All of my roots are southern 100%. While Texas may not be the Deep South, it is quite southern itself and most of my familial roots lay in the Deep South. We grew up on my Grandma making delicious southern foods, whether that was corn bread, pie, black-eyed peas, or whatever, it was always amazing and delicious. One of the most important of those deeply southern recipes was biscuits. I could probably eat biscuits as much as I could eat tacos. IE all the time! This is not my grandmothers recipe sorry! I will be bringing that to you soon though. These are delicious, sweet potato biscuits!
This is a quite tasty take on biscuits, it’s certainly different than your normal biscuit but it’s quite enjoyable. The corn meal adds a nice nuttiness, and frankly between the maple syrup and the sweet potato these are sweet enough without any jam.
We tried it without the maple syrup as well and preferred it that way. They are still slightly sweet but not overbearing. We also used Einkorn instead of gluten free flour but you can use whatever you prefer.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Mix together all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
Cut in the butter to the dry ingredients until butter is pea sized and mixture is slightly crumbly.
Add the butter milk and combine with a fork until the dough comes together. If there is still a bit of flour on the bottom it’s ok.
Add the sweet potato and maple syrup and combine.
Flour your counter and roll out your biscuits until they are about ¾ inch thick. (you can also just pat them out if you want)
Cut to your desired size and place on a baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat.
Bake for 12-16 minutes until golden brown.
Eat them all!
Tips and Techniques:
Your biscuits will not come out golden brown and shiny like the photo. I’m not really sure what they did frankly. I did an egg wash and that still did nothing. Expect a pale golden brown.
Make sure your sweet potato is actually cooled down. If you don’t like I did the first time it will melt the butter and give you totally flat biscuits. Still tasty but not a biscuit.
Don’t have cultured butter milk on hand? No worries! For every cup of milk needed add 1 Tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice and top off with milk to the top of the cup and let sit for 10 minutes.
You can see the butter starting to melt because my sweet potato was too hot.This is the result of melted butter in biscuits. Whether because you didn’t keep the dough cold or you melted it with the sweet potato. Still delicious but flat!
Having just talked about Einkorn the other day, I wanted to give y’all an easy recipe to enjoy. This is a long ferment, no knead bread. It’s a lazy man’s sourdough per say. Fermented foods are absolutely fantastic, and I think should be a part of our daily diet. I try my best to eat something fermented everyday, though oftentimes I forget… The advantage in a bread product (gluten free or otherwise) is that the fermentation process feeds on a good portion of the carbs reducing the carb load. It also makes it much easier to digest on our bodies. So if you are thinking about trying Einkorn but aren’t sure, this would be a great place to start.
I include some options to these steps because I think it makes the overall process easier, but you can just follow the basic steps. The fermentation time can vary on this. One week is ideal, 24 hours works, and 2-3 days is probably the sweet spot if you don’t want to wait forever but want better flavor,less carb load, and higher digestibility.
No Knead Bread
Ingredients:
6 1/2 Cups Flour (6 cups if using whole wheat)
3 Cups Warm Water
2 Packets or 1 1/2Tblsp Yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt
Steps:
1. In a large container, a gallon or more in size, mix all ingredients
2. Cover loosely and let rise on the counter for 1-2 hours
3. Put in fridge for 24 hours to 1 week
4. When ready to bake: Wet or oil your hands and tear off roughly a quarter of the dough and gently shape into a loaf, smoothing the top. Place in pans or place on parchment or slide onto a pizza stone. Score the top of the loaves to release steam.
5. Let rise 40 minutes, after 30 minutes preheat the oven to 450. When preheated, bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown and internal temp is 190-200.
6. I do recommend letting it cool at least a bit so you don’t burn yourself and so the texture will be better once cut.
Further Details
A long ferment bread like this recipe is also super nice as the holidays approach. It requires very little actual time involved. It makes a hearty loaf, so baking the day before and doing a gentle reheat of it on turkey day will be perfect, and not take up much of your valuable oven space the day of. This is what is called a no knead bread. So no kneading! You literally just mix all the ingredients, let it rise, and then bake it!
I’ve used multiple versions, but I think this is one of the best for most people. I’m a big fan of true sourdough, but that’s not easy for most people, so I shelved it for this recipe. The original recipe is from Gwen’s Nest, and she has lots of low carb recipes for those who are interested.
