PastaLover wrote:
Damn, you just made me hungry!

Cast iron is a great thing. I hereby nominate it as at least one of the
ten best things ever invented.




Well, I think we would have to call cast iron aircraft less than
successful.

;-)

Rusty

"jmcquown" wrote in message
.. .
Some very nasty storms blew through here early this morning but I wanted
some biscuits. I was fully prepared for the electricity to go out so I
put
a few (very few) coals on the grill and got out my trusty cast iron
skillet.

snip story of Pioneer Jill
Jill

Good for you!! Successes like that make us feel we can do anything.
Janet

jmcquown wrote:

OmManiPadmiOmelet wrote:

jmcquown wrote:


Some very nasty storms blew through here early this morning but I
wanted some biscuits. I was fully prepared for the electricity to
go out so I put a few (very few) coals on the grill and got out my
trusty cast iron skillet.

Biscuits:

2 c. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/4 c. vegetable shortening
3/4 c. buttermilk

Blend dry ingredients together. Cut shortening in with a fork until
the mixture is sort of crumbly. Gradually add buttermilk and stir
until you have a soft dough that doesn't stick to the sides of the
mixing bowl. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board and knead
very briefly (too much kneading and you'll wind up with baked hocky
pucks!).

Lightly roll out the dough with a floured rolling pin to about 1/2
inch thick. Dip a 3-inch diameter drinking glass in flour and use
it to cut out rounds of biscuits. Scoop up the remaining dough and
gently roll it out to cut the remaining biscuits.

Place the biscuits in the cast iron skillet. Check to see that the
coals are ashy and there's no flames. Place the skillet with the
biscuits on the grate of the grill. Cover the grill and run back
inside (because now it's raining like mad!) Wait about 8 minutes.
Run back out with an umbrella and lift the lid of the grill to peek
at the biscuits. Good, they are nicely risen but need to brown a
tad bit more on top. Run back inside and wait 2, 3 minutes. Run
back out, take the lid off the grill and grab the skillet (remember
to use a hot pad!). Run inside because it's still pouring down rain
and the lightening is terrible.

The power didn't go out but I got some really nice biscuits; had a
couple slathered with sweet butter. Oh yum! And here I thought I'd
lost my knack for biscuits. Turns out all I need is bad weather and
a grill

Jill



Can these be done on a stovetop? :-)


Actually, they can be done on the stovetop over very low heat. Grandma
Brown used to do her scones on the stove top on a cast iron griddle; she
turned them after about 5 minutes. Probably would be the same with
biscuits.

Jill



Sounds cool, thanks!

jmcquown wrote:

PastaLover wrote:

Damn, you just made me hungry!

Cast iron is a great thing. I hereby nominate it as at least one of
the
ten best things ever invented.


The first would probably be fire; second, the crossbow



No, first would be the wheel...... G

Michael "Dog3" Lonergan wrote:

OmManiPadmiOmelet hitched up their panties and
posted :


I suppose you never use schmaltz either.

Your loss. ;-)


Schmaltz is one of my best friends

Michael

Do you make it yourself?
Mom taught me how to do the rendering.

Michael "Dog3" Lonergan wrote:

OmManiPadmiOmelet hitched up their panties and
posted :


Michael "Dog3" Lonergan wrote:


OmManiPadmiOmelet hitched up their panties and
posted :



I suppose you never use schmaltz either.

Your loss. ;-)


Schmaltz is one of my best friends

Michael

Do you make it yourself?
Mom taught me how to do the rendering.


I don't make it. Steven makes it and it is fantastic stuff. When he makes
it he makes a lot at a time and we always have it in the freezer.

Michael

Cool beans! :-)
If you get whole chickens, there is usually those nice big fat pads
right inside of the body cavity. That's what mom used to make it.

OmManiPadmiOmelet wrote:
Rusty wrote:

OmManiPadmiOmelet wrote:

Food Snob wrote:


jmcquown wrote:


Some very nasty storms blew through here early this morning but I wanted
some biscuits. I was fully prepared for the electricity to go out so I put
a few (very few) coals on the grill and got out my trusty cast iron skillet.

