BASIC DIET CHEESEY GARLIC BISCUITS
Adapted and Redacted from an Internet Recipe
(So it has to be the truth)
By
Gordon Hubbell, PhB
2 ½ Cups All Purpose Flour
2 Tbsp Low Sodium “fake” Baking Powder
2 Tsp Garlic Powder (reserve more for later)
1 Tsp Salt
½ Cup Diet Low Fat “fake” Margarine
1 Cup Truly Fake Buttermilk*
2 Tsp Honey
1 Cup Shredded Cheddar Cheese
Butter Flavored Cooking Spray
Fresh Chopped Garlic – Appx. 5 cloves or lots more
*2 Tbsp vinegar or lemon juice plus enough skim milk to reach 1 cup.
Preheat oven to 400°F. Place the flour, baking powder, garlic powder, and salt together in a large bowl or in a large food processor. Whisk or pulse until combined. Add the cubed margarine (put it in the freezer for a while to get it cube-able) and cut into the dry ingredients with a pastry cutter or by pulsing several times in the processor. Mix/pulse until coarse crumbs form. If you used a food processor, pour the mixture into a large bowl. If you didn’t use a food processor and didn’t put all this stuff in a large bowl to start with, sweep up the mess and start all over again in a large bowl and blame the unclear direction on me.
Stir in the shredded cheddar cheese. Don’t cheat and use low or no fat cheese because it will screw up the whole recipe. Some things shouldn’t be diet and cheese is one of them. Make a well in the center of the mixture, then pour 1 cup of Truly Fake buttermilk on top, then the honey. Stir everything together until just about combined– do not overwork the dough. Resist OCD urges for thorough mixing and completeness – you’re making a mess on purpose. The dough will look like shreds and be very crumbly, kinda with lumps and bumps and extra flour at the bottom. It isn’t pretty.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface (a sheet of foil makes for easy cleanup) and gently mold it into a rough looking rectangle using your hands. Fold one side into the center, then the other side. Turn the dough so it’s long horizontally. Gently flatten. Repeat the folding again. Turn the dough so it’s long horizontally once more. Gently flatten. Repeat the folding one more time. If you don’t like getting your hands messy get a kid to do this for you (preferably one with washed hands).
Smear/pat/spread the dough out on the work surface until its about half an inch thick. You can use a rolling pin for this but I don’t have one so I improvise. Now, make an executive decision on shape. I like square biscuits so I cut them into approximately 2 ½ inch squares with a knife. If you must have round biscuits those are possible at this time and you can use your favorite cutter or suitable sized empty can out of the trash (wash it first). Shape is important for esthetics only, not flavor or texture. Place the resulting things on a baking sheet (touching – this gets you more “rise”) or into a seasoned cast iron skillet.
Quickly spritz the top of the biscuits with the butter flavored cooking spray – just a skosh. Bake for 17 minutes or until biscuits are golden brown on top. You’ll need most of the 17 minutes to clean up the kitchen – that’s how I arrived at the time – if you are either neat or quick or both, you’ll still need the whole oven time, though or you’ll have gunky wet biscuits instead of flaky ones. Don’t hurry. Read a book or argue politics on the Internet and the time will pass quickly enough.
Remove from the oven. Spray with a slightly larger skosh of the cooking spray. Sprinkle with a light dusting of more garlic powder. Distribute fresh chopped garlic all around – don’t be cheap and chintzy. Garlic is healthy and nutritious and helps make this “diet” because
nobody ever got fat on garlic.
Serve warm with whatever you dare to add and bask in the glow of having eaten something slightly less than it could have been calorie-wise (“diet”).
Epilog:
These biscuits taste good but could be better. If you wish to make them better, substitute Mrs. Tucker’s Lard for the margarine, real buttermilk for the Truly Fake, and about half a pound of real butter for the spray. They may be further embellished with jam or by the insertion of a fried up sausage patty. The true biscuit lover will, of course, slather them with
GRAVY.
