This is dedicated to the one I love…

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there! I haven’t gotten to see my own dad yet, but tonight we’re having pizza and beer to celebrate  the first man I ever loved 🙂

The girls and I have had the best time celebrating Jarrod today. He’s such a great daddy, and we wanted nothing more than to make this a special day for him!

First we made him organic peanut butter cookies…

Hoke doing what she does best… getting things out of the pantry

Hen adding the sugar…

Mixing it all up…

Yum!

When the cookies were done and everyone was in bed, mama decorated the kitchen…

Jarrod always  gets out of bed before I do, so I think he was especially surprised this morning when I woke him up to come have fresh ground coffee, and homemade buttermilk biscuits with bacon, egg, and cheese.

Just out of the oven.

This is an old picture! I forgot to take one today because I was too busy eating. Just picture this with eggs added to it 🙂

Then it was time to open his presents! The girls and I worked hard on these.

Just mix 1/2 cup of flour, 1/2 cup salt, and 1/4 of a cup of water. Roll into a ball. Mash flat. Make your imprint, and bake @200 degrees Farenheit for 3 hours. Let cool and then paint.

Before I baked them I poked a hole in the top of each. We painted ours a cream color and then I went back and just painted the hand print. After painting, I strung twine through them and hot glued a bow at the top. On the back in sharpie, I wrote the name date, age, and a little father’s day message.

(I know the homemade handprint Father’s day gifts are so predictable, but the girls loved it, Jarrod loved it, they were inexpensive, and all homemade!)

As a cute an inexpensive gift to my dad, I made him this:

I saw several similar ideas on pinterest, but I just spliced a few of those together and came up with this. I think it’s so cute, and he loves peanut m&ms.  I didn’t use a template for the tie. I just eyeballed it. ( As you can probably tell!)

 

 

After such a heavy breakfast and with pizza for dinner tonight, we had a lovely Father’s Day salad for lunch. We used lettuce and veggies from our garden…

Saturday Morning Buttermilk Biscuits (With Bacon and Cheese)

 

 

 

When my husband saw me looking at this recipe from The Hungry Mouse, he begged me to make it. Apparently he wanted it so bad, he woke up early Saturday morning, grabbed my list, and ran to the store to get the buttermilk and bacon. These were easy, delicious, and gone in about a day and a half. I’ve never cooked bacon in the oven before, but I love the new method!

 

Buttermilk Biscuits

2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. kosher salt
4 Tbls. butter (that’s a half a stick)
3/4 cup buttermilk

Makes 6 biscuits, about 3-inches in diameter (or more if you use a smaller biscuit cutter)

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and set aside.

 Make the dough

In the bowl of your food processor, put the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Pulse the ingredients a few times to combine them.

At this point, take  your butter out of the fridge. You will want your butter to be cold.

Cut the butter into several pieces. Toss them into the dry ingredients in your food processor.

Pulse the flour and butter together a few times until the butter just starts to break down into pieces.

There are a few things that make these biscuits fluff up in the oven. The moisture from these tiny pieces of butter is one of them. It turns into steam and helps leaven the dough.

Drizzle the buttermilk in slowly, pulsing the dough as you go. If you’re using a food processor, keep the top on and pour it through the feeder tube. If you’re using a stand mixer, keep the mixer on low and drizzle it in. If you’re doing it by hand, just pour it in a little at a time, mixing as you go.

The goal is to mix the dough as little as possible. You just want it to come together and be raggy looking. That’s what helps create all those fabulous layers in your finished biscuit.

Your dough should look about like this:

Cut the biscuits

 Flour  a large cutting board or your counter.

Press your dough into a rough ball.

With your hands, smoosh the dough down until it’s flat.

You want it to be about a half-an-inch thick.

Cut your biscuits starting at the edge of the dough. I used a big cutter, so the biscuits would be a good size for sandwiches.

Pick the cutter up, dough and all. Pop the cut biscuit out gently.

Set the biscuit on your prepared sheet pan.

Repeat with the rest of the dough.

When you can’t get any more biscuits out of the dough, take the scraps, press them together into a ball, and mash the dough flat again.

Keep doing this until you’ve used up almost all your dough.

When you get to the last blob of dough, smash it just flat enough so you can trim the edges off with the cutter.

Bake the biscuits

 

Pop the the pan into your preheated 450 degree oven. Bake the biscuits for 10-12 minutes, until they’re poofy and golden brown on top.

 

After about 6 minutes, they should be puffing up nicely (but still look raw on the edges)

 

They’re done when they’re golden brown on top.

 

Bacon in the oven

I have never cooked bacon in the oven, but there are several benefits. 1) It tastes incredible 2) You pop it in the oven, and that’s the only work you have to do 3) It keeps your stove top from getting splattered with grease.

 

Line a rimmed baking sheet twice with foil. Lay the bacon out flat and evenly.

 

You can use as much or a little bacon as you would like to cook. (It will turn out the same no matter the amount)

Put the pan in your 450 degree oven with your biscuits.

The bacon will take maybe 13-18 minutes to cook, depending on how crispy you like it. Just keep an eye on it.

 

I took mine out after maybe 18 minutes. My oven seems to take longer to cook.

When it comes out of the oven, you will want to sop the grease up. Set it on a paper towel lined plate. Press paper towels over the top, and most of your great should soak into the towels.

Stick the bacon and the cheese on your biscuit. If you time it right, the bacon and biscuit should melt your cheese. If it doesn’t, stick the sandwich in the microwave for a few seconds.

YUM! Easy Right?!

I personally like Bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits so next time I’m going to add eggs.