SKILLET BUTTERMILK BISCUITS

1 12″ CAST IRON SKILLET. (NO SKILLET, EAT TOAST)  OILED

1 STICK FROZEN BUTTER, GRATED ON BOX GRATER.

2 CUPS ALL PURPOSE FLOUR

1 TSP KOSHER SALT

4 TSP BAKING POWDER

1/4 TSP BAKING SODA

1 1/4 CUPS BUTTERMILK

OKAY, MIX BUTTER PIECES WITH DRY INGREDIENTS AND MIX UNTIL THE WHOLE LOT LOOKS LIKE CRUMBS ABOUT THE SIZE OF A GREEN PEA.  YOU ARE GONNA BE SURPRISED ABOUT HOW MUCH BUTTER YOU SEE IN THE DOUGH.  THATS OKAY. MIX IN BUTTERMILK AND MIX UNTIL SOFT DOUGH FORMS.  DONT MIX TOO MUCH, YOU ARENT MAKING YEAST BREAD.  PUT DOUGH ON FLOURED SURFACE AND PAT OUT UNTIL YOU GET THE DOUGH ABOUT 1 ” THICK.  CUT AND PLACE BISCUITS IN THE CAST IRON SKILLET.

COOK IN 450 DEGREE OVEN FOR ABOUT 14 MINUTES.  MAKE SURE THE BOTTOMS OF THE BISCUITS ARE CRUSTY AND TOPS ARE BROWNED.  EAT WITH SOME SAUSAGE OR SAUSAGE GRAVY, 3 OR 4 HENS EGGS, SOME CLOVER HONEY, OR MAYBE SOME HONEY BUTTER.  DONT BE AFRAID TO STICK A PIECE OF SAUSAGE IN A BISCUIT AND HIDE IT SOMEWHERE IN THE KITCHEN FOR LATER USE, SAY ABOUT 10:00AM TO HOLD YOU OVER TO LUNCH.

i AM NOT SURE WHY ANYONE WOULD WANT A PIECE OF TOAST WHEN MAKING A BISCUIT WILL GIVE YOU A MUCH BETTER BREAKFAST.  NONE OF THOSE BOWLS OF CHOKIES ( DRY CEREAL) OR ANY OF THAT STUFF THEY CALL MUSLIC.  jUST A DAMNED FINE BILLOWY PIECE OF BAKED DOUGH, DRIPPING WITH BUTTER AND A BIT OF SOMETHING SWEET.  WHO GIVES A DAMN HOW MUCH COLESTERAL IS IN THIS TYPE MEAL.  DO YOU WANT TO LIVE FOREVER?  HELL, THEY MAY SERVE BISCUITS 3 MEALS PER DAY UP IN HEAVEN.

cHUY THE COOK

I am a biscuit addict.  I love biscuits.  I like them with butter and jam, sausage gravy, just about anyway you can eat one.  That causes me to be constantly on the look out for a better recipe.  Today, I may have found it.  It produced a biscuit that was moist, flaky, crispy on the bottom and tasted as buttery as you would want one to taste.  

It is Friday so have made another week.  Seems like the weeks are passing by a bit quicker each year.  Must be due to that global warming thing or El Nino.

One of our favorite activities at the ranch is sitting on the porch.  It does, however, get pretty warm.  As a remedy I purchased a portable evaporative cooler. (swamp box).  I took it out yesterday and it works, even down here where the humidity is a bit much.  I took it in the house and pointed it across my bed and it really worked there.  It also caused me to have flashbacks of summers in Pecos when I was growing up.  Did you ever lay down in front of a swamp box, let that water laden air blow across you and take a nap.  I did yesterday.  Again.

