He gets out there and throws great showers and fountains of the stuff, his cheeks getting red with the cold, and his whole body encased in layers of POUUUUUFy clothes: shirts and long underwear tucked into thick, thick socks, and then jeans tucked into high-laced black boots, with a Michelin-Man jacket like a little kid's snowsuit, only in gray.
He wears a balaclava AND earmuffs (so as not to hear me calling from the back door that THAT'S ENOUGH!! Come in here and get warrrrrmmm! Don't OVERDO IT!!!) and of course, his big ole sinister black fedora. I kinda like sinister, too, sometimes.
And we've just BEEN here, all of us, together all day. DS and DDIL were told not to come in to work today if the roads were bad (they are) and so they and our littlest are at their house. Caro is upstairs, serendipitously having days-off-not-her-own because she filled in over the weekend, else she'd have been out in it last night, and have to go tonight, as well.
We had scones for breakfast---an odd, quick thought as I perused the shelves for something kinda special for all-at-home-on-a-cold-morning. We had Bisquick, which we never seem to have, but this was left from making the sausage balls for Christmas morning. And I'd been telling myself to try out making muffins to use up that quart jug of "boiled custard" that Chris bought this year in lieu of his usual eggnog (which I would have used, as well, though I don't like to drink either one).
So that's what I did; I measured out the Bisquick and threw in two teaspoons of sugar, then the custard, and stirred it all together. A handful of dried cranberries, and dropped from two spoons onto the silpat---a scatter of Turbinado sugar sparkles, then oven 425 for 20 minutes. A quick brush with melted butter, a few slices of bacon out of the microwave, and we sat down. It was lovely and different---I DID sprinkle a bit of cinnamon over the last two bits of dough in the bowl before I dropped them, just to try the different taste, and they were quite nice.
We spent the morning teaching me to post pictures---I filled three pages of my new journal with "R click on C-Drive" and "hit Browse" and all sorts of arcanities of the genre, and I enjoyed learning all the new stuff. (I DID, however, get a CRAM course---he wants to tell me not only what I need to know, but all HE knows, and I have to sift out the extras before I write it down).
I made us a late lunch of grilled Jack cheese-and-ham sandwiches while he peeled and cut up a plateful of crisp cold apple slices, and of course, we had frosty big glasses of iced tea. It's the LAW. A cold beverage with lunch and supper; hot for breakfast, or cold if you want. And no amount of snow on the ground will keep me away from that ice-machine.
I DID take a picture of the scones, but I got to thinking. Scones aren't SOUTHERN, no matter what kinda tea parties and lawn doings and fancy gatherings at Tara might feature them as refreshments.
Biscuits are Southern, even though, as my Alabama BIL says: "Scones is just biscuits with raisins in 'em." (Of course, he also LOVES the pate a choux puffs filled with chicken salad that I make for parties, and lives in hope---when I enter with a tray of anything, he'll ask, "Did you make them lil' biskits?).
So, in honor of my VERY first picture I ever posted on here, I'm doing the Southern thing, with a Black Skillet of Biscuits. Not quite Catheads, but 'twill serve.
moire non,
Um.
ReplyDeleteDon't think too badly of me, but what exactly are Southern biscuits? I've been told that they are scones, more or less, but then told most emphatically that they weren't. And what are "beaten biscuits"?
It's like asking what grits are. I was told that they were essentially very soft polenta. But is it still grits if you don't use lye-treated corn?
I'm sorry for my ignorance. :(
I started to answer, but it got so long, I made a separate post of it today---Grits and Biscuits.
ReplyDeleteRachel, surely now Ondine knows what's-what about grits and biscuits from your informative post. I like your sense of humor shining through it too as you answered her question.
ReplyDeleteHope you will post your recipe for "paminna cheese" one of these days.... or have you already posted it elsewhere?
Jon at Mississippi Garden
Oh, Yes, Jon---the Paminna Cheese recipe went up about the second week of this blog---you don't think I'd let a month pass by without letting folks in on the Secret of the Ages?
ReplyDeleteIt's referred to and discussed in several posts, but the recipe is in the one on Nov. 18. And a Southern Gentleman such as yourself will have no trouble with measurements such as glug and clop and spoondig.
Hope you'll make some soon---it's a sovereign recipe for Valentine's Day parties. I'm just getting cushiony with the thought of little heart-shaped sandwiches, their edges crimped down a bit from the pressure of the cutter, like little pillows on a plate.
I meant to add that these benefit from being spread, assembled, THEN cut with a good steady pressure on the cutter. They're like little envelopes full of a wonderful surprise.
ReplyDeleteOr eat Paminna Cheese on a soda-cracker, like the Lord intended.