Biscuits

So, while everyone else is talking about gun control, Obama's power grabs, Hillary's emails, and the Republican nomination, lets talk about something that is truly important.  Biscuits.

Any fool can go to the store and buy biscuits.  Whop biscuits or bag biscuits, they sell them by the ton.  Or, you can make biscuits at home.  My mother, who I love dearly (and she'll tell you herself, if you ask her) never had a reliable biscuit recipe.  Nor does Milady, who has never made biscuits in my presence.  Some folks can't or won't, and it's not for me to judge those folks.  Both my mother and my wife are wonderful cooks who an do magical things in the kitchen, but biscuits ain't one of them.

And, there are as many different styles of biscuits as there are regions in the US.  Some are light and flaky, some are smooth and buttery, some are dense and hearty.  I  admit that I like a light, flaky biscuit as much as the next guy and for that I buy them from the store.  Even I enjoy those sometimes.

Back in the early '80s a good friend of mine, Brenda Joyce taught me to make biscuits.  These are dense, hearty breakfast biscuits, deserving of cane syrup or white sausage gravy.  Biscuits that will stick to your ribs and give yo fuel till lunch time.  And, they're pretty simple to make.

They're not pretty, but they're filling, and they're good.  Real good.  We call them cats-head biscuits because they're not uniform in size, but they're about as big as a cat's head.

So, without further ado, here's the recipe.

Cats Head Biscuits.

Self-rising flour (get a 5 lb bag.  You're not going to use it all, but that's a starting point)
Vegetable oil.  Any will do.
Milk.  I use 2%, but any will do.  I suspect you could use half/half if you wanted to.  Only sissies use skim milk.

In a large mixing bowl.  (Not that  one, the big one) put about half that  bag of flour into the bowl.  We're not going to use it all, but that's a starting point.  Wallow out a depression in that flour.  We're going to fill it with liquid.  Preheat your oven to about 350-375F.

In a 12 oz water glass, fill it 1/3 with oil, and 2/3 with milk.  Pour the liquid into that depression you made in the flour.  Then, I use an index finger and start swirling at the edge of the liquid/flour border.  Work the flour into the liquid forming a dough ball.  It'll be messy at first, but in a minute or two, you'll have to use your hand to mix as the dough hall stiffens.  When it looks about right, you'll have a dough ball in the flour.  Don't over-work it.  Pinch off a piece of dough about as big as a cat's head,   Flatten it slightly and put it on a greased (I use Pam) baking sheet.

Bake for about 30 minutes, give or take.  Look at the picture above  They might not get brown, but they'll get done.This recipe makes about a dozen, depending on the size of your cat.  They're dense, hearty biscuits that go well with butter, jelly, cane syrup, or gravy.  They also cook well in a dutch oven over a campfire, but that's advanced-level camp cook stuff.  We may get into that later in the winter.  We'll see.