anytime you end up with an uneaten banana on its last legs, peel it and throw it into a bag in the freezer. A few iterations of this and before you know it you’ll have a half dozen nicely ripened bananas ready for bread making. If this strategy sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because I follow the same process with the ingredients for my chicken stock recipe, which you have undoubtedly already read. Right? *wink wink*

Ingredients

6 large bananas (insert “large banana” jokes here)
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp table salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
2 large eggs
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 to 3 tsp granulated sugar

Other stuff you’ll need

a large microwave-safe bowl
a saucepan
a mesh strainer
a loaf pan of some kind, 8 1/2″ will do
patience
trust (Some of the steps are odd, but I promise it’s worth it.)

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Take one of your six bananas – a decent-looking one that isn’t too mushy – and set it aside. Take the remaining five bananas, frozen or otherwise, and put them into a large microwaveable bowl. Cover tightly with plastic wrap, poke a few holes for ventilation, and microwave for five minutes, six if some of the bananas are frozen. While you wait for the microwave, put your mesh strainer over your saucepan and get out some hotpads. When the microwave beeps, you will end up with a weird, discolored lump of banana goo floating in clear stuff the same temperature as the surface of the sun.

Fact: Bananas are lethal when microwaved for five minutes.

CAREFULLY remove the plastic wrap, doing your best not to sustain permanently disfiguring facial burns from the steam, and pour/dump the mess of superheated banana material into the mesh strainer perched atop your saucepan. Leave it there for 15 minutes.

I bet you didn’t expect this step.

While the banana magma drains, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl and set aside. When the 15 minutes are up (yes, you really have to wait the whole 15 minutes), remove the microwaved bananas from the strainer, put them in a medium-sized bowl, and set aside. In the saucepan, you should have collected 1/2 to 3/4 cup of clear liquid. This is pure, unadulterated banana essence (sometimes also called “juice”), and we are going to turn it into banana syrup. Oh yes, we are.

It will thicken up a bit when it’s done.

Simmer the banana juice over medium-high heat until it’s been reduced to 1/4 cup, about 5 minutes or so. When it’s done, pour it into the bowl with the bananas. I know this seems stupid, but what we’ve effectively done here is concentrate all that awesome banana flavor into a smaller, more intense package. It’ll be great, really it will.

It tastes better than it looks.

Add the melted butter, brown sugar, and vanilla and stir well. Before you add the eggs, make sure the mixture isn’t too hot; nobody likes cooked egg bits in their banana bread. Stir in the eggs, then pour the whole mess into the flour mixture and fold everything together, being careful not to over-mix.

If you want to ruin everything, add chopped walnuts at this time. When you’re done with that, you might as well pull the wings off a few butterflies and then go kick a puppy. In case it’s not clear, I recommend against this step.

Walnuts are gross.

Lightly grease your loaf pan and pour the batter in. Take that last banana, slice it, and lay the slices on the top of the loaf along both sides. Leave a gap in the middle to allow the bread to rise as it bakes. Sprinkle the granulated sugar evenly over the top.

I know, I didn’t sprinkle the sugar evenly. So sue me.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 55 to 75 minutes. Insert a toothpick or wooden skewer into the center of the loaf; when it comes out clean, the bread is done.

This is ten pounds of bananas stuffed into a five pound sack.

Allow to cool for at least 7 or 8 seconds, cut some slices, and bask in delicious banana glory.

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Yes, I do put butter on everything.

tl;dr

Best banana bread ever

Ingredients

6 large bananas
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp table salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
2 large eggs
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 to 3 tsp granulated sugar

Other stuff you’ll need

a large microwave-safe bowl
a saucepan
a mesh strainer
a loaf pan of some kind, 8 1/2″ will do

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Take one banana, slice, and set aside. Microwave the remaining bananas for 5 minutes. Place in mesh strainer and allow to drain for 15 minutes. Pour resulting juice into a saucepan and reduce to 1/4 cup volume over medium heat, then recombine with microwaved bananas. Add melted butter, brown sugar, vanilla, and eggs. Whisk together dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Stir banana mixture into dry ingredients and mix well. Add walnuts if desired. Pour batter into lightly greased loaf pan, lay sliced banana on top and sprinkle with granulated sugar. Bake for 55 to 75 minutes, until inserted toothpick comes out clean.