Biscuits:

2 c. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/4 c. vegetable shortening
3/4 c. buttermilk


What the **** is wrong with you, posting recipes that have a quarter
cup of vegetable shortening? The fact that you have that in your
pantry brands you as trash.


Jill


--Bryan


The fact that you'd post something like that proves you have no taste.

It may hint at me being an asshole, but it says nothing negative about
"taste."

Bug off Brian!
I have no respect whatsoever for "food snobs". :-P
Give me a break.

I suppose you never use schmaltz either.

I never throw out those big clumps of fat on the leg quarters. That
gets rendered. My comment addressed vegetable shortening, something
that any idiot ought to know better than to use in 2006.

Your loss. ;-)


Vegetable shortening or lard are classic ingredients for biscuits. It
wouldn't be a real biscuit without one of those.

For 100+ years, the food industry passed of hydrogenated shortening as
a better alternative to lard. Some people are still stupid enough to
buy into it.

-Rusty


I agree but if you _ever_ have the opportunity to make biscuits or a pie
crust with schmaltz, I dare you to try it. G

I think lard works better for that application because it has a
slightly higher meltpoint, but someone more skilled than I at baking
could probably compensate. Tell you what schmaltz is best for, frying
chicken. Back when I was more disciplined about carbs (read: thinner)
I used to fry chicken with no breading in rendered chicken fat that was
at least an inch deep. The pieces--even the breasts--stayed nicely
moist.

Mom used to make it just for seasonal pie crusts. It was WONderful.

Flavor-wise, I'd say that poultry fat is second only to butter, tame
duck being my favorite.

Oh, and every time I see someone post something calling for cooking
with trans-fats, I'm going to be an asshole, as well I should. If
people want to hate me or killfile me, sobeit.
There just isn't any excuse for recommending something that is nearly
universally agreed to be unsafe to eat by people who know about such
things.

I'm not saying that schmaltz, lard, or especially beef fat or butter is
particularly good for you, but those fats' affect on plasma lipids must
be balanced against their aesthetic appeal. Not so for shortening,
which is FAR worse health-wise, and has no advantage whatsoever over
naturally saturated fats.

--Bryan http://MySpace.com/BoboBonobo

On 21 Apr 2006 20:47:47 -0700, "Food Snob" wrote:

I never throw out those big clumps of fat on the leg quarters. That
gets rendered. My comment addressed vegetable shortening, something
that any idiot ought to know better than to use in 2006.

Some vegetable shortenings, such as Crisco, have versions with no
trans-fatty acids. I think those are supposed to be the culprits.

Christine

jmcquown wrote:
PastaLover wrote:

Damn, you just made me hungry!

Cast iron is a great thing. I hereby nominate it as at least one of
the
ten best things ever invented.


The first would probably be fire; second, the crossbow


That's why I said "one of the ten best" because obviously there are
other really great inventions....

Some vegetable shortenings, such as Crisco, have versions with no
trans-fatty acids. I think those are supposed to be the culprits.

I thought I'd jump into the fray here. I looked up the Crisco web
site and found the information on their new product.

Crisco 0 Grams Trans Fat Per Serving All-Vegetable Shortening

Ingredients
SOYBEAN OIL, SUNFLOWER OIL, FULLY HYDROGENATED PALM OIL, MONO- AND
DIGLYCERIDES, TBHQ AND CITRIC ACID (ANTIOXIDANTS).

First, Unsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature, and saturated
fats are solid at room temp. Soybean oil with 58% Polyunsaturated
Fatty Acids (PUFA) and 23% Monounsaturated Fatty Acids (MUFA), and
Sunflower oil with 40% PUFA and 45% MUFA are both liquid at standard
room temperature (SRT). To make a solid product you need a higher
concentration of Saturated fat, which is solid at SRT. Crisco has
chosen Fully Hydrogenated Palm oil to solidify this product. Natural
Palm oil has about 50% Saturated fat, which is still too low, when
added to the liquid oils they're using, to make a product that is
solid at SRT. Therefore they're using FULLY HYDROGENATED PALM OIL to
boost the Sat fat concentration.

