TWD: Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits

This week it was my turn to choose the recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie and I chose pecan sour cream biscuits. I've been dreaming of biscuits for weeks. I can't believe I've never actually made them before, though I have made scones. Now I want to find or create a whole wheat healthier version of biscuits but hopefully still retain the tenderness, if that's possible. Maybe with whole wheat pastry flour and oat flour. Anyway onto the pecan sour cream biscuits!

I found them easy enough to put together, though I'm always paranoid about overworking any sort of dough and/or softening the butter with my hands by accident. I pretty much just squashed the dough together, patted it out in a shape that I shall call a squircle (square/circle). I don't like rerolling dough, partly because I don't like rolling dough and partly because again, I don't want the dough to become overworked. So I just cut the dough into 12 roughly even size pieces.

When they came out of the oven they looked perfect. I could see that they had risen and become a bit flakey when I looked at the side of the biscuits. Seeing the way biscuits and scones rise like that always makes me happy. And the bottoms were nicely browned. Yum yum. It was so nice to have fresh warm from the oven biscuits!

As for the taste, they were slightly sweet and the pecans added a nice crunch, as Dorie says in the intro to the recipe. I loved how the edges of the biscuit were crispy, though that only lasts for the first day. I'd use this recipe as the base to try out other flavours, though I'm not sure what yet. My mind immediately thinks earl grey biscuits! Because I'm obsessed with putting earl grey in things, but I'm not sure how that would turn out.

Go check out the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers and see their delicious biscuit adventures!

If this sounds good, you might like:
Almond Coconut Muffins
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Scones
Apricot or Cranberry Orange Scones
Pumpkin Loaf

Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits
Adapted from Baking: From my home to yours

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup (packed) light brown sugar
5 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into 10 pieces*
1/2 cup cold sour cream
1/4 cup cold whole milk
1/3 cup finely chopped pecans, preferably toasted

Preheat the oven to 425F. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment or a silicone mat.

In a bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Stir in the brown sugar, making certain there are no lumps. Add in the butter and, using your fingers, toss to coat the pieces of butter with flour. Quickly, working with your fingertips or a pastry blender, cut and rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture is pebbly. You'll have pea-size pieces, pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and pieces the size of everything in between.

Stir the sour cream and milk together and pour over the dry ingredients. With a fork, gently toss and turn the ingredients together until you've got a nice soft dough. Wwith your hands give the dough a quick, gentle kneading - 3 or 4 turns to bring everything together. Toss in the pecans and knead another 2 to 3 times to incorporate them.

Lightly dust a work surface with flour and turn out the dough. Dust the top of the dough very lightly with flour and pat the dough out with your hands or roll it with a pin until it is about 1/2 inch high. Don't worry if the dough isn't completely even - a quick, light touch is more important than accuracy.

Either use a biscuit cutter or cut the biscuits into small squares. By hand or with a small spatula, transfer the biscuits to the baking sheet. Gather together the scraps, working them as little as possible, pat out to a 1/2-inch thickness and cut as many additional biscuits as you can; transfer these to the sheet.

Bake the biscuits 14 to 18 minutes, or until they are tall, puffed and golden brown. Transfer them to a serving basket.

*I didn't do it this time but next time I'm going to freeze the butter and grate it (like cheese) then just stir it in, as suggested by Leigh.

Chocolate Cookie Bark

This is a super easy and delicious treat to make, and it looks good too! I heard about it from a friend and couldn't stop thinking about what cookie bark would taste like. I finally got around to making it and it was really addictive. I rarely ever eat Oreos on their own but when they're in something else I always want to try it. (Like the Cookies & Cream Pound Cake from My Sweet Vegan.)

I felt wrong melting chocolate in the microwave and thought about doing it on the stove over steam but then thought ah well whatever and just went for the microwave. The peanut butter mixed into the white chocolate was so good I could've just eaten it with a spoon when it was melted. Actually I did, but just a bit! I might now become obsessed with the white chocolate peanut butter combination. Next time I'm going to use milk chocolate instead of semi-sweet because I'm more of a milk chocolate person, but if you like dark chocolate then use that.

You might also like:
Chocolate Chip Cookie Topped Brownies
Chocolate Orbit Cake
Dulce de Leche Brownies
Chocolate Marble Chunk Cookies

Chocolate Cookie Bark
Adapted Kraft Foods

8 oz semi-sweet chocolate
6 oz white chocolate
2 tbsp peanut butter
10 Oreo cookies

Place semi-sweet chocolate and white chocolate in separate microwaveable bowls. Microwave until completely melted, following directions on package. Add peanut butter to white chocolate and stir until well blended. Crumble half the cookies over chocolate in each bowl; mix well.

Drop spoonfuls of the chocolate mixtures onto wax paper-covered baking sheet, alternating the colors of the chocolates. Swirl a knife through the chocolate mixtures several times with a knife for marble effect.

Refrigerate at least 1 hour or until firm. Break into pieces.

