Biscuits for a (Big) Crowd and Chili with a Fried Egg
I made a couple hundred biscuits today for the Slow Food Calgary booth at the Calgary Folk Festival this weekend (which I sadly won’t be attending, because I’ll, with any luck, be in Tofino). Yesterday Kris, Jenn, Maxwell and I made a few vats of chili (using beef from Tim Hoven), organic beans and other tasty stuff (including sweet marjoram and summer savoury from Kris’ farm) – but who wants a plain old bowl of chili with no carbs to dip in?
So today I holed up in the downstairs kitchen of the Cookbook Company and lost count at about 20 batches. That’s a lot of biscuits. I made an enormous mess. I took a picture. You don’t want to see it.
But – good news! Aviv is back. He came by to visit. He’s freshly back in Calgary after spending four months in Kathmandu-Tel Aviv-Paris-Montréal – he baked bread at Tangboche and at Everest base camp and worked with one of the best bread bakers in a city full of bakers and boulangeries. I sweated a little bit when he checked out the flour (from Kris and Highwood Crossing), then picked up a biscuit and bit into it. He liked them. Or at least he was being nice about it.
And lucky us-he’s going to stay right here in Calgary. He has decided to call his new bakery (for which he has plenty of cool ideas, but I’m not sure he’s ready to share them) –Sidewalk Citizen. How cool is that? So very cool. Just like his shoes.
Large-Batch Biscuits
AuthorJulie
In the bowl of a food processor (or a large bowl), combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the butter and pulse or work with a pastry cutter, fork or your fingers until the mixture is well combined and crumbly, with bits of butter no bigger than a pea – you want to leave some larger bits, rather than blending it completely – the larger chunks are what will make them flaky.
If you used a food processor (this is my favourite way) – dump the mixture into a bowl. Add the milk and stir just until you have a soft dough (you may need to use your hands). Pat the dough out about 3/4" thick and cut into small rounds with a biscuit cutter, glass or open can rim, or a knife, or if you really want to streamline things, pat it into a circle and cut into 8 wedges. Place on a baking sheet that has been sprayed with nonstick spray, spacing them a bit apart. If you like, brush the tops lightly with milk. (I do this to the whole circle of dough before cutting it.)
Bake for about 20 minutes, or until golden.
Ingredients
Directions
In the bowl of a food processor (or a large bowl), combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the butter and pulse or work with a pastry cutter, fork or your fingers until the mixture is well combined and crumbly, with bits of butter no bigger than a pea – you want to leave some larger bits, rather than blending it completely – the larger chunks are what will make them flaky.
If you used a food processor (this is my favourite way) – dump the mixture into a bowl. Add the milk and stir just until you have a soft dough (you may need to use your hands). Pat the dough out about 3/4" thick and cut into small rounds with a biscuit cutter, glass or open can rim, or a knife, or if you really want to streamline things, pat it into a circle and cut into 8 wedges. Place on a baking sheet that has been sprayed with nonstick spray, spacing them a bit apart. If you like, brush the tops lightly with milk. (I do this to the whole circle of dough before cutting it.)
Bake for about 20 minutes, or until golden.
Wanna hear about dinner? Ironically the day before yesterday, in a state of panic, I made room in the freezer for all the stuff that will likely go stinky if left to its own devices in the fridge for the next couple weeks, which of course displaced much of the frozen stuff. I lobbed bags of cooked beans (white, red, black), six whole frozen tomatoes (which melt right into soups, stews, chilis and curries in the slow cooker), a bag of frozen cooked ground meat I couldn’t identify but turned out to contain zucchini, frozen diced tomatoes and peppers into the pot, plus a chunk of frozen chipotle pepper, and shook over some chili powder and cumin and let it go (on low) for 6 hours.
It was fab over new potatoes, cooked in a hot pan with a bit of canola oil, then topped with cheddar. W suggested we add a fried egg, so I obliged. It was actually pretty damn tasty.
Tomorrow: Tofino.
Awesome. Maybe it’s bad that I’m suddenly as excited for the Slow Food Calgary booth at the Folk Fest as I am for the music… but then again, a girl needs biscuits for the energy to listen to music, so I think it’s all part of the circle of..life?
The Folk Fest food, Aviv’s new bakery, dinner and Tofino all sound fantastic (and exhausting)! I made a version of your spaghetti pie tonight that included diced up bison burgers (they had to get used, and the kids wanted “psketti”
Have a great trip – hope you get some well deserved R&R!
Yes, I DO want to see the picture of that mess!
Frozen tomatoes in the crockpot! That’s genius. It never occured to me to freeze tomatoes, but I’m definitely going to try it.
In that nice-looking pic of the frozen stuff sitting in the cooker, it looks remarkably like there is a cluster of frozen blueberries in there. Which I almost want to try now.
Tell Aviv there is a very cool hotel at the Amsterdam Airport called Citizen M. It had a great ambiance and spirit to it! I’m looking forward to hearing more about Citizen Sidewalk.
wow, you just planted your garden and you’ve already got new potatoes! 😉
Have fun in Tofino!
Ooh! Now I’m getting pumped about the Slow Food Calgary booth too – have fun in Tofino!
what a fun time! it was fun to cook with you and we’ll miss you at the fest but so appreciate you squeezing in some baking before you left. say “hi” to the ocean for us! xo
Love that bottom photo of the before!
(Next time I suggest poaching the egg right in the chili.)
Enjoy Tofino !
Ice Cream at DD Dutchman Dairy (Sicamous ?)along the way?
Do you need to blanch and skin the tomatoes before you put them in the freezer? The biscuits look fantastic- did you use some whole wheat flour in them?
My ice cream maker performed much better when I made sure the bowl was frozen (did not slosh) when I started.
Fresh peach ice cream – yum.
it’s amazing how you got so many awesome things in this one post
Julie did you get my email about how to make ice cream? I need some help here?
Thx,
MFO
This is the epitome of comfort food for me! Perfection!
Manon – no, sorry I haven’t, I’ll look for it.
Gemma – no need! Just toss them into the freezer whole. Easy. I didn’t even bag them!