Most no knead bread recipes do make use of dutch ovens typically to bake in. Since you don’t knead the dough, it does not have much structure to hold a great shape. This kind of thing is not the end of the world though. If you start making it a ton, I would recommend you invest in a dutch oven to bake in, or you can also go the pizza stone route for a crispy bottom. You will just end up with a flatter bread, but it’s still a lovely “artisan” loaf. You can also use a loaf pan. Just go for it the first time and adjust the specifics as you do it more. It will be delicious no matter the shape!
This recipe enables you to enjoy the fantastic, fresh bread experience with very little effort, and it’s better for you! It’s also such a basic recipe you can easily make it with your kids. I had our girls help me make the dough, and it really added only about one extra minute to a 5 minute recipe.
So recipe time! You do need a large vessel, something like a gallon or 5 qt jar or crock is perfect. Get yourself out 6 1/2 cups of flour (we use Jovial Foods Einkorn Flour), 6 cups if you want whole wheat, 3 cups warm water, 2 packets or 1 1/2 T yeast, I prefer regular though instant works too, and 1 1/2t of salt, preferably something likes Redmond’s Sea Salt.
Then dump it together and mix! Too hot of water, and salt will both kill yeast, so you have to be careful on mixing. It’s also a pain to get the very bottom mixed properly if you dump it in at once. So I put my water and salt in the jar, and dissolved the salt, then I added half the flour, mixing it in after each cup, then the yeast, and then the rest of the flour, mixing as well after each cup. It came together beautifully, and didn’t give me a single issue.
Cover it loosely and let rise on the counter for an hour or two – it’s a long rise bread, so over fermentation isn’t a big deal, just keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t escape the jar.
At this point, put it in your fridge for your choice of time, the longer the better really! Even up to a couple weeks.
As I just made my batch today, I have no baking pictures… Sorry!
This does make a good amount of bread, so decide on your baking vessel of choice before getting further. 4 medium sized loaves in pans or on the stone? Sure! One big loaf in your 10 or 12 inch dutch oven? Sure!
Just a warning this dough is sticky, once again a result of not kneading, so you will want to wet, oil or flour your hands well.
If you are going to make loaves pull off about a quarter of the dough and gently shape it into a loaf shape, working to smooth the top. Place those in your parchment paper lined pans or on parchment paper on your counter to slide it onto your stone.
Let it rise for about 40 minutes, preheat your oven to 450 about 10 minutes before your rise is over.
It is wise to slash the top of your loaves with a razor blade or very sharp knife. This allows gasses to escape during baking and not crack the top of your loaf.
Bake for 25- 30 minutes until golden brown and delicious. As well look for an internal temperature of 190 or so degrees (yes i’m a food nerd).
I know, its done, so you must rip into it right away! It really is best if you wait. First off so you don’t burn the living daylights out of your mouth. Second, the longer you let the bread cool, the more the starches can set up, and not be gooey and smear.
So let it cool, at least a little, and then cut and enjoy, preferably with grass fed butter! If you’ve never tried Kerrygold, now is the time!
Pretty straight forward right? Like I said, mix it, rise it, bake it, I guess you can add eat it to the end. Let us know if you try this great no knead bread recipe!
As in most households, birthdays are special times around here, and we have a two of them in October! The one thing that might be different for us is that instead of going out to eat, we typically make the preferred meal at home. This year my wife requested tiramisu for her birthday after seeing some yummy-looking but expensive and sugar/synthetics laden tiramisu cups at the store.
This is not technically TRUE tiramisu because it does not have lady fingers in it, and it’s the easy version. Is that a bad thing? Nope! It is super delicious and is not at all lacking for missing those elements. Check out below for links if you do want lady fingers, as they can be difficult to find at your average store. True tiramisu is also a custard based dessert, which means you need to incorporate eggs, but this dessert doesn’t miss a beat despite being made without any eggs. This is quite delicious as just a layered mousse with cocoa powder in between.
The basic recipe I found on Crazy For Crust. It is a fairly basic recipe, and I was able to directly sub the maple syrup across for powdered sugar which they used.
Easy Tiramisu
Ingredients:
1 Cup of Heavy Whipping Cream (Look for Kolona if you want an additive free version)
Note: I used some small stemless white wine glasses for this. You can use any container you want. Clear is great to show off the layers.
Steps:
Dissolve the instant coffee in the hot water and set aside to cool.
Optional: Put your lady fingers into soak in either more instant coffee or strong brewed coffee. Espresso is traditionally used.
Whip the heavy cream to a stiff peak. Set that in the fridge until needed.