Next Friday we will leave for Ft Davis.  It is time for our annual family reunion there at the camp grounds of state park.  We have been having this annual event since the 60’s.  New additions every year and glad to say, we dont lose too many.  It is a highlight of my year as I have always loved those mountains there at Ft Davis.  That area is picnic paradise as far as I am concerned.  I know a couple of areas up there that are almost Edenish.  Private property now so limited access but I have memories.  One memory is that landowners werent always so concerned if they caught you on their land.  As long as you were being safe you could look around and they didnt care.  Have been all over west Texas and never was evicted from private property.  Big difference now.  Too bad.  My friend and I had a hunting camp on his property out near Sanderson for about 15 years.  We were broken into only once.  We put up a notice, in Spanish, asking the perpetrators not to repeat the offence.  I added a picture of a praying nun on the notice.  The note simply said that there was food and water on the porch, take what you need and rest in the shade.  We never had another problem.  I am going to use that same approach at my little rancho.

I am hoping it will be cool in Ft Davis as it usually is.  A couple of days up there is enough to recharge my battery for the remainder of the year.  The change in temp from day to night is a welcome relief.  We dont get that degree of change in South Texas.

It was nice to see that one of Pecos’s own will be recognized for past accomplishments.  I didnt know “Bubba” except by his exploits but remember listening to the bball finals on the radio while out on a boy scout campout.  I had forgotten that Pecos was such a leader in the movement to eliminate segregation in schools.  We were all better for it, I think.

In October I will get new lens in my eyes.  Cataracts.  They have finally evolved to the point where trifocals can be inserted.  Not sure what the procedure will be to make sure I am looking thru the reading portion of the new lens.  I guess I will have to stand with one leg in the air in order to see out of the bottom of the lens.  Greek to me.  I just realized just how bionic I am becoming.  Dentures, hearing aids, and now new lens.  I need new hips.  I dont think I will ever be able to leap over tall buildings but superman better get his act together cause Chuy is just around the corner.  Now if I could just lose 50 lbs before the reunion next week I would be in great shape.

GC

We are currently in the doldrums here in south Texas.  It is unusually hot even for here.  We pray for rain but we dont want a hurricane.  Such is life.  I just dont remember summers as being so hot when we were young.  I can remember days of triple digits in Pecos but I cant remember us just hibernating in the house,  We got out and played.  We rode bikes, we hiked around the edge of town, we went fishing, we did al lot of things even in the heat.  Down along the coast we blame it on the humidity.  I guess that has something to do with it but I tend to believe we have just gotten soft.

In connection to the heat, our granddaughter left yesterday to go back home and we took her to the airport.  We noticed a woman who was gettng on the same flght. She was immodestly dressed in what could not have been sold at the store as anything other than a beach coverup.  It was a short, linen lookng thing that was gauzy enough to allow full view of anything underneath.  Fortunately she was modest enough to wear something.  Dorothy commented that the first time she flew to Europe she wore a suit with a hat and high heel shoes.  Times are a changng.  I guess heat dictates what you wear on a plane.  My granddaughter made a comment about the length of the checkin line and I suggested that everyone fly naked and then there would be no reason for security.  She stated she would not be doing any flying if that happened.

I am becoming somewhat of a rabbit whisperer.  We have about 5 small cottontail rabbits that hang around the house at the ranch.  I have a a couple of areas of green grass and succulent plants located in the front of the house and keep them watered so they provide good grazing.  I also put out rabbit chow everyday for a dietary supplement.  I have slowly become able to get within 3 or 4 feet of them and it doesnt seem to disturb them very much.  Sudden moves on my part will send them scampering but mostly they pay me little attention.  I have sat on the porch and had them start up the steps.  I find this fascinating.  I talk to them and it seems to soothe them some.  I am planning on taking some carrots out there next visit and I am determined to have them eating out of my hand before summer is over.

G

I havent had much to rant about lately.  Life has been pretty darned good.  The ranch has finally gotten to be somewhat in order and can afford me some time to just sit and sweat.  It has been hot in South Texas.  I think that within the month I will have instilled enough trust in the cottontail rabbit that lives under the porch that it will let me hand feed it.  It almost made the move yesterday to come up on the porch with me.  It certainly doesnt get too antsy when I show up.

