The Best Fresh Green Beans EVER!
Ingredients
- 1 lb green beans
- 1 cup chopped onion
- 1 Tablespoon minced jarred garlic
- 1 cup chopped red bell pepper
- 1 T butter and 1 T olive oil
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- Ground black pepper
Instructions
- Snap the stem ends of green bean. Melt butter and add oil in a skillet over medium low heat. Add garlic,red peppers and onions, cook for a minute. Add add green beans, place a lid over the skillet and cook until the green beans are a gorgeous bright green color. Add the chicken broth, pepper, salt, and black pepper. Turn heat to low and cover with a lid, leaving lid cracked to allow steam to escape. Cook for 20 to 30 minutes or until liquid evaporates and beans are fairly soft. You can add more chicken broth during the cooking process, but don’t be afraid to let it all cook away so the onions and peppers can caramelize.
Homemade Buttermilk Biscuits
I had tried several homemade biscuit recipes before Paul’s daughter Leighana shared this one with me. Of the other recipes Paul would always say…yeah it’s good but keep looking. I stopped looking after I made this recipe. This is the best biscuit recipe on the planet. I’ve had people taste this biscuit, stop in there tracks and say…”These are just like the biscuits my momma use to make.” It doesn’t get any better in the biscuit world than this recipe. I double the recipe and freeze the biscuits so that I can have homemade buttermilk biscuits whenever my husband wants them. I took some pictures while I was making them to show you the process. The lighting in the kitchen wasn’t that great so please forgive the pictures. The pictures are of a double batch of biscuits.
Step One
I’m not going to show you a separate picture of frozen butter, you know what it looks like. Just take 8 TBLS ( 1 stick) of butter, cut it into small pieces and put it in a bowl or put it on a plate and stick it in the freezer. It doesn’t take long for it to freeze, maybe 10 – 15 minutes tops. While your waiting for the butter to freeze, measure out you dry ingredients.
Step Two
After the dry ingredients are measured out , sift them all together.
Step Three
Take the frozen butter out of the freezer and dump it on top of your sifted ingredients. Use a pastry blender to cut the butter into the flour till your flour looks like coarse sand. It’ll take a couple minutes , remember the butter is frozen.
Step Four
Measure out the buttermilk and pour it over top of the flour mixture. This is where my method of mixing the flour differs from the recipe. I tried using the pastry blender to blend the buttermilk into the flour. I found that using my hands worked better for me so I just went with it. I start by putting my hands under the flour and scooping it up over the buttermilk.
I keep scooping the flour up and over till….
.
It all comes together into a blob. Don’t work the dough any longer than you have too, just until it comes together.
Step Five
PAT the dough out to the thickness you want the biscuits to be. I generally get 6 biscuits to a batch, I like them nice and thick. Get your biscuit cutter or use the mouth of a cup or glass to cut the biscuits out.
After I’ve cut out all the biscuits I can with the cutter I gather the dough together and gently make one last biscuit. Its usually not as pretty as the rest but still as good.
Step Six
Get your cookie sheet out, place parchment paper on top of it . Place your biscuits on the paper and put them in the freezer for 20 minutes. If you don’t use parchment paper your biscuits will freeze to the pan , you will be left standing there with a spatula trying to unstuck them…ask me how I know that. After 20 minutes the biscuits will pretty much be frozen. At this point you can take them off the cookie sheet and put them into freezer bags or bake them or do a combination of the two. That’s why I make a double batch, some get baked, and some stay in the freezer. To bake from the freezer, take out the amount you want, let them sit on your baking sheet ( they should be starting to thaw but still hard) for about 10 minutes and bake as directed.
The recipe says to bake these touching each other in the pan but I’ve baked them when they weren’t and they were great as well. Bake at 475 degrees ( make sure your oven is preheated) for 20 minutes.
My favorite way to eat a biscuit. (( sigh ))
Homemade Buttermilk Biscuits
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 8 tablespoons ice cold butter
- 3/4 cup buttermilk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 475 degrees F.
- Slice butter and put on a plate in the freezer.
- Sift the dry ingredients together into a bowl. Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or a fork until it looks like coarse sand. Add the buttermilk mix until just incorporated into the flour. Turn out onto a floured surface and gently bring together. Gently press the dough into a circle until it is between 1/2 and 3/4-inch thick.
- Use a round cutter that has been floured to cut the biscuits. Place in the freezer for at least 20 minutes.Remove biscuits from freezer and place on parchment paper on a baking sheet so they are touching each other. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven.
Homemade Hot Cocoa Mix
The weather is turning from summer heat to brisk days and thoughts of leafs turning from green to glorious shades of fall are dancing around in my head. I love this weather. It makes me want to break out my warm sweaters ,sit with big thick socks on and sip on a nice hot cup of cocoa. Paul and I live in the country down in a valley. It’s not practical or convenient to just run to the store on a whim. It’s six miles up to the highway and another five miles to Kroegers. One reason why food in this house is more homemade than prepackaged. Delicious homemade hot cocoa in the time it takes to warm milk, that’s what I’m talkin about! Mixing the initial batch took a whole ….maybe 15 minutes. That”s right, this isn’t hard…not time consuming…just plain delicious. And the best part, I made it, I know what’s in it. What I like best about this recipe is the white chocolate chips mixed into the cocoa, yes white chocolate chips. Measure out 1/4 cup cocoa mix to 1 cup warm milk. This cocoa is delicious, make it and find an excuse to sit and enjoy it!
Homemade Hot Cocoa Mix
Ingredients
- 3 cups nonfat dry milk powder
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1½ cups cocoa powder
- 1½ cups white chocolate chips milk chocolate chips would be good as well.
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix all the cocoa ingredients together until thoroughly combined. Place half the cocoa batch in the bowl of a food processor, pulse the cocoa ingredients until the white chocolate chips are finely ground, repeat with the second half. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
From Start to finish each of these recipes would make a wonderful addition. I need to try the biscuits especially.
This sounds like a recipe even picky children would eat. Thanks for sharing.
Those buscuits look beyond good. I am going to have to give them a try this weekend.
The green beans sound really good and the biscuits are making my mouth water. They look so delicious!
i think a fluffy buttermilk biscuit is among my top five favorite foods, as long as there’s plenty of butter and jam to apply. 🙂
You had me at biscuit and I too am looking for the perfect one. I have to pin this recipe.
I love your blog because you explain everything clearly and you show everything in photos which is very important for beginners like me.
How do you make the hot chocolate? Do you add the mix to water or to milk and how much of mix and water and milk?
Hi Debbie, measure out 1/4 cup cocoa mix to 1 cup hot milk, stir and enjoy!