1 Winning Biscuit Recipe

After 3 failed attempts, I had 1 kitchen victory this week!


Lessons Learned
1. Revert to proper measuring.
2. Avoid cooking when dead tired.
3. Under-season when trying a new recipe.

My husband has eaten over-salted chicken saltimbocca, way too eggy pancakes and gristly beef patties this past week. Poor man! The only dish I am proud of is my Herbs de Provence biscuits.

I altered Giada de Laurentiis's recipe for chicken saltimbocca because I did not have black pepper, frozen spinach or prosciutto. I used white pepper, fresh spinach and turkey bacon. That wouldn't be so bad but I also used 1 TB of seasoning salt. This was a very bad idea considering I also use the suggested amount of salty parmesean and chicken broth. My fault. Not Giada's. The flattened and rolled chicken breasts looked great on the plate with green, red and gold from the cheese. Next time I make this I will substitute the parmesan for bland ricotta or mozzarella. I am very attached to seasoning salt since hubby prefers it. The allure of this recipe was the use of lemon juice and spinach. Next time will be better.

I used a Food Network Kitchen's recipe for plain pancakes and added chocolate chips to the batter. What went wrong? I only had a little bit of all purpose flour left in my kitchen cambro. I didn't measure it and used all the given amounts of liquid ingredients. The result? Dark yellow pancakes, overly rich with yolk. My husband was right when he said that the pancakes tasted like fudge with scrambled eggs. Fail again. In hindsight, I could have mixed my all purpose flour with some cake flour for the right amount of flour for the recipe. I also should have reduced the yolks to one and used the whites of two eggs. Since I decided to add the chocolate chips, I should have reduced the sugar in the batter and avoided the sweet rum entirely. Oh well.

I bought 80/20 ground beef from Trader Joes because at $3.49/pound it was less expensive than chicken. Chicken is still at $7/pound in most grocery stores this season. Maybe it's because I froze the beef and grilled it two days later but it was a terrible texture. Hubster said it was too fatty. I found it too dry. I was very tired after work when I made dinner so I made a number of mistakes. For instance, I only partially defrosted the beef. Next, I made the patties more than 2" thick and slammed them on the George Foreman grill. When they were still tar tare raw but dry on the outside, I shove them to broil in the oven--in hopes the oven would reach the bloody core. The meat had no chance. It had a dry awful crust and a freezer burned taste. I think even the best grade of meat would taste awful cooked this way. Next time I will grill the patties the same day I buy it without freezing it. I will mix the ground meat with flavorful BBQ sauce and form small 1/2" thick patties. I will avoid putting ground meat under the broiler!

My Herbs de Provence biscuits are actually Betty Crocker's recipe for pan rolls with 3 tsps. of baking powder instead of yeast. I also swapped cream for milk. I sprinkled a 1/4 tsp of dried Herbs de Provence. The biscuits were baked at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 21 minutes. They were tall, flaky and wonderful! I felt proud.

If you have three kitchen failures in a row, you are not alone! Don't despair and try again.