Biscuits

Biscuits 

Yesterday, 19 June, marked the end of the 2011 Gathering of the Zogi Clan. Every one, except Grandpa Zog (IZ) and Grandma Zog (TAZ) departed Central Zogistan to return to their respective Zogi encampments located throughout the various western states of the USA. For the IZ and TAZ it was a day of rest and recuperation. 

Today, the IZ got up feeling quite refreshed and decided to try his hand at making rolled biscuits from scratch using whole wheat flour rather than white flour as prescribed in Enola Gay’s recipe which is posted at http://paratusfamilia.blogspot.com/2011/06/hoppin-john-and-southern-raised.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ParatusFamilia+%28Paratus+Familia%29 . She has lots of good stuff on her blog spot. 

For me, biscuit making for the first time was a most interesting experiment. I found that making them was easier and faster than I had anticipated. And they turned out to be pleasantly palatable - but not quite perfect. They were slightly burned on the bottom and didn’t rise quite as high as I had expected. I expect that both problems can be solved by placing a piece of aluminum foil on the lower shelf in the oven and adjusting the yeast or salt content in the dough or letting the biscuits rise a bit longer or rolling the dough a bit thicker or adding a bit of gluten to the flour or any one of several things. At any rate, they were good and will get better. 

I served them to the TAZ with a buttery spread and home made unsweetened apple butter. She ate one – all of it – in addition to her usual breakfast of one fried egg and yogurt. I take than as an endorsement of palatability. She made no mention of the slightly blacked bottom and simply gave me a “thumbs up” sign. But, perhaps she did that just to be nice to me (she does that sometimes) especially since today is our 56^th wedding anniversary. 

I also baked a loaf of whole wheat bread this a.m. which turned out great – as usual. The recipe I new use differs considerably from the recipe provided in my Zojirushi bread machine book. I’m hoping that my good fortune in be able to improve my bread recipe will repeat in my biscuit making endeavors.  

Why make biscuits you say – especially when you can buy refrigerator biscuits so cheaply at the super market? There are multiple answers. One is that with my own recipes I can make very low sodium baked goods and baking powder baked goods that contain no sodium or aluminum (a possible contributor to Alzheimer’s). And I can make whole wheat baked goods rather than white flour goods. (Yep – I confess to being a semi-serious health food nut. I future blog posting I’ll also confess to some of my other quirks.) 

That’s all for today folks. In future postings I’ll explain Zogistan, Zogis, IZ, TAZ, stuff about the gathering of the clan  and post a picture of the Zogistani flag just in case anyone is interested.

I'll also have a link to Sgt. Mark's blog.

IZ