No cook Banana Pudding

The crust is a premade cookie. The filling is chopped fruit (premade too, I guess you could say) and no-cook, instant vanilla pudding. The topping is whipped cream. The typing up of this recipe is honestly more time-consuming than the actual making of it. I suppose I could have made my own pudding for this, but I am rationing my cartons of eggs for the double recipe of Meyer Lemon Pie that I am going to make tomorrow and that is a nonnegotiable for our Easter table (I will be sharing the recipe for that tomorrow!). Could I have made a fancy meringue too? Yes, but again I am making a pie tomorrow that warrants that amount of formality. Banana Pudding is a let your hair down dessert and I appreciate its unpretentious, approachable nature. While this pudding might be semi-homemade, don’t let the shortcuts fool you, it is truly delicious. If you have some bananas that need to be used, it is a great vehicle for that too! Also, because it does not involve a hot stove or oven, this would a great recipe for little ones to help with in the kitchen.

Ingredients:

• 1 box of Nilla Wafers

• 6-7 bananas

• 1 box of instant vanilla pudding, 5 oz size

• 1 tbsp powdered sugar

• 2 cups of heavy cream

Method:

1. Make vanilla pudding according to box’s instructions and set to the side.

2. Beat powdered sugar and whipping cream until stiff peaks form and set to the side.

3. Slice bananas to about 1/8in. thickness and set to the side.

4. Now assemble:

   In a 9x13 dish, put down a layer of Nilla Wafers cookies to cover the bottom of dish. Place half of sliced bananas on top of the cookies, cover with half of the pudding mixture, smoothing it out. Place another layer of cookies on top of the pudding, place the rest of the bananas on top, and then top with the rest of the pudding mixture. Top with the whipped cream and crumble some the remaining cookies on top for show.

   Save a couple of cookies for a low moment and stash in a safe place!

5. Place pudding into the fridge to chill for 3-4 hours.

6. Or eat it before it chills. Honestly, there are no rules for quarantine-cooking.

Cowboy Cheddar Biscuits

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

1. Preheat oven to 475 degrees

2. Mix together ranch dressing seasoning and set to the side.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. Knead gently, about 5-7 times, until dough has a smooth consistency.

6. 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.

7. Place on a baking sheet or cast iron skillet, pre-greased with Crisco or butter, with sides almost touching.

8. Bake for 15-17 minutes or until golden brown. Brush tops with melted butter.

Mimi's Biscuits

I’ve probably started and stopped this post five times. To be writing about and referencing my grandmother in the past tense is something that I always knew would be hard. My grandmother didn’t pass away young, so to speak, she had turned 81 just three days before she died, but her passing away was not something my family was expecting. Though she passed in February of 2018, the grief still stays just below the surface, ready to pop up when you least expect it. As a therapist when I work with clients experiencing grief, I have always explained using the image of the beach. Some days the waters are calm and you can enjoy the surf and the sand. Other days, find high ground because the waves might swallow you whole.

To make a long story short, my grandmother arrived in Houston on her birthday, which was a Thursday, and her bypass surgery was scheduled for bright and early Monday morning.

A hard-headed and feisty woman, my family has always remarked that, “Mimi always gets her way.” Her venture to Houston and last days proved to be no exception. In the middle of the night on Sunday, she went into cardiac arrest, the hospital’s chaplin appeared, and next thing we knew she was gone. Our family now listless without our anchor.

She kept remarking that she did not want to have the surgery and that she would be so appreciative if one of her grandchildren would sneak her out of the hospital for some iced tea and envueltos. To the air ambulance crew that flew her from McAllen to Houston, when they flew over her country club, she offered them to take a pit stop for some margaritas. She did not want to have the surgery, and true to form, she got her way.

Losing someone is always hard, but it’s initial shock that accompanies the unexpected grief that feels like the toughest hurdle. Each of member of my family has grieved differently; for some it’s a quiet, internal battle, others find comfort externalizing and talking it out, but it seems two things that has brought comfort to all: her stories and her food.