See also

Standard Recipe Disclaimer
I don’t come up with a lot of my own recipes (unless you count my own personal milk-to-Grape-Nuts ratio), and chances are the recipe posted above belongs to or was inspired by a person other than me. So if you’re wondering whether or not I ripped somebody off, I probably did. Don’t get out the pitchforks and torches just yet though! I want to make absolutely sure I give credit where it’s due, so if you think someone deserves recognition for something that I haven’t already called out FOR CRYING OUT LOUD LET ME KNOW. Thanks, I appreciate it. Here’s a cookie.

Boiled peanuts

Posted on 10/29/2014 by Randomly Edible

Somewhere over the course of my childhood, I developed a taste for boiled peanuts. Maybe it was that year I lived in Georgia as a toddler, or maybe it was that southern neighbor of ours in Massachusetts. Regardless, I still crave boiled peanuts to this very day and dream about them far more than I care to admit. They’re like a cross between chick peas and roasted chestnuts, bean-like but also decidedly peanutty. I call them “redneck edamame“. When cooked properly, they have a wonderful soft and slightly chewy texture. I freaking love the things. Most other people I know, however, don’t.

Skip to the short version

” There are a number of redneck activities you can occupy yourself with while you wait “

I’m not going to lie to you. If you’re curious whether or not you will like boiled peanuts, you probably won’t. I only know a handful of people who like them, myself included. Many of these people herald from India, where I am told boiled peanuts are a relatively common street food. Aside from that, I know one Texan who likes boiled peanuts and three or four folks from the Carolinas who grew up eating them. Everybody else I know, my Texan wife included, think that boiled peanuts are all kinds of icky.

There. That concludes my disclaimer. If you make this recipe and decide that you hate boiled peanuts, you have only yourself to blame. Now that we’ve weeded out all the wimps, let’s get cooking!

Who wants to make a peanut angel with me?

Ingredients

2 lbs raw peanuts
1-2 quarts water
1/2 cup table salt (or 1 cup Kosher salt)

Other stuff you’ll need

a crock pot or large stock pot
something to do for twelve hours

Directions

If it wasn’t so tricky to find raw peanuts, this would pretty much be the world’s easiest ingredient list. Raw peanuts usually start showing up at my local farmer’s market in late September and disappear again in December. You can also find them at Asian markets and/or in any decent-sized Chinatown. Once you finally locate some raw peanuts, buy a pile of them. I usually get two pounds at a time because that’s what will fit in my crock pot.

Be sure to wash your n… uhm… I mean produce. Be sure to wash your produce.

Take that lovely pile of peanuts and wash the bejiminy out of them. Peanuts grow in dirt. Nobody likes eating dirt. Wash harder. When the rinse water runs clear, the peanuts are about as clean as you can get them.

The general idea at this point is to simmer the peanuts all day long in salty water, which can be accomplished in a number of different ways. A pot on the stovetop works just fine, but I prefer using a slow cooker. Dump the peanuts into whatever cooking thingy you choose, cover with water, and add the salt. Bring the resulting brine water to a boil, turn down the heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for about eight to ten hours. If you’re using a crock pot, set the selector to ‘high’ and let it go for about twelve hours.

The salt ratio is a tricky thing to get correct, partly because everybody prefers slightly different amounts of salt, but also because the amount of water you need varies depending on the shape of your cooking vessel. The best advice I can give is to wait until the brine water is simmering and then taste a tiny spoonful of it. It should be salty but not repulsive, say a little bit less salty than ocean water. However salty the brine tastes is how salty the peanuts will be. Adjust the salt and water ratios accordingly, but do it early and do it ONLY ONCE.

