Luck O' the Irish

St. Patty's Day is almost upon us, and since this year it falls the night before my 10 a.m. thesis defense (I'm not bitter or anything), I decided to celebrate a bit early this year. In an effort to stick to my resolution to make a Bon Appetit recipe each month (month 2 of following through - woo hoo!), I decided to make Irish Soda Bread. They had this great article in the magazine about traveling all over the country of Ireland in search of the perfect soda bread recipe - if you haven't read the article yet, here is a link to the winning recipe.

However, there are a few caveats to me deciding to make this bread: 1.) I am not Irish, 2.) I have never been to Ireland, and 3.) I have never tried Irish Soda Bread before. Therefore, I had no idea what the bread should taste or look like, but I didn't let that stop me. I followed the recipe to a tee and got pretty worried after I added the buttermilk and saw this much flour remaining in the mixing bowl that refused to incorporate into the dough:


But I figured that since I had come this far, I may as well bake it. Here is what the dough looked like before baking:

And here is what it looked like after baking for 40 minutes:


As you can see, to my pleasant surprise, it turned out golden brown and still tasted yummy (I am attributing this to the luck o' the Irish). It is a dense, slightly nutty flavored brown bread, that has a biscuit like texture to it. (Of course, I have no idea if it tastes like it's supposed to due to the caveats I mentioned earlier.)

However, if I were to make it again (or if you decide to try it out for yourself), I would recommend either cutting the amount of flour in the recipe by about 2 cups, or upping the amount of buttermilk by a cup so that all of the dry ingredients in the dough come together.

Happy (early) St. Patty's Day everyone! Drink a Guinness (or two or three) for me.

Cheddar and Garlic and Chive - Oh My!

As I slog through to the finish line (only 3 more days until my thesis is due!), I am still on the quest for quick and easy meals. But since it was the weekend, I decided to take some extra time and try my hand at making biscuits from scratch. Don't get me wrong, I have always been a purveyor of Bisquick and it's simple, just add milk biscuit making philosophy. However, as easy as it is to make biscuits from a mix, sometimes they are just so plain. And I was craving something more. Enter the garlic, cheddar, and chive biscuit.

For as long as I can remember, I have vowed to myself that I will try to make at least one recipe from Bon Appetit per month. I have been a subscriber for at least 5 years now, maybe longer. I think in the entire time I have subscribed I have made a total of 2 recipes from the magazine. So my New Year's resolution for 2010 was to finally follow through with trying a new recipe each month. Today is March 1st. Three months into the year and I have still not done one thing towards my resolution!

Well no more faithful readers! Yesterday I tuned over a new leaf. (Better late than never right?) I picked up the February issue and came across the most delicious looking photo of bacon, cheddar, and chive biscuits. It looked so good I couldn't NOT make it. (I almost wanted to eat the page, the picture looked so good.) Of course, I don't eat bacon (most of the time, that is), so I decided to modify the recipe a bit. (Not sure if it really counts as making something from the magazine if you change the recipe, but hey, this is probably as close as I am going to come to keeping my resolution.) I came up with the following melt in your mouth delicious biscuits. I promise, you won't even miss the bacon.


Cheddar, Chive, and Garlic Biscuits

2 cups all purpose flour
2 2/3 tsp baking soda
2 2/3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 stick unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1 cup grated sharp cheddar
1/6 cup chopped chives
1 cup buttermilk

(Lowfat buttermilk? Sounds like an oxymoron.)

Preheat oven to 425 F.

Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and garlic powder in processor. Add butter cubes. Stir until coarse meal forms, about 30 seconds. Add cheddar cheese and chives.


Toss to blend. Gradually add buttermilk, stirring to moisten evenly (batter will feel sticky). Drop biscuits by the heaping Tbsp onto cookie sheet 2 inches apart from one another. Bake until golden brown and toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, about 11 minutes. This recipe makes about a dozen large biscuits.

You could serve these biscuits any number of ways - alone, as the bread for a sandwich - but I highly recommend serving them with this super easy tomato vegetable soup I made (since I mentioned that my thesis is due in three days, you knew the one pot meal that you can throw together with whatever happens to be in your pantry was coming after all right?)


Tomato and Veggie Soup

3 Tbsp olive oil
Chopped veggies (You could really use any veggies you have on hand - I used carrot, celery, onion, and potato.)
2 cloves garlic, minced
28 oz can crushed tomato
28 oz low sodium vegetable (or chicken) broth
15 oz can of cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 cup pasta
salt and pepper to taste

The pasta I used:



Heat olive oil over medium heat. Saute veggies and garlic for about 5 minutes. Add tomato, broth, cannellini beans, red pepper flakes, and pasta. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for the cooking time listed on the pasta box (about 10 - 12 minutes on average).