My grandmother loved life and lived (and dressed!) out loud, something that she has passed on to her daughter (my mother), her granddaughters, and great-granddaughters. While we are all trying to reconcile what it means for her to be gone, as a family and individually, she was far too big of a piece to not figure out how to carry her with us.

Enter: her stories and her recipes. Recently, my mom, sister and I have been cataloging and curating a cookbook with all of her recipes, which has ranged from “Jezebel Dip” to biscuits to the Waldorf’s Red Velvet Cake. When I found her biscuit recipe, I was amazed at the simplicity, and of course, they were delicious—as all simple recipes seem to be. I really should start another page on here with her sayings/expressions/quips of wisdom because these biscuits personified, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

I shall call it “Mimi was right about everything…”

Recipe:

-2 cups of self rising flour

-2 sticks of cold butter

-8 oz sour cream

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a large bowl, add in two cups of flour.

3. Cut each stick of butter in half, length-ways, and then each half into 1/2 in. pieces.

4. Add those sticks of butter to the flour, and cut in using a pastry blender, or your hands. Breaking butter into pea-size pieces. The flour will start to feel and look like wet sand.

5. Add in 8 oz of sour cream (remember you need an acid to activate the self rising part of the flour) and mix in with a spatula until flour as pulled away from the sides of the bowl and a shaggy dough has formed.

6. Turn out on to a lightly floured surface, and knead softly (about 3-4 times) until you have a smooth consistency.

7. Press out dough into rectangular shape (about 6-7 inches long and 4 inches wide), about an inch thick, and then fold the dough on to itself—folding it in half length-wise, and turn it a quarter to the right. Press it back out to the rectangular shape, folding left side to the right again, and turn a quarter again. Repeat this process 2-3 times, you are building layers into your biscuit dough.

8. Flour a two inch biscuit cutter and cut out as many biscuits as you can. Re-roll scraps and repeat until you get 12.

9. Place in greased muffin tins and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Southern Buttermilk Biscuits Part Two

Now that we have the story out of the way, let’s get down to business of biscuit making. Biscuits are the perfect test for any person who loves being covered in flour. Like a toddler, they cannot be rushed and like a teen, they can have a mind of their own. My friends, I give you my version of the perfect Buttermilk Biscuit:

Ingredients:

 - 4 cups White Lily Self-Rising Flour

- 1 teaspoon salt (I use Diamond Kosher)

-1 teaspoon of sugar

-1 teaspoon baking powder

-1/2 teaspoon baking soda (yes you’re using self rising but these give a little extra lift!)

-1/2 cup of butter flavored Crisco (1/2 a stick)

• Plus additional 1/8 of a cup for greasing baking surface

-1 1/2 cups of buttermilk (Don’t have buttermilk, don’t be sour ;) … you can make it as fast as you can say “I’m out of buttermilk”… measure out as much milk as you need and then add in one tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice per cup. Let sit for 10 minutes and you are good to go!)

-3 tablespoons European Butter melted, for brushing at the end

Yields:

 12 Biscuits

Method

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, and salt. Once mixed together, take Crisco and break into smaller pieces and add to flour mixture.

2. Using a pastry blender or your hands, cut Crisco into dough. Breaking up into pea size pieces and a crumbling texture.

3.  Make a well in the center for the flour mixture and pour in buttermilk. I always add in my cup measurement first and then add in my last 1/4 as I need it. If mixture seems dry and does not pull away from sides of bowl, add a touch more of buttermilk, a tablespoon at a time.

4. Use a spatula to wipe down sides of bowl while working to combine. Once brought together, turn out onto a floured surface.

5. Knead gently, about 5-7 times, until dough has a smooth consistency.

6. 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.

7. Cut out 7-8 biscuits with 2¾ inch biscuit cutter (second to largest in set). Combine and roll scraps and cut out remaining biscuits. **Do not twist the cutter when you push down, this will pinch the seams shut that you just worked so hard to create. Keep the motion up and down, and flour your cutter between each.

8. Place on a baking sheet or cast iron skillet, pre-greased with Crisco or butter, with sides touching. **Remember, biscuits are friendly and LOVE neighbors!

9. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Brush tops with melted butter immediately out of the oven.

Click through the pictures below for a step by step of how to make a biscuit