grin and share it

Eating pretty foods was never meant as a way to sneak myself into a diet, although you might say that eating more healthy has been a bonus. It was originally meant as a way to put joy back into eating, instead of covering it in a shroud of shame and "should"s. When your goal is to eat pretty foods you find yourself being more mindful, finding joy in cooking and baking and of course, in eating!

Last night we went to a favorite spot: Eat Street Social. I ate an amazingly delicious pear & squash bisque and munched on communal fries. You know what: those fries were ten times prettier than that soup, despite one being arguably "healthier". To quote another of my UNresolutions: Chill the fuck out...and eat what you want.

I digress.

Another Pretty Food favorite: Scott Peacock's Buttermilk Biscuits {taken from Martha Stewart Living}.



This recipe needs literally no tweaks to be absolute perfection, but I did add just a few notes.
Prep: 15 Mins | Total time: 30 Mins | Makes: 12


INGREDIENTS

5 cups sifted unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for working, as needed
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon Scott Peacock's Homemade Baking Powder {We used store-bought. No shame}
1 tablespoon coarse kosher salt
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons packed very cold lard or unsalted butter, cut into cubes {We used unsalted butter}
2 cups well-shaken buttermilk {Who reliably has buttermilk on hand? Not us. 2 tablespoons of white vinegar + add regular milk to the 2 cup line}
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted


DIRECTIONS

STEP 1
Preheat oven to 500 degrees with rack in upper third. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Add lard and coat well with flour mixture. Working quickly, rub the lard between your fingertips until roughly half is coarsely blended and half remains in large flat pieces, about 3/4 inch in size.

STEP 2
Make a well in the center of the flour-lard mixture, and add buttermilk all at once. Stir quickly with a wooden spoon, just until mixture is blended and begins to come together into a sticky dough. (The dough will not form a ball at this stage and will, in fact, look unpromising.)

STEP 3
Immediately turn out dough onto a generously floured surface. With well-floured hands, knead briskly 8 to 10 times, just until a cohesive ball of dough forms. With your palms, gently flatten dough to an even thickness; then roll out to a 3/4-inch thickness, working from center of dough outward with a floured rolling pin. (Flour rolling pin as needed, but avoid flouring top of dough unless you want dusty biscuits.)

STEP 4
Dip a dinner fork in flour, and pierce dough completely through at 1/2-inch intervals. Flour a 3-inch biscuit cutter, and stamp out rounds as close together as possible, taking care not to twist cutter. Place rounds 1/2 inch apart on a parchment-lined heavy baking sheet. Place dough pieces that remain after cutting on baking sheet, too. Bake biscuits until crusty and rich golden brown, 10 to 15 minutes. Remove biscuits from oven and brush with melted butter. Serve hot.

Again, taken from Martha Stewart Living.

These were our spreads of choice- Skinny Jake's Fat Honey (MN), The Huber Family's Red Raspberry Spread {WI}, Velvet Bee's Honey Butter {MN}

I took a handful of biscuits up to our new neighbors upstairs and one immediately ran to the fridge to grab the Velvet Bee's Honey Butter, insisting I take it back downstairs to try it. It's possible I will never bring it back. As my good friend Sohail always says, "it pays to be nice, people."