Everyone in the pool!

So, how do you know when the peanuts are done? Well… uh… They certainly shouldn’t be crunchy at all, that’s for sure. If they crunch, they need to cook another few hours at least. They also shouldn’t be über-mushy, but rather somewhere halfway in between. It’s worth noting that you should not be alarmed at the apparent blandness of the peanuts as you taste test them. In my experience, the salt only seems to work its way into the nuts during the last 10% of the cook time or so. I have ruined more than one batch of boiled peanuts by panicking and adding more salt at the last minute, only to have the batch turn out lip-puckeringly over-brined. Don’t be a me.

There are a number of redneck activities you can occupy yourself with while you wait the twelve-ish hours it takes your peanuts to become boiled. You can build a potato gun, watch reruns of Honey Boo Boo, make a hammock out of duct tape, or go mattress surfing. When you’ve finished cleaning the mud out of your hair and replacing any teeth you’ve lost, you’re ready to enjoy a true redneck delicacy.

Note: If you like boiled peanuts and you’re not a redneck, I have probably just offended you. Stop being so sensitive.

I sure do love me some boiled peanuts.

Remove the peanuts from the brine and eat them hot. Delish! Whatever’s leftover will keep for about a week in the fridge, or many months in the freezer. If you’ve discovered that you do indeed like boiled peanuts, you might also want to try Cajun style. Throw a couple bags of Zatarain’s Crab Boil seasoning in the brine along with a jar of pickled jalapeños, juice and all, and you’re good to go.

Follow @RandomlyEdible

tl;dr

Boiled peanuts

Ingredients

2 lbs raw peanuts
1-2 quarts water
1/2 cup table salt (or 1 cup Kosher salt)

Other stuff you’ll need

a crock pot

Directions

Wash peanuts thoroughly in cold water and place in crock pot. Cover with water, add salt, and cook on high for 12 hours. For Cajun style, add two bags of Zatarain’s Crab Boil and a jar of pickled jalapenos to the brine mixture.

See also

Standard Recipe Disclaimer
I don’t come up with a lot of my own recipes (unless you count my own personal milk-to-Grape-Nuts ratio), and chances are the recipe posted above belongs to or was inspired by a person other than me. So if you’re wondering whether or not I ripped somebody off, I probably did. Don’t get out the pitchforks and torches just yet though! I want to make absolutely sure I give credit where it’s due, so if you think someone deserves recognition for something that I haven’t already called out FOR CRYING OUT LOUD LET ME KNOW. Thanks, I appreciate it. Here’s a cookie.

Cure your own bacon

Posted on 10/25/2014 by Randomly Edible

I really can’t think of a good reason why you wouldn’t want to cure your own bacon. IT’S BACON, PEOPLE. More is better! Homemade is even better than that. So then, do you like maple bacon? Black pepper bacon? Fancy herb-spiced yuppie bacon? Do you prefer it sliced thin, thick, halfway in-between? Well guess what, you get to choose. Control your own bacon destiny!

Skip to the short version

” Stop complaining and get to work “

Ok, so perhaps you don’t own a smoker and that concerns you. Sure, a smoker makes the roasting/smoking process a little bit easier, but it isn’t a 100% requirement by a long shot. There are a lot of perfectly viable workarounds, so don’t worry too much about it. The only truly “specialty” item you’re going to need is curing salt, also known as “Prague powder #1“, “Instacure #1”, or “pink curing salt”. Himalayan pink salt is not the same thing as pink curing salt, so don’t confuse the two.

Just imagine of all the things you can do with your very own homemade bacon.