Our summer will be filled with travel.  Next week our granddaughter comes to visit.  She only eats chicken.  No red meat.  Except she does eat chicken fried steak cause it has chicken in it.  Direct quote from last visit. DUH.  I am again wracking my brain for recipes that will entice her to eat.  Chicken liver?  Chicken feet?

We will be going to Ft Davis in July for my family’s reunion.  I like that annual event as it gives us a respite from the heat down here.

Dorothy and I are going to Scandinavia in August.  We will travel to Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark.  She has been planning the trip for some time so it should be worth the trip.  I will try to get some people watching time in as that is something I like to do.  I like some museums and some churches and dont like others so that is hit and miss.  We are going to rent a car for a few days so I will be lucky to get through that without an international incident.  I hope Norway doesnt have the death penalty for road rage.  I am not big on shopping but will be on the lookout for a knife that represents the indigenous Peoples of the region.  I am a buyer not a shopper.  Food will be touch and go.  They seem to have a lot of smoked fish, and reindeer.  I like smoked salmon but not sure if I can eat it for a month and still like it when I get back.  Not sure how I will feel about eating Rudolph.

The prez is going to send in about 300 advisors to help over in Iraq.  I think we heard this before back in the 60’s.  Place called Viet Nam.  This advisor says, let those folks do for themselves.  We freed them once and they let it go to hell so let them fix the problem.  We cant fix what has been going on for a thousand years.  The Sunis dont like the Shites and that is the way it is.  Leave them the hell alone. The Prez is worried about the middle east when South texas is being overrun with illegal immigrants.  They are sending children across in unprecedented numbers and we have no facilities to care for them and nowhere to send them back to.  Story just broke yesterday about a funeral home in a small town that has been responsible for burying a lot of the immigrants who dont make it.  They found a mass grave with bodies buried in Walmart sacks.  The small town just cant afford to bury all the people that are found out in the pastures where they were trying to sneak into the US.  A damned shame but this is what happens when we dont tend to business in our own backyard and try to mow the guys grass in a place 5,000 miles away.  Especially bad when the guys doesnt want his grass mowed in the first place.  Gov Perry has authorized the spending of $ 1 million + per week to help with the prob but I am not sure that is enough to even buy gasoline to haul them all to town when they catch them.  PRIORITIES.

Nuff said.

Chuy

Would neutering be a condition that should be required to be in the contract of each professional athelete?..It appears that once again an athelete is being questioned about nefarious behavior.  Whether he is innocent or guilty the damage has been done simply because he was mentioned in the news story.  I am just thinking that if the atheletes were neutered prior to beginning their professional careers there could be some positive results.  They could keep their minds on their job.  They could bulk up.  Thats just to mention a couple of things.

Just wondering?

Chuy

I love sandwiches.  I honor the Earl of Sandwich for his contribution to that finest of all quick meals.  It has been reported that he asked a slave to slice some bread and place a slab of meat on it so he could eat while still playing cards.  Capital request there Earl.

I have 3 favorite sandwiches and they are from my days of yore.  In other words I ate them as a child.  They are pimento cheese, egg salad and tuna fish.  Back in the days when the cheese was grated on the old box grater, the eggs might be left over from an easter egg hunt and the tuna came from a can with enough oil in it to change oil on a Chevy.  We had no zip lock bags so our sandwiches were wrapped in “Cut-rite” wax paper.  Just enough odor could escape an item wrapped in wax paper to tantalize you all morning long.  I can vividly remember sitting in my desk, smelling the egg salad sandwich in my lunch pail.  Lunch usually consisted on a sandwich, 3 cookies and a small thermos filled with kool-ade.  Now, these sandwiches could serve as a meal for guests by simply cutting off the crust and making one of more diagonal cuts across the bread to make half triangles or two cuts which produced finger sandwiches.  Have you ever noticed how many more of those finger sandwiches you can eat, simply because they are just bite size?  You feel no shame in eating 10 or 12 of those little rascals and then later realize you have eaten 3 large sandwiches.

