Baking Powder Biscuits

Photo by me

Recipe by Williams Sonoma

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

6 tblsp cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

3/4 cup whole milk

In a bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the butter. Using a pastry blender or 2 knives, cut in the butter just until the mixture forms large coarse crumbs, the size of small peas. Pour in the milk and mix with a fork or rubber spatula just until the dry ingredients are moistened.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead gently a few times until it clings together. Using a spoon, drop biscuits onto the pan to make drop biscuits. OR roll or pat out the dough until 3/4 inch thick if you want to cut it out with a biscuit cutter.

Yield 12 biscuits

**These are yummy by themselves, but tastes great paired with soup too. Beware, they're addicting!

Spinach Lasagna

1½ lb ground turkey
1 jar spagetti sauce (28oz jar)
1 can tomato sauce (8oz can)
1 tub cottage cheese or ricotta (24oz)
1 pkg (no boil) oven ready lasagna noodles (8oz)
1 egg, slightly beaten
½ tsp dried basil
½ tsp dried oregano
1 bag baby spinach
4 cups shredded mozarella cheese
2 tsp crushed chili flakes*

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a large skillet, cook meat until brown. Drain into a strainer and rinse with water (this removes excess fat). Return to skillet and stir in spaghetti and tomato sauce.

In a small bowl, combine egg, cottage cheese, spinach, basil, oregano, and chili flakes. In a 13x9x2inch baking dish, spread just enough meat sauce enough to cover the bottom of pan. Place 3 pieces of uncooked pasta on top, making sure pieces do not over lap or touch sides of pan. Spread ¾ cup cottage cheese mixture over pasta, covering pasta completely. Spread 1 cup meat sauce onto cottage cheese. Repeat layers of noodles and cottage cheese and meat sauce until you’ve used up ingredients. Sprinkle with mozarella cheese. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil and continue to bake for 10-15 minutes or until hot and bubbly. 10-12 servings.

*We love this spicy version, but if you can’t handle the burn…omit the chili flakes and it still tastes great.

**Note - I usually triple or quadruple the recipe so that I can freeze them! It only takes me an extra 20 minutes to do which saves me a ton of TIME in the long run!

Just buy 3-4 foil lasagna pans and assemble as usual EXCEPT do not add the cheese. Cover with foil and freeze. Before baking frozen lasagna, make sure it has thawed out (otherwise it'll take forever to bake). Before placing thawed lasagna into oven, add 2 cups or more of additional spagetti sauce to prevent it from being too dry after baking. Add the cheese on top, cover with foil and bake for 1 hour or so on 400F.

Honey Whole-Wheat Bread

Photo by me

Recipe by Williams Sonoma


This is the best 100% wheat bread that I've ever made. I love my Williams Sonoma cookbook, their recipes always impress me. I was squealing with delight when my bread came out looking this beautiful! This recipe will make 2 loafs of bread. If you just want 1 loaf, then half the recipe.



2 packages (5 tsp) active dry yeast

2 cups whole milk, 105-115 F

1/4 cup honey

2 large eggs

6 cups whole-wheat flour

2 tsp sea salt

6 tblsp unsalted butter, at room temperature



Dissolve yeast in the milk into a large bowl and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. Add honey, eggs, flour, salt and butter. Place bowl on the mixer (or knead by hand) and knead on low speed. Add a little more flour as needed for the dough to come away from the sides of the bowl after a few minutes of kneading. Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, 5-7 minutes. Remove dough from the bowl.

Form the dough into a ball and transfer it to a lightly oiled bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm, draft-free spot until it doubles in bulk, (30-40 minutes is what it usually takes for me).

Butter two 9x5 inch loaf pans.

Punch down dough using your palm of your hand, pressing to release bubbles. Place dough onto lightly floured work space and cut dough in half. For each half, evenly flatten the dough with the heel of your hand. Roll the bottom third up onto itself and seal it by pushing it gently with the heel of your hand. Continue rolling and sealing the dough until you have an oval log. Place the log, seam side down, in the prepared loaf pans. Press on them to flatten them evenly into the pans.

Cover loosely with a clean kitchen towel and let the loaves rise in a warm, draft-free spot until they double in size (30-45 minutes). Be careful, you don't want the bread to rise too much otherwise it will fall during baking. So just until it doubles in size.

Bake on 375F for 35-40 minutes, or until they are honey brown and sound hollow when tapped on top. Be careful not to overbake this bread or it will be dry. Carefully remove the loaves from the pans and let cool completely on wire racks before slicing.



Enjoy!



**If you don't have milk on hand, or are lactose intolerant, you can substitute water for the milk and use only 2 tblsp honey instead.

**If you're using a breadmaker to bake this bread, make sure it doesn't rise too much. You will have to punch it down manually and control the rise time, then set it on "bake only" once it's doubled in size after the second rise.

If you don't do this and just use the "whole wheat" cycle on your breadmaker, you'll have a FALLEN LOAF. I've tried this and other wheat recipes on 2 different breadmakers, with the same drastic results.

So, just trust me, and do the "basic cycle" for kneading, manually controlling the rises and then "bake only" and you will have BEAUTIFUL BREAD!