Curing isn’t anything to be afraid of. Curing salt is simply a mixture of sodium nitrite and regular old table salt. Prague Powder #1 happens to be 6% sodium nitrite and 94% regular salt and is the only type of cure you need to worry about. There is such thing as Prague Powder #2, but it contains a different ratio of ingredients and is for a completely different style of curing. What is sodium nitrite? It’s a common ingredient needed in the creation of all types of meats we know and love such as ham, pastrami, sausages, and of course bacon.

So here’s the deal. Curing requires a very specific curing-salt-to-meat ratio. Too much results in excess sodium nitrite which isn’t good for you, and too little could result in spoiled meat which is just gross. The rule is always one teaspoon of Prague Powder #1 per five pounds of meat, ground or otherwise. Easy. It’s printed right there on the container of curing salt. It gets very complicated when you start adding liquids because then you need to calculate the solution, weigh the ingredients, blah blah etc etc. If you search around the interwebs a bit you will find all sorts of opinionated rednecks arguing with one another about science and math in a very amusing manner. You will also find quite a lot of recipes that call for wildly incorrect amounts of curing salt, which is a little scary.

The good news about this particular recipe is that it’s very safe. We already know that we’re not using too much curing salt.. but what if there isn’t enough? Well even if you didn’t use any curing salt at all, the meat is refrigerated throughout the process and only “ages” for 7 days, which isn’t really enough time for it to spoil. There’s also copious amounts of regular old salt – an effective preservative – and the meat actually ends up getting cooked twice before it ever comes near your plate anyway. There, does that make you feel better? I thought so. Let’s get started then!

You don’t need a lot of gear to cure your own bacon.

Ingredients

5 lbs fresh pork belly, skin on
1 tsp Prague Powder #1
1/4 cup Kosher salt -or- 1/8 cup table salt
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup maple syrup

Other stuff you’ll need

a 2.5 gallon Jumbo Ziplock bag
a smoker or barbecue and some applewood chips
- alternately, a normal oven and a bit of liquid smoke will work
a meat thermometer
a good, sharp knife, the longer the better

Directions

The first thing you need to do is locate five pounds of skin-on pork belly. You should be able to order one at the butcher counter in your local grocery store. Alternately, you can seek out a specialty butcher shop and see if they already have pork belly in the display case. My favorite haunt for this sort of thing is Schaub’s Meat, Fish, & Poultry in Palo Alto. They usually get their deliveries of pork on Thursday mornings, so if you’re quick about things you can often snag a hunk of belly that same day without calling ahead.

Whisking together the dry mix first helps ensure an even distribution of curing salt.

Rinse the pork belly with cold water, pat dry with paper towels, and put it in that 2.5 gallon Jumbo Ziplock bag you set aside. The next thing you want to do is whisk together all of the dry ingredients in a small bowl. Note that Kosher salt measures differently than table salt does. A good general rule is that you should double the measure when using Kosher instead of table salt or halve it when going the other way. If you want your bacon a little on the salty side, allow the measuring cup to heap a little bit, otherwise make sure it’s a level scoop. Dump the dry ingredients into the Ziplock bag right onto the belly and add the 1/4 cup maple syrup as well.

Belly in a bag. Here we go.

Seal the zip on the bag and smoosh the ingredients around until the belly is completely covered. You might be thinking that it’s a pain to try and rub the ingredients on inside the bag, and you would be correct. You might also think it would be a better idea to apply the rub before putting the belly in the bag and you would be wrong. Remember that it’s important to apply exactly the correct amount of cure to the meat; if we rub the cure on first, we’re going to lose a good amount on our hands and on our working surface, meaning the bacon will turn out under-cured. Applying the rub inside the bag also helps ensure the correct saltiness (and maple-y-ness) of the finished product. It only takes an extra minute or two, so stop complaining and get to work.

Once the belly is covered, lay it flat in the refrigerator and let the cure do its thing. Every day or two, flip the belly over and give it a pat and a rub to help make sure the cure is distributed evenly.

After a week of quality fridge time it should look about like this.