Modern day sandwiches have made progress according to some folks.  Many people like bread that has sunflower seeds, chunks of cranberries or even almonds in the bread.  Some like their sandwich to have a piece of lettuce that is curly and sticks out 4 inches on every side of the bread.  I dont.  I like the square, white bread.

Some ingredients for a sandwich demand a certain “side”.  A ham sandwich just about has to have cheese.   It should always have a slice of tomato and some lettuce, just not a leaf that looks like it was cut off a banana plant.  Good tuna should have diced onions, diced pickles and miracle whip.  A fancy tuna sandwich that was popular at Ranchland hills country club in Midland was tuna on a bun, topped with sliced avocado, a slice of cheese and melted under the broiler.  It was called the “Friday Topper”.  I liked that sandwich.  I am not a fan of great huge thick sandwiches that require that you unhinge your jaw like a python in order to take a bite.  I always say if your have to have that much of  a sandwich, order two of the regular sumbitches and eat them.  That prevents you from looking like you are having your last meal before being electrocuted.  LIver wurst or Braunsweiger sandwiches are good and pretty much demand some thinly sliced onions or maybe some pickled onions.

I dont have a lunch pail anymore and havent seen any wax paper in ages but I guess maybe things would taste different anyway.  I always like to remember back to when things were simpler.  You had a choice of 3, maybe four good sandwiches and that was it.  Deli’s were not readily available in west Texas so we had lunch counters like the one at Bozeman’s.  You could get a good sandwich there, it would be aesthetically cut into a triangle and you would get some chips.  A cherry coke to drink and you were in business.

Chuy

I scan news.  There is rarely an instant where I read the whole article because most of it doesnt hold my interest.  I scan a lot of news sources.  I should stop doing that.  I should limit myself to National Geographic, and possibly Readers Digest (large print version).  All other news sources give too much information.  I have outgrown the need for too much information.

Weekly, there is a news report of an 11th grade teacher having illegal relations with a student.  Really?  I think back to my 11th grade teachers and think about how scarred I would be had that happened to me.  I was more worried about getting a date for friday nite with an age appropriate female.  I just wish they would hush these kind of reports up and not put them on national news.  I need to know if it is going to rain, if the wind is going to blow and if the price of oil has gone down or gone up.  Pretty much everything else is fluff.

My ideal newspaper would be the front page, containing a weather forecast, a price index of fossil fuels, a listing of who died and the rest of the paper should be filled with recipes that old people can easily make and enjoy.  I dont clip coupons so they can leave those out.  All car ads can vanish because I already know where to buy a car and the prices listed are never the same when you get there so that is wasted reading time.  Just good recipes, dammit.  And no recipes containing any miracle grain product of the ancient Peruvian indians that was suddenly reestablished from seeds found in a clay pot inside a burial mound.  I am not an ancient Incan and could care less what they ate.  I like mashed potaotes.  Besides, there are no ancient incans left so what they ate couldnt have been that good for them.  They should have been eating good ole sawmill gravy over some biscuits and maybe there would still be a few of them around.  Oh, and another thing, I dont care how much mercury is in tuna fish.  I cant eat enough tuna in the time I have left on this earth to make a difference in my mercury content.  I dont take fish oil pills because they make you smell like fish for the rest of the day.  I can get all the fish oil I need from a can of sardines eaten on a cracker.

Chuy

As a certified public accountant I feel that I have had the training and after 40 years in the industry, certainly the experience. to share with all of you who read this blog, the way to legally make a small fortune.  In these days where our chance to make such a fortune is shrinking daily, we have to be on our toes.  We must take the opportunity to see that we have ample funds left to cover our golden years.

Here is the simple plan:  Take a large fortune, buy a small 50 acre ranch and in no time at all you will have a small fortune.  There you go.  As simple as simple can be.