Put the mascarpone, the maple syrup, the vanilla, and 1 Tablespoon of the coffee in a bowl. Whip that together until well combined and creamy and delicious. At this point, add more coffee or maple syrup as your taste prefers. We will be mixing it with the whipped cream, so make it a bit stronger than if you were eating it alone.
Fold in the whipped cream gently. You want to cut and fold here. See below for the technique.
Optional: If using lady fingers put a layer in the bottom of your glasses or serving dish.
Put in a layer of your marscarpone filling. A piping bag would make this SUPER easy, I didn’t because I didn’t want to clean it, lol. I used a spoon and carefully spread it around though it was far from perfect.
Dust in a little cocoa powder; cover the entire layer of filling if possible.
Continue layering in each layer until your desired fullness. I did about 3 inches of filling total and that gave us 4 servings. Obviously it would do more if using lady fingers.
Eat now or put in the fridge to chill
Here is the original recipe if you want to see it.
Notes and Tips:
If you do want to get lady fingers, I have a few resources for you. Full disclosure – I have tried none of these products or recipes. Please let me know how they are if you try them! Schar makes a gluten free one you can get here. If you want to make lady fingers here is a gluten free version and here is a grain free version depending on which path you want to go.
If you wanted to do a variation on this you could totally take our Original Brownie and treat it just like a lady finger and soak it in the coffee and layer it in with the mascarpone mixture. That would be so good… Our blondies would also be super delicious as well… I might have to try this soon…
Tiramisu is a classic Italian dessert that is for once actually Italian! Unlike spaghetti and ceasar salad, which both have rather dubious roots, Tiramisu can actually be traced back to Italy. It would appear to still be a more recent creation dating back to the 60’s. Some argue it goes back further than that, but who knows. Regardless, it is very tasty 🙂
Traditionally you take lady fingers, and soak them in cognac and espresso. They get layered with mascarpone custard and then typically finished with a dusting of cocoa on top.
The most readily available brand of mascarpone is BelGioioso. Most larger grocery stores carry it. Look in the specialty cheese section.
How to Cut and Fold
For anyone who has ever worked in whipped cream, whipped egg whites, or any other air filled ingredient, you know how hard it can be. You want to incorporate it fully, but you don’t want to lose all that air you worked so hard to create. Here is where the cut and fold technique comes in.
Steps:
Add in the whipped cream or egg whites to the rest of your ingredients
With the bowl in front of you, place your spatula in at the far side of the bowl. “Cut” down towards yourself.
“Fold” with the spatula around the outside of the bowl back to the top gently incorporating some of the whipped cream.
Turn the bowl a ¼ turn and repeat until everything is 95% incorporated. I say 95% because you may never feel likes it totally done and that’s ok.
With my own personal German heritage and the fact that Octoberfest is upon us what better way to spruce up already delicious brownies than with this “German” twist.
What you Need:
OKB brownie mix made as directed.
1 egg
5oz can (⅔ cup) evaporated milk
⅔ c sugar
¼ c butter
1 ½ c shredded coconut
½ c chopped pecans
As your brownies are cooking and cooling you can whip up your german chocolate frosting. To make mine I used my tried and true Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Why reinvent what is already delicious, right? I have been using this cookbook since I made my first biscuit as a toddler.
In a saucepan add the evaporated milk, beaten egg, sugar, and butter. Slowly bring the mixture to a low bubble stirring constantly until thickened.
Remove mixture from heat and add your shredded coconut and pecans.
***When I pulled my ingredients I realized I only had sweetened coconut in the pantry. Because my family and myself do not like things overly sweet I cut the sugar in half. If you happen to have the same issue I can attest that cutting the sugar makes themd perfect!!!
Pour frosting over prepared brownies and allow to cool completely.
I love this recipe because it’s so simple and delicious!! I enjoyed mine with some vanilla ice cream 🙂
Waffles or pancakes? I feel like there is quite the divide between people on that question. That is, of course, not even talking about Belgian vs regular waffles, thin and crispy vs fluffy pancakes. Certainly the debates can go on and on. For me, it very much depends on the mood I am in as I love them both. Obviously, in our household, they always have to be gluten free waffles or pancakes, too.