Your bacon is now officially cured, but we still have some work to do. Remove the cured belly from the Ziplock bag, rinse it thoroughly, and pat it dry with a paper towel. Some people recommend letting it hang dry in the fridge for as long as two or three days in order to form a magical barrier-like thing called a pellicle that somehow simultaneously holds in juices, allows for even cooking, and makes smoke flavor “soak in better”. Gently warming your cured belly in a 100 degree oven for an hour is supposed to do the same thing. I have never beheld the forming of this mystical meat coating myself, but I’m not about to argue with an entire Internet full of other self-titled experts who say it’s for real. Personally I don’t bother with pellicle summoning (or whatever the activity is called), and my bacon still rocks. Do it if you feel it’s a worthwhile step, otherwise don’t. Your call.

This little piggy went to the smoker.

This next step is where the meat thermometer comes in. What we want to do is cook the belly, as slowly as possible, until the internal temperature reaches 150 degrees F. If you have a smoker, great. Set the temperature to 200 degrees F (or as close as you can get it), throw some applewood chunks or chips onto the fire, and put the cured belly skin side up on the grill for two or three hours. If you don’t have a smoker but you do have a regular charcoal or gas barbecue, configure it for low, indirect heat, and it will do just fine for smoking the cured belly. The different methods and techniques for configuring regular barbecues for indirect heat is a whole other can of worms that I won’t cover here, but I will say that there are plenty of options available to you. A regular old oven will work just fine as well, and you can still add smoke flavor by introducing a little liquid smoke to the process.

Yes, it does smell as amazing as it looks. Be jealous.

Once the belly reaches an internal temperature of 150 to 155 degrees F, remove it from the smoker/grill/oven and allow it to cool. Remove the skin while it’s still warm and stick it in the freezer for later use. That salty, smoky pig skin has all sorts of fabulous uses (e.g., chitlins, flavoring soups and beans, etc.) so definitely don’t just throw it away. What you do from here is now completely up to you. You can slice your bacon, cut it into chunks and give it away to friends, freeze it, chop it into bits and make lardons, use it as a pillow, etc. In my opinion, the very best option is to slice some of it up and make BLT sandwiches for dinner while you decide what to do with the rest. There are no bounds to what you and your bacon can accomplish together.

A 14″ brisket knife and a steady hand make for nice, even strips.

Now that you know how to cure your own bacon, you can start messing with the recipe a bit. Just remember that it’s always one teaspoon of Prague Powder #1 to five pounds of belly in a dry (or mostly dry) mix. From there do whatever you like. Add spices, pepper, bay leaves, espresso… pretty much anything really. Get out there and conquer your own world of bacon.

Follow @RandomlyEdible

tl;dr

Cure your own bacon

Ingredients

5 lbs fresh pork belly, skin on
1 tsp Prague Powder #1
1/4 cup Kosher salt
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup maple syrup

Other stuff you’ll need

a 2.5 gallon Jumbo Ziplock bag
a smoker or barbecue and some applewood chips
a meat thermometer
a sharp knife

Directions

Rinse pork belly with cold water, pat dry with paper towels, and place in Jumbo Ziplock bag. Whisk together dry ingredients, stir in maple syrup, and add to bag. Seal zip on bag and work cure mixture around until entire belly is covered. Place in refrigerator for at least 7 days, flip daily. Remove belly from bag and thoroughly rinse in cold water. Smoke at 200 degrees F until internal temperature of belly reaches 150 to 155 degrees F. Remove skin while warm, cut bacon into slices and refrigerate or freeze.

See also

*attempts to eat computer screen*

Standard Recipe Disclaimer
I don’t come up with a lot of my own recipes (unless you count my own personal milk-to-Grape-Nuts ratio), and chances are the recipe posted above belongs to or was inspired by a person other than me. So if you’re wondering whether or not I ripped somebody off, I probably did. Don’t get out the pitchforks and torches just yet though! I want to make absolutely sure I give credit where it’s due, so if you think someone deserves recognition for something that I haven’t already called out FOR CRYING OUT LOUD LET ME KNOW. Thanks, I appreciate it. Here’s a cookie.

