Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Homemade BoBerry Biscuits

My coworker was talking about making homemade apple fritters all week, and they sounded so good I decided to make some, too. I searched Pinterest for my favorite apple fritter recipe, but you know how it first shows you all the results and then you have to click on "your pins" to find the recipe you saved? Well, right next to all the yummy apple fritter recipes was a recipe for blueberry fritters!

They looked awesome, so I decided to give them a try. Only problem was, the recipe called for 2 eggs and I had no eggs, because I used them all for some delicious egg salad the day before. Bummed, I decided to go back to my apple fritter recipe, only to discover it called for an egg, too! Double-bummed, I went back to Pinterest and saw the blueberry fritter recipe again, which reminded me of the BoBerry Biscuits they sell at Bojangles.

If you don't know what Bojangles is, well, I am so sorry!  Bojangles is a Charlotte, NC-based fast food restaurant with franchise locations pretty much everywhere south of the Mason-Dixon. They specialize in chicken and biscuits, and sticking with the theme, for dessert they offer their amazing buttery biscuits, speckled with blueberries and drizzled with glaze. I decided to search for a copycat recipe for those, and low and behold, I found one--and it didn't even call for eggs!

These turned out great and took about as long to make as it would've taken me to drive to my local Bojangles and buy some. I used some frozen blueberries, but fresh or even dried would be just fine.


Homemade BoBerry Biscuits
Prep time: 10 min  Bake time: 10 min
Serves 12

2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/4 cups buttermilk*
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tbs baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 Tbs shortening
1/2 cup butter, cut into 1/4 in cubes
5 oz blueberries

Glaze
1 cup sifted powdered sugar
4 tsp water
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp lemon juice

Preheat oven to 450F.

Combine dry ingredients. Cut in shortening and butter. Add buttermilk and stir till just combined.  Fold in blueberries.  Add additional flour if dough is too sticky.

Place dough on floured cutting board, rub rolling pin with flour, and roll dough out to desired thickness. (I like 3/4 inch)

Use a cookie or biscuit cutter to cut out biscuits.

Bake for 8-10 minutes till desired brownness.

Combine glaze ingredients and drizzle over biscuits. These are great warm or cool!

*If you don't have buttermilk and can't be bothered to go get some, just add 1-2 Tbs of lemon juice or vinegar to a cup of milk and let it sit for 5 minutes till it starts to curdle. Voila! You have buttermilk.

244 calories per serving.  Click here for more nutritional info and shopping list!

Thursday, May 5, 2016

Crunchy Pretzel Pecan Strawberry Salad

It's strawberry season at last! I've been eagerly awaiting its arrival for weeks, and I had grand plans to kick it off with this yummy-sounding salad.  My favorite strawberry farmer told me 2 weeks ago that he should have tons of berries by this week. I don't know what it was that made me give him a call to verify before making the short drive to Early Farms, but I was totally bummed to learn that some kind of infestation had destroyed his entire crop in the short time since we last spoke. I sympathized with him for a few minutes while trying to decide if I even wanted to try this recipe with anybody else's berries. I had been salivating over it for several days, though, so I decided to pick up some still great, but slightly less amazing, berries from another fruit stand nearby. They weren't sweet as candy like my favorites, but with all the goodies in this salad, it really didn't matter. The pretzel/pecan crunch topping is absolutely amazing, and I may have eaten a significant amount of it straight from the pan. Fortunately, there was still plenty left for the salad.


Crunchy Pretzel Pecan Strawberry Salad

Prep time: 5 min  Bake time: 7 min
Serves 10

1 cup pretzels, crushed
½ cup pecans, chopped
¾ cup brown sugar
¾ cup butter, melted
3 cups strawberries, diced about a quart)
8 oz cream cheese, softened
½ cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
8 oz whipped topping

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Mix together crushed pretzels, chopped pecans, brown sugar and melted butter. Spread on a large baking sheet with sides (I used my jelly roll pan) and bake at 400°F for 7 minutes. Allow the mixture to cool and then break it into small pieces.

Beat together softened cream cheese, granulated sugar and vanilla.  Fold in whipped topping.

Before serving, stir the diced strawberries and sugared pretzels and pecans into the cream cheese mixture.

430 calories per serving.  Click here for more nutritional info and shopping list!