Our oldest daughter requested waffles for her birthday breakfast, and with the current state of food allergies in our home, we had to go digging for a new recipe. My wife found this one and it is quite good! They are light and crispy, but also paleo, though they are not low carb due to the tapioca starch. Their only downside, I would say, is if you are making a lot and holding them in the oven they might start to soften just a bit. They are still quite good, but they don’t hold super crisp, so you might want to work in batches. They are really delicious though, and I highly recommend you try these gluten free waffles! We did use a regular waffle iron and not a Belgian waffle maker. If you make these in a belgian waffle maker, let us know how they come out!
Ingredients:
1 Cup Blanched Almond Flour
1 Cup Tapioca Flour
2 T coconut flour
2 t baking powder
¼ salt
2 eggs
¼ cup melted coconut oil (or melted butter)
1 t apple cider vinegar
1 cup almond milk (or any milk of your choice)
½ vanilla
Instructions:
Preheat waffle iron according to manufacturer’s instructions
Place all dry ingredients in a large bowl and whisk until all lumps have been removed
Add liquid ingredients and whisk for 2 minutes or until batter has thickened. Batter will be similar to a thin pancake batter
Spray or wipe on a thin layer of oil onto waffle iron (I only did this the first time, possibly even unnecessary)
Cook waffles according to your waffles irons instructions (I used about a 1/3 cup for our iron)
Enjoy with lots of good butter and excellent maple syrup!
These are a great quick, easy, delicious waffle that the whole family can enjoy and the kids can help make! They have really good texture that compares well with “normal” waffles! Use these waffles to make your day a tasty day and let us know if you like them 🙂
It’s fall y’all! Sweaters, hayrides, bonfires, and campfires! Need I say s’more? 🙂
What better way to cut down on things to carry to your next fall get together than to make these delicious s’more brownies. Be careful because they are addictive!
Mix and bake brownies per package instructions. While baking gather your toppings.
Top brownies with marshmallows, mini chips, and graham crackers.
Place topped brownies under the broiler until marshmallows are browned to your liking.
The kilted husband decided to get creative and s’mored the s’more, haha! He may have had more than 1 for testing purposes. Needless to say they passed with flying colors.
Jalapeno poppers – they are always a favorite dish at any event or even at home! A bit of spice, crunchy salty bacon, and smooth creamy slightly sweet cream cheese are fantastic every time. How could we make these better though? Well, wrap them in meat and turn them into all of dinner, that’s how! Quail Jalapeno Poppers!
We recently did a bit of bartering and got our hands on some quail from a local guy who raises them. We have seen others do this, and we have recently been talking about making jalapeno poppers, so we decided to make some amazing deliciousness!
You can either stuff the breast cavity or you can do these boneless. I removed the breast meat and wrapped it in order to avoid messing with bones. We also had some Anaheim chilies ready to harvest, so I used one of those instead of jalapenos. You could easily use chicken breast (cut into slices) if you don’t have quail available.
Quail Jalapeno Poppers: Yields: 6 Stuffed Quail
6 Quail breasts, deboned
1 Large Anaheim or Jalapeno Chili
3 OZ Cream Cheese
3 Thick cut slices of bacon, cut in half
Salt and Pepper
6 Tooth Picks
Remove the breast meat from the quail (I just pulled it off by hand) and salt and pepper both sides
Deseed and core your chili pepper, slice into ¼ inch wide strips. Adjust the length as necessary for your meat.
Cut off approx. 1 Tablespoon size pieces of cream cheese in strips and set to the side.
Lay out your quail breast flat on your work surface. Lay 1 strip of chili and 1 piece of cream cheese in the center. Carefully wrap the quail around the filling.
Wrap a half piece of bacon around the quail and have the ends meet up where the meat comes together. Use a tooth pick to hold everything together.
Cook on a sheet pan in the oven at 350F for 15-25 minutes or until the bacon is crisp and the temperature of the meat comes to 165F. You can also easily cook these on the grill. I grilled them over medium high heat. Just be careful turning them to not let the cream cheese fall out.
Everything Laid OutReady to go!
Just don’t burn them! I did…
For a kid friendly variation, leave out the chili pepper so even your littlest ones can enjoy a creamy crunchy high protein meal.
For a dairy free variation, try stuffing with avocado slices instead of the cream cheese.
Don’t waste those quail legs! Toss them in some buffalo sauce and cook them alongside the quail poppers – just beware – they will cook in about 2-3 minutes, so watch them closely!
The raw quail bones that are leftover from your meal prep will make the perfect snake for your doggo. You can also toss them in a pot of water with some salt and pepper for a quick cup of broth to sip after dinner. Never waste anything!
These quail poppers will make any day a tasty day! Let us know how they turn out for you!