Lime Sugar Cookies

I first saw these lime sugar cookies through Patricia of Technicolor Kitchen who changed the recipe from Pinch My Salt to lime instead of lemon sugar cookies. And what a delicious recipe it is. These cookies were very soft, with slightly crispy edges. I'm used to hard sugar cookies, but I must say that while hard ones can be delicious, these ones are a welcome addition to my cookie repertoire. I'm not sure what happened to mine around the edges as they looked kind of cracked - and the middles of my cookies look deflated. Maybe I beat too much air into the batter? Anyway, I'd like more lime flavour so next time I'll add more (and maybe white chocolate? mmm). I'm not sure what happened with my photos of these cookies as most of them are kind of pink so unfortunately this is the only photo I've got!

Giant Lime (or Lemon) Sugar Cookies
Adapted from Pinch My Salt

Yield: 24 giant cookies

1/2 cup sugar
Zest from 2 limes (separating out 1 tsp)
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup butter, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 3/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda

Prepare lime sugar: In a mini food processor, blend 1/2 cup sugar with 1 tsp lime zest*. Pulse several times until the lime zest is incorporated into the sugar. Put sugar mixture in a shallow bowl and stir lightly with a fork to break up any clumps. Set aside.

Prepare cookie dough: In a medium bowl, stir together flour, salt, cream of tartar and baking soda. Set aside.

Cream together butter and remaining 1 1/2 cup sugar. Blend in eggs, one at a time then add vanilla, lemon juice, and remaining lemon zest. Add flour mixture, one cup at a time, blending well after each addition, until all flour is incorporated.

Refrigerate dough for one hour.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Using a jumbo cookie scoop or your hands, shape two tablespoonfuls of dough into a ball and roll in lemon sugar. Place ball of dough on cookie sheet and press down lightly with the bottom of a glass until cookie is about 1/2 inch thick. Repeat. Six cookies will fit on one pan.

Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees.

*I ground the sugar too fine so don't be overzealous like me. Or if you can't stop yourself from being overzealous, use coarse sugar.

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Chili

This is my entry for Holler and Lisa's new food blog event, No Croutons Required. The theme this month is vegetarian soups - though I'm not sure if chili would be considered a soup? This is more stew-ish anyway so let's call it a very chunky and delicious soup!

I'm not usually a fan of chili, probably due to all the ground meat (or in my case it would be fake ground round/meat). But as I said, this isn't your regular chili. I'm kind of obsessed with sweet potatoes - or maybe not obsessed but if anything has sweet potatoes in it, I want to eat it. So the fact that this "chili" is full of sweet potatoes definitely helps, and combined with the onions makes it slightly sweet. I cut back on how spicy it was so feel free to add cayenne, extra chili powder or some jalapeno peppers to this.

This chili is simple, very easy to make, filling, healthy and yummy! What more can you ask for? It was a great discovery for me for something quick and healthy to make on a weeknight.

If this sounds good, you might also like:
Sweet Potato Black Bean Salsa
Sweet Potato Badi
Balkan Roasted Vegetable Salad

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Chili
Adapted from The Clueless Vegetarian

Serves 3-4 as a meal.

1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 medium onions, chopped
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 cup vegetable broth
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 28-oz (796mL) cans diced tomatoes
2 19-oz (540mL) cans black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp crumbled dried oregano

Heat the oil in a large saucepan* or Dutch oven. Add the onions and cook, stirring, over medium heat until the onions are soft - about 5 minutes. Add the chili powder and the cumin and cook for another minute or so. Add the vgetable broth and the cubed sweet potatoes, reduce the heat to low and cook, covered, until the potatoes are almost tender - about 10 minutes.

Add the tomatoes with all the juice from the can, the beans, salt, and oregano. Bring to a boil over medium heat, then let simmer until the potatoes are completely tender - about 20 minutes.

*Go for the Dutch oven if you can, unless your saucepan is really very large.

My First Meme!

Up until now I have never done a meme on this blog. I apologize to people who tagged me and I never did anything - I think I was just shy and never sure what to write about myself. But I have to take the plunge at some point right? So here is my first meme, having been tagged by Helene (who is also from BC, Canada!) and Gretchen Noelle.

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 5 facts about yourself.
3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post and their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

1. I like the smell of manure because it reminds me of when I used to ride horses.

2. I'm not really good at remembering faces. Some might say I'm horrible at it actually and they wouldn't be entirely wrong. Just the other day I sat on the bus next to someone I used to work with, he said hi to me and I stared blankly back. I know who he is - it's not like I forgot him, but I completely couldn't place his face when he said hi to me at first.

3. My goal is to become a public health inspector, which should hopefully take about another 3.5 years.

4. I absolutely adore dogs. Large dogs are the best, or at least larger than a cat, but really any dog is wonderful. (I also love cats. Preferably ones that don't attack my face every once in a while as my moody cat does.)

My old dog Shadow.

5. I have some strange aversion to using cutting boards, unless I'm cutting up a lot of stuff or wanting to chop an onion or something. I'll often grab a plate instead to slice something up. I think this is because we used to have a giant wooden cutting board that barely fit in the sink and I hated cleaning it since it was so awkward.

I'm not going to tag anyone since I was such a bad tagee. But feel free to steal this meme and let me know if you fill it out because I'd love to read it!