Buttermilk drop biscuits

Posted on 10/15/2014 by Randomly Edible

Everybody loves biscuits. There’s no arguing with this statement. I’m not talking about the flat, sweet, crunchy things that folks on the other side of the Atlantic call biscuits (although those are good too), I’m talking about flaky, buttery, American-style biscuits. If you’ve never had one of these fresh out of the oven, you haven’t lived.

Skip to the short version

THESE are biscuits. End of story.

I’ve made a lot of rolled biscuits in the past, the kind where you roll out the dough and cut circles out with a cutter, but lately I’ve taken to drop biscuits. They get their name from the fact that are formed by taking rough scoops of dough and dropping them onto a sheet or pan; no rolling pin necessary. Drop biscuits require less work and therefore less handling, which – for me at least – results in a lighter texture. They are also more versatile than their rolled cousins, and they do rather well with additional ingredients mixed in like cheese or hunks of bacon.

Ingredients

3 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup buttermilk …give or take a bit. More on this later.

Directions

” If Satan has a favorite drink, it’s buttermilk “

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F. If you happen to be using a cast iron drop biscuit pan, preheat it with the oven. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Now we need to incorporate the butter into the dry ingredients, probably the trickiest bit of the whole process. The most straightforward way to go about it is just to plop the butter as-is directly into the flour mixture and go to work with a pastry blender. If you don’t happen to have one of these (and even if you do), this step can be a pain in the arse. You can try chopping up the butter before dumping it into the flour and using table knives or forks to work it in, but it’s a tedious process. Or………

Optional super-cool way of doing things

Put your 1.5 sticks of butter in the freezer and leave them there for several hours, preferably overnight. Put a cheese grater in there as well.

Yes, you read that correctly. Put a cheese grater in the freezer. I’m serious.

Guess what we’re going to do next.

When the butter is frozen solid, carefully remove it from the wrapper, handling it as little as possible. Using your icy-cold cheese grater, quickly grate the butter into the dry ingredients and mix them together. If you have trouble with the butter clumping together, put your dry ingredients in the freezer for 30 minutes first.

I bet you’ve never seen grated butter before, have you?

Regardless of which method you use to get the butter worked into the dry ingredients, you should end up with a coarse, crumbly-looking mixture with pea-sized lumps of butter. If you want to include additional ingredients (e.g., cheese), now is the time to add them. If this is your first time making drop biscuits, I recommend sticking with the basic recipe to get a better feel for things. Either way, it’s now time to add the buttermilk.

It’s not an exact science. Just get your dry mix to look more or less like this.

Before we go any further, let me just say that buttermilk is NASTY. Don’t ever try it straight up. My friends and family will tell you that I’m grossly exaggerating things, but don’t listen to them. Buttermilk is one of the most horrific things I have ever tasted – my first tentative sip gave me nightmares for a week. It’s like rotten milk mixed with motor oil and rattlesnake venom. If Satan has a favorite drink, it’s buttermilk, I’m sure of it. It’s a mystery to me how such a repulsive ingredient can make such delicious biscuits, so I’m just going to chalk it up to magic and move on with my life.

Earlier, in the ‘ingredients’ section, I mentioned that you should use one cup of buttermilk, give or take a bit. What I mean by this is that the exact amount of liquid you should use cannot be easily determined ahead of time. When it comes to recipes like this one, it’s far more important for the dough to have the right consistency than to use a precise measurement. As my grandmother used to say when teaching me recipes, “Add enough until it’s right.” So, one cup of buttermilk is probably about the right amount, but don’t be alarmed if you need to add a bit more to make the dough firm up correctly.