Now to the problems with Trans fats. When nature makes an unsaturated
bond in a fatty acid, it uses an enzyme to do the work, and the
product is almost always a Cis fatty acid, never Trans. When man
chemically hydrogenates a polyunsaturated fat a mixture of Cis (good)
and Trans (bad) fats are generated in addition to the saturated fats
which are the goal of the process. FULLY HYDROGENATED PALM OIL
contains 88% Saturated fat, leaving 12% which contains a mixture of
Trans and Cis fats. Now this is the third most abundant ingredient on
the list, and it only contains a small amount of Trans fat, but there
will be some Trans fat. Quoting from the FDA website
(http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/qatrans2.html#s3q3) "food manufacturers
are allowed to list amounts of trans fat with less than 0.5 gram (1/2
g) as 0 (zero) on the Nutrition Facts panel. As a result, consumers
may see a few products that list 0 gram trans fat on the label, while
the ingredient list will have "shortening" or "partially hydrogenated
vegetable oil" on it. This means the food contains very small amounts
(less than 0.5 g) of trans fat per serving." So I suspect this
product will still contain some Trans fat, even though it falls below
the FDA sights. If you're trying to eliminate all Trans fats from
your diet, as we all probably should, this is a better alternative
than regular Crisco. But there are other, natural products, that are
lower in Trans fats.

Just my 2 cents.

DreamSong

On Thu, 20 Apr 2006 11:26:56 -0500, "jmcquown" wrote:

Some very nasty storms blew through here early this morning but I wanted
some biscuits. I was fully prepared for the electricity to go out so I put
a few (very few) coals on the grill and got out my trusty cast iron skillet.

.. . .

Cover the grill and run back inside (because now it's raining like
mad!) Wait about 8 minutes. Run back out with an umbrella and lift
the lid of the grill to peek at the biscuits. Good, they are nicely
risen but need to brown a tad bit more on top. Run back inside and
wait 2, 3 minutes. Run back out, take the lid off the grill and
grab the skillet (remember to use a hot pad!).

. . .Turns out all I need is bad weather and a grill

Good for you, Jill!

We're heading into the time of year (in AZ) where baking is almost out of the
question. I use a solar oven for lots of things in the summer, but at 275F
(135C) tops, it simply doesn't get hot enough for baking, so this idea is much
appreciated.

On Sun 23 Apr 2006 08:20:24a, Thus Spake Zarathustra, or was it Sunrat?

On Thu, 20 Apr 2006 11:26:56 -0500, "jmcquown"
wrote:

Some very nasty storms blew through here early this morning but I
wanted some biscuits. I was fully prepared for the electricity to go
out so I put a few (very few) coals on the grill and got out my trusty
cast iron skillet.

. . .

Cover the grill and run back inside (because now it's raining like
mad!) Wait about 8 minutes. Run back out with an umbrella and lift
the lid of the grill to peek at the biscuits. Good, they are nicely
risen but need to brown a tad bit more on top. Run back inside and
wait 2, 3 minutes. Run back out, take the lid off the grill and
grab the skillet (remember to use a hot pad!).

. . .Turns out all I need is bad weather and a grill

Good for you, Jill!

We're heading into the time of year (in AZ) where baking is almost out
of the question. I use a solar oven for lots of things in the summer,
but at 275F (135C) tops, it simply doesn't get hot enough for baking, so
this idea is much appreciated.

I live in Apache Junction. I can get accurate baking tempeatures in my gas
grill, and have baked cakes and pies in it. Otherwise, for short baking
endeavors, I just crank up the A/C and use my kitchen oven.

--
Wayne Boatwright @¿@¬
_____________________