All kidding aside, we have had a blast so far actively changing our barebones hunting camp into a much more female friendly hostel.  We will keep the outhouse for nostalgic reasons and just in case an epidemic of food poison strikes but we are well on the way to having a foo-foo bathroom on site.  We will have hot water, flushing toilet and shelving for towells.  No hanging the towell over the shower door.  We did get a shock when the state septic tank inspector advised that I should pour a cup of dog food down the toilet each week to help the septic system maintain the proper degree of enzymes.  Kinda makes you wonder just exactly what you are feeding your beloved puppy?  If it will eat septic tank sludge, well the inside of your dog cant be squeeky clean now can it.  The carpenters start tomorrow and the plumber will be there Wed., electrician will be there on Sat.  It has been slow but has speeded up some now.

The latest thing of TV is this business about the airplane that is moving.  Am I the only person who watched that show ” Lost”?  That seemed a bit far fetched at the time but well, maybe, ???? That could be the reason why I watch all the survivor shows on TV.  I am currently enthralled with one entitled ” no mans land”.  This show is basically about folks who live on the edge of nowhere and live with whatever they can find, bargain or trade for.  Interesting.  They show ways to develope water systems, find food, shelter.  All things you would need to know if you were “lost”.

Warren Buffet has promised to give a person $ 1 billion dollars if they fill out a perfect final basketball schedule.  Hell, if I knew who was playing I would try.

Chuy

It has been a while since I have pontificated about anything.  I have kinda mellowed out I guess.  Can you believe that?

I finally broke down and bought hearing aids.  I told the old boy I wanted some that would allow me to hear a mouse pee on a cotton ball.  He asked why I would want to do that.  I told him an old friend, Cat Cooper could do that without the aid of a machine.  I can turn mine up with a remote control and pretty much hear the heart beats of the checker at the grocery store.  Of course it also allows you to hear some sounds that you would just as soon not hear.  I am trying to ignore casual comments by passersby.

Gay marriage is hogging the news.  I am not sure how I feel about that subject.  I do believe that everyone should have an equal shot at the tax breaks that are offered to married couples.  Maybe we ought to just let folks do as they please as long as they don’t infringe on the rights of others.  I am equally as offended by the sight of two men “soul” kissing in the drug store as I am seeing a man and woman doing the same thing.  As long as neither group is trying actively to include me in their little group groping I am pretty sure they have a right to do what they please.  Thats about all I have to say on that subject.  Too much is being made of something that really isnt a politicians business.

The Russians are acting up again and the Prez seems hell-bent in getting involved, by saber-rattling about the rights of the Ukrainians.  Hell, 5 years ago, a Ukrainian was probably shooting at our guys in Afghanistan, and now we are doing all we can to rescue them.  Prez needs to pay more attention to some of the things that make the good ole USA a dicey place to live and less time in playing “war-horse”.  Get the damned keystone pipeline dug so we can get ourselves independent from foreign oil.  Get some new bridges built so cars don’t fall in the water when they cross the Mississippi.  Help the western states reforest their lands that have been ravaged by fires.  Get some desal plants built so we don’t run out of water.  He is so high on getting the young minorities in a better position to achieve their potential, well get them some basic work skills.  A basic work skill is not the ability to recognize an undercover cop from two blocks away.  A basic work skill is the ability to go to a job at 6:30 am, work all day and at 5;00 pm asking the boss, is there is anything else that needs to be done?  Repeating this process for a few years does wonders to your ability to get ahead.

See, you get me to ranting and there is hell to pay.

The Diamond 5 C ranch is coming along nicely.  We are pouring money into this little project like Michael Anthony was knocking on our door.  Ya’ll remember ole Michael, the guy that delivered the checks for John Beresford Tipton on the “Millionaire”.  We have bought a new building, got the septic system in process, an electrician on standby, looking for a carpenter., hopefully have a plumber lined up.  Couple of more months and a shower might be available and the place will be considered “female friendly”.  We are not yet to the point where I can just go out there and sit on the porch and rock, but its, coming.  I promise.

Hopefully there will be some more meaningful things happen in the near future that will require my comments.  I do love to entice my readers so that they can comment on what I have to say.  Some do, and some dont.  More should,.  It would be like having a conversation.  It would be like texting. LMAO

Chuy the Sage