Use a measuring cup if it makes you feel better, but I don’t even bother with one. Pour some buttermilk into the dry mix and stir it in gently, being careful not to over-work the dough. If you mix the bejesus out of it, your biscuits will turn out chewy and manhandled instead of flaky and light, so use a gentle hand. It will soon be apparent if there is not enough liquid in your dough because it will be powdery in areas and won’t want to hold together. Add another splash of buttermilk – no more than a tablespoon at a time – and turn over the dough a few more times with your mixing spoon. Keep adding liquid as necessary until you get a single, sticky mess of thick dough that stands up all by itself in the center of the bowl.

And this is what biscuit dough should look like.

Now comes the fun part. Drop quarter-cup lumps of dough onto a baking sheet (or your preheated drop biscuit pan) and bake for 15 minutes.

They don’t have to be pretty. In fact, it’s better if they aren’t.

When the tops of the biscuits are golden brown and toasty, they are ready to consume. Serve them hot and with plenty of butter, sausage gravy, honey, jam, or whatever your heart desires.

It’s all worth it for this one buttery moment.

Follow @RandomlyEdible

tl;dr

Buttermilk drop biscuits

Ingredients

3 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter
1-1.5 cups buttermilk

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Incorporate butter into dry ingredients with a pastry blender or by grating butter while frozen. Add buttermilk until all dry ingredients have been incorporated. Drop quarter-cup lumps of dough onto a baking sheet or preheated drop biscuit pan and bake for 15 minutes.

See also

A bacon and cheese variant I made recently. They did not suck.

Standard Recipe Disclaimer
I don’t come up with a lot of my own recipes (unless you count my own personal milk-to-Grape-Nuts ratio), and chances are the recipe posted above belongs to or was inspired by a person other than me. So if you’re wondering whether or not I ripped somebody off, I probably did. Don’t get out the pitchforks and torches just yet though! I want to make absolutely sure I give credit where it’s due, so if you think someone deserves recognition for something that I haven’t already called out FOR CRYING OUT LOUD LET ME KNOW. Thanks, I appreciate it. Here’s a cookie.

Slow cooker chicken stock

Posted on 10/06/2014 by Randomly Edible

There are a lot of reasons to make your own chicken stock. Maybe you’re a cheapskate, or maybe you prefer the taste of homemade stock to the canned stuff. Perhaps you simply enjoy tinkering in the kitchen and making a mess. Why do I make my own stock? For one, I can’t stand the idea of throwing away perfectly good leftover chicken parts. There’s a lot of flavor lurking in a roast chicken carcass, and I feel like it’s worth the effort to coax it out.

Skip to the short version

” Use it straight up for full frontal chicken intensity “

Technically “broth” is made using meat and “stock” is made using bones, but I’ve always used the word “stock” because it makes me sound more like I know what I’m talking about… which may or may not be true. There are quite a lot of different ways to make this stuff, but this is the recipe I like best. It’s dead easy and it turns out great-tasting results.

You can use stock for an extra flavor boost when making rice, and it’s great for steaming vegetables. Stock is perfect for deglazing pans, making all manner of gravies and sauces, and of course it’s a core ingredient of soup. Polenta made with chicken stock is miles better than its boring water-based cousin. The list goes on and on. Intrigued? Good, let’s start cooking.

A handful of leftover ingredients is all you really need.

Ingredients

1 or 2 chicken carcasses (or a bunch of leftover parts), lightly killed
2 carrots
2 celery ribs
1 medium onion
2 garlic cloves
2 bay leaves
a few sprigs of fresh thyme (optional)

Directions

Ok, first step. Go to the store, buy a rotisserie chicken, eat it, and save the bones, skin, and other unpleasant parts. Do this twice. You should now have more or less the requisite amount of carcass bits to move forward with this recipe. If you like to roast your own chickens, and you really should, this first step will be even easier. At the risk of stating the obvious, all of your chicken should already be cooked. Also, do not – I repeat, do NOT – use giblets when making chicken stock. You know those nasty little bags of bird guts that are stuffed inside whole, raw chickens? Those are giblets. I’m sure there’s someone out there that enjoys the flavor of boiled organs, but it’s not me. Save yourself from the horror and shame of accidentally making liver soup and skip the giblets.

