Fact: I have always had a soft spot for the cowboy life. I often joke with my husband and that it is just a matter of time before I decide I want to move to a ranch and say enough with the city’s hustle and bustle. His response is always a sarcastic, “Well I will come visit you and your second husband and your new steers…”
The handsome hats, the horseback riding, and getting to spend all day with animals in the great outdoors… I will concede that I probably have a very romanticized view of “home on the range”. And while my grandfather would probably classify me as a city slicker, as I have seen cattle be branded, but have never done it myself, I still would like to (naively) believe that I could live and love that cowboy (ahem… cowgirl) life. Hey, my family operates a large cattle feedyard, I’d like to think I could make it more than a day “working” the cattle, with the real cowboys, as the farming and ranching life is in my blood. As opposed to my normal raiding of candy closet in my grandfather’s office and checking the water troughs in the old FJ Cruiser. Although I do not get to spend as much time as I would like exploring this side of my personality, I love reading and researching the old cowboy ways: from the old cattle drives to Kansas, what they used to eat while making camp, and what the various cowboy hat brims mean. I prefer the cattleman’s crease, how about you?
While researching traditional cowboy food when I was preparing for the non-traditional portion of the biscuit competition last year, I came up with this recipe while standing in the spice aisle. I wanted to pay homage to the foods that cowboys used to eat on cattle drives and work them into a biscuit. Here is what I came up with and affectionally named, “Cowboy Cheddar Biscuits.” Ironically, my husband loves them.
P.S. My favorite movie is Giant. Figures, right?
Ingredients:
Ranch Dressing Seasoning:
1 tablespoon chives
1 teaspoon onion powder
2 teaspoons dried parsley
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon dill
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
Biscuit Ingredients:
4 cups White Lily Self-Rising Flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup of butter flavored Crisco (1/2 a stick)
Plus additional 1 tablespoon for greasing baking surface
1 1/2 cups of buttermilk
3 tablespoons European butter melted, for brushing at the end
2 cups grated Habanero cheddar cheese (this recipe used Cabot)
1 cup chopped bacon
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
Yields:
12 Biscuits
Directions
Preheat oven to 475 degrees
Mix together ranch dressing seasoning and set to the side.
In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, salt, cayenne, and ranch seasoning mixture. Once mixed together, take Crisco and break into smaller pieces and add to flour mixture. Using a pastry blender or your hands, cut Crisco into dough. Breaking up into pea size pieces and a crumbling texture. Add cheese and bacon to mixture and combine.
Make a well in the center for the flour mixture and pour in 1 cup of buttermilk. Add in the rest of the buttermilk, a tablespoon at a time, until a shaggy dough has formed. Once brought together, turn out onto a floured surface.
Knead gently, about 5-7 times, until dough has a smooth consistency.
Then begin the folding portion: flour your rolling pin, and then begin rolling our your dough into a rectangle about 6 in. wide and 9 in. long and about half an inch thick, take bottom side of dough, and fold the dough in half. The bottom edge and the top meet. Turn the dough, to the right once, then roll out again (to about half an inch), and then fold in half and turn back to the left. Complete this folding process 5 times—you are building layers into your biscuits.Then flour the top of dough and rolling pin, and roll out to ½ inch thick. Cut out 7-8 biscuits with 2¾ inch biscuit cutter (second to largest in set). Combine and roll out scraps and cut out remaining biscuits.
Place on a baking sheet or cast iron skillet, pre-greased with Crisco or butter, with sides almost touching.
Bake for 15-17 minutes or until golden brown. Brush tops with melted butter.
