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Artistic Biscuits: Cheesy "Faken" Birthday Biscuits for Loreen

I made this recipe up for my sister's birthday keeping the following things in mind: 1. She prefers savoury over sweet and 2. she was to arrive in the morning and so I wanted it to be breakfasty. Although I passionately hate omelets, I have nothing against omelet ingredients so I thought long and hard about what I could tolerate in an omelet, were I to be able to tolerate omelets. The answer I came up with that I thought Loreen would like was the following list of ingredients: cheese, vegetarian bacon, onion, parsley, and pepper.

Sinful breakfast deliciousness.

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 t. baking powder
2 t. sugar
3/4 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
6 T. (3/4 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
8 oz. Muenster Cheese, coarsely grated (1 1/4 cups)
1/4 cup minced onion
2 T. fresh parsley, finely chopped
5 pieces of Morning Star vegetarian bacon strips (or Smart Bacon)
1 t. coarsely ground black pepper
1 cup well-shaken low-fat buttermilk

Preheat oven to 450°F.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Blend in butter with your fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in Muenster cheese, onion, parsley, and ground pepper. Cook vegetarian bacon according to package instructions (I did mine in the skillet in a Tablespoon of olive oil) and when cool, crumble into bits and add to mixture. Add buttermilk and stir until just combined.

Spoon dough into mounds (size depending on how many you wish to make - I made about 15 total) about 2 inches apart onto a buttered large baking sheet.

Cook 8-10 minutes and transfer immediately to cooling rack. Devour.

Happy Birthday, Loreen.

Chaos Order

This is a quadripdych (I'm proclaiming this a legitimate word) I did for an art show in 2008 with Montauk Project.

leaf

Frank Burns eats worms

Major Franklin Delano Marion "Frank" Burns

Artistic Biscuits: Laundry Biscuits (or Biscuits de Noix de Coco, et le Chocolat Lavande)

Instead of doing laundry tonight, I made these biscuits.The coconut and chocolate add some nice texture and "meltiness" and the self-rising flour provides just the right hint of saltiness to keep it from being too sweet. What makes these unique, though, is the lavender.

The french word for lavender is lavande, with a possible origin in the 10th century latin word lividus, which means "bluish." Around the 13th century, lavender was added as a fragrance to soap and the french word laver, to wash, was born. The word laundry is from the 16th century and is related to the french word lavanderie, which comes from the Latin word lavandarium or "things to be washed." I should have brought the lavandarium down to the basement to do the wash tonight, but alas, I was biscuit-inspired.

So while no laundry was done, I did learn a little about the origin of the word.

Laundry Biscuits

Preheat Oven to 400°F

2 cups self-rising flour
4 Tablespoons butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 cup shredded coconut (I used sweetened but it's up to you)
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 Tablespoon dried lavender3/4 cup low-fat buttermilk

In a large mixing bowl, blend self-rising flour and butter with your fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add remaining ingredients, pouring in the buttermilk last, and stir until just combined.

Coat 2 baking trays with butter and spoon mixture into 18-20 piles, about 2 inches apart.

Bake for 6-8 minutes or until lightly golden in colour. Remove from trays immediately to prevent the bottoms from burning and put them on a cooling rack.

Listen to this while baking:
"Laundry Room" by the Avett Brothers

Watch this lovely Disney animation compilation (accompanied by Burl Ives' singing) while eating these:
"Lavender Blue"

Tasters:
Jeremy Beck & Me

Yeoman Janice Rand

Simply put: if you have a blog, you should have a portrait of Janice Rand on that blog.