Hot Tip: Keep a couple of gallon ziplock bags in your freezer – one for chicken carcasses and one for veggies. Save all those carrot tops, celery ends, and unused onion layers and stick them in the freezer instead of throwing them away; do the same with various chicken parts. Not only will you waste less food, but you’ll always have stock-making supplies on hand.

The next step is pretty easy. Take all of the ingredients listed above, frozen or otherwise, and throw them into your slow cooker. If you have a smaller slow cooker and don’t think everything will fit, just halve the recipe. There’s no particular need to cut up the vegetables, but if you prefer you can give everything a coarse chop before tossing it in. You should ideally have enough chicken parts to fill your slow cooker completely. Fill with water up to about 1″ below the rim of the cooker, put the lid on, set it to ‘low’, and leave it alone for 24 hours. If you’re in a hurry, you can cook it on ‘high’ for 12 hours instead.

All cooked. We’re on the verge of chicken stock greatness here.

Your stock is all done and it should smell of delicious chickeny goodness. Now, in whatever way seems best to you, separate the bones and other remaining solid stuff from the liquids. I like to dump the whole mess into a large, fine-mesh metal strainer and catch the liquid in a large bowl, but you can also use a slotted spoon or collander or whatever you have handy. Throw away the solids, step back, and admire the deep, rich color of the homemade chicken stock that has magically appeared in your kitchen.

If you own a fat separator, now is a good time to use it.

Now it’s time to store all that dandy chicken tea you’ve just brewed up. There are a number of different ways to tackle this, but my favorite method is to pour 2-cup portions of the stock into quart freezer bags and freeze them while laying flat. Once frozen, they will stack neatly on a freezer shelf, ready for use. For convenience, I also like to fill a couple of ice cube trays. One frozen cube of stock is exactly 2 tbsp; it’s quick, neat, and easy to measure out exactly what you want when the need arises.

Great for cooking, not recommended for cocktails.

And that’s it! You’ll find that your scratch made stock is 3.7 times chicken-y-ier than store-bought.* You can use it straight up for full frontal chicken intensity, or cut it 1:1 with water to bring it down to the level of stock mere mortals are accustomed to. Go ahead and pat yourself on the back, enjoy a tasty beverage, and brag to your friends about how awesome you are.

*Measurements of chicken intensity are approximate and intended only to serve as a vague reference point to lend credibility to this blog post. There is also no scientifically proven method to debunk the aforementioned chicken intensity claims, so if you were thinking of doing so, I say to you: Neener neener.

Not a bad day’s work.

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tl;dr

Slow cooker chicken stock

Ingredients

1 or 2 chicken carcasses
2 carrots
2 celery ribs
1 medium onion
2 garlic cloves
2 bay leaves
a few sprigs of fresh thyme (optional)

Directions

Fill crock pot with chicken carcass parts. Rough cut vegetables and add to crock pot with other ingredients. Cover with water and cook for 24 hours on low. Separate bones and other solids from stock and discard. Refrigerate or freeze stock when cooled.

See also

Standard Recipe Disclaimer
I don’t come up with a lot of my own recipes (unless you count my own personal milk-to-Grape-Nuts ratio), and chances are the recipe posted above belongs to or was inspired by a person other than me. So if you’re wondering whether or not I ripped somebody off, I probably did. Don’t get out the pitchforks and torches just yet though! I want to make absolutely sure I give credit where it’s due, so if you think someone deserves recognition for something that I haven’t already called out FOR CRYING OUT LOUD LET ME KNOW. Thanks, I appreciate it. Here’s a cookie.

Randomly Edible

Mostly a food blog. Sort of.

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