{Recipe} Quicky Sticky Biscuits

The weather here has been less than pleasant and as a result I have been baking.  It started with cookie dough and ended (until tomorrow) with whole wheat bread.  In the middle were these aaaaamazing sticky biscuits, yes biscuits. 

Quicky Sticky Biscuits

Recipe from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O'Connor

Ingredients

For Pecan Sauce: 

1 Cup Firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 Cup Dark corn syrup 

3/4 Cup unsalted butter (there is no substitute) 

1 1/2 Cups chopped pecans or walnuts, toasted 

For Biscuits:

4 cups All-purpose flour 

2 Tablespoons baking powder

1/2  teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 Cup very cold or frozen unsalted butter (cut into pieces)

1 1/2 to 2 cups cold buttermilk 

For the Topping:

1/2 Cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 stick unsalted, melted butter

 Method 

(Carry out in this order)

Preheat oven to 425º 

SAUCE: Combine the brown sugar, corn syrup, and butter. Melt over low heat.  When the butter is melted, increase the heat to high and bring to a gentle boil. Cook uncovered for 3 to 5 minutes until the mixture thickens. Stir in chopped nuts. Pour mixture into a 9 x 13 inch pan. set aside. 

BISCUITS: In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Cut the butter into the flour mixture. Blend until most of the mixture looks like coarse crumbs, some will be pea size. - Make a shallow well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk.  Use a fork to blend the buttermilk into the flour to create a soft dough.  If the dough seems too dry as you are stirring it, add the remaining 1/2 cups of buttermilk. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead a few times to make sure it comes together. Pat the dough into a 3/4 inch-thick rectangle. Use a sharp knife to cut the dough into 12 square biscuits. 

TOPPING: In a small bowl, stir together the granulated sugar and cinnamon. Brush the tops of the biscuits with some of the melted butter and sprinkle with some of the cinnamon-sugar. Place the biscuits, evenly spaced, cinnamon-sugar side down, into the pecan syrup-lined pan. Brush the tops (once the bottoms) of the biscuits with more melted butter and sprinkle with a little more cinnamon-sugar. 

BAKE the biscuits until golden brown and puffy, and the sticky pecan sauce is bubbling around them, 15 to 17 minutes. Cool slightly, then place a large serving platter over the top of the pan and invert it. Remove the pan and allow the pecan sauce to fall around the biscuits. Serve Immediately. 

COMMON SIDE EFFECTS: Food Coma 

Enjoy!

The house that WE built

Well, we are just a few weeks away from sweet victory.  The house is nearly finished, we have certain luxuries such as flushing toilets and granite counter tops.  Tomorrow will bring hot water and shelves in our closets.  Pretty crazy to live the experience of a home construction.   For many days we have felt as if we are living in the movie Ground Hog's Day...where one day repeats over and OVER again.  Not recently however as small battles have become victories and we are almost ready to {dear I say it} MOVE IN!  Hallelujah!


Here are a few updated pictures, forgive me as I have been a horrible blogger lately.  Sever has enlisted me as the project manager for the house.  I breathe fire down peoples necks all day long and don't care to blog about it, because really it isn't as cool as it may sound.  Thankfully I don't have a future in project managing, well I guess I do manage projects but only ones that involve crayons and glue.  I will be teaching Kindergarten again in the fall, time to dust off the danskos and head back to the classroom :-)

 Countertops 

My beloved range hood, Sever is very good to me :)  People keep asking why such a big kitchen...they clearly don't know me.  

 Bathroom sinks!

 Master bath vanity

  View from the front hall, Sever and I did all the tile work :)

 Master

 One of the last milestones: permanent power!

...

And need we not forget where it all began just a few (ha!) months ago!

The Best Sugar Cookies. Jerry, the BEST!

Have you ever seen that Seinfeld?  Watch the clip here!

Back to the cookies... 

My sister found this recipe on one of my favorite blogs, The Hostess with the Mostess.  I have to agree, they are the best.  A thick and moist sugar cookie with a light frosting.  Powdered sugar frosting isn't my favorite so next time I will switch that out.  Enjoy! 

THE BEST FROSTED SUGAR COOKIES:

via The Hostess With the Mostess 

Ingredients
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla
3 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Directions
Preheat oven to 400º.
Mix dry ingredients in a bowl & set aside.
In a separate bowl, combine butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Beat until mixed well. Add the dry ingredients in slowly & mix well. Chill for at least an hour to stiffen the dough. Roll the dough out with a rolling pin & cut shapes with cookie cutters OR form dough balls and flatten into thick circles with your hands.

Bake 8-10 mins or until just the edges of cookies start to turn a very, very light golden brown. Don’t over-bake. For an extra-doughy consistency, remove the cookies before the edges start to brown.

FROSTING:
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 Tbsp vanilla
3 Tbsp milk
1 egg yolk (optional)
5-6 cups powdered sugar (thicken to desired consistency)
food coloring

Whisk butter, vanilla, milk and egg yolk together. Slowly mix in powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, until the frosting reaches your desired consistency. If it gets too thick, add more milk in very small amounts, about 1 tsp at a time.

A House is...

a House for  Me US!  Remember that great children's book?  My favorite thing about teaching is reading picture books to kids.  With every lesson I teach I always read a book or two (or 10) to help the kids better understand the objective of the lesson.  I love children's books!  Ugh...time to go back to the classroom. 

A house is a house for us....we (Sever works a lot harder then I) have been working really hard on the house.  Sever has all the plumbing roughed in and the electrical will be roughed in today.  It has been fun (yes, fun) to see the whole house building process.  Yesterday I spent an hour telling Sever exactly where I want the cans to go (for recessed lighting) in my kitchen...but really, who knows how bright it will be when we move in.  It is the little things like that where you really hope you are making good decisions.

In other news...our cabinets have been ordered.  After much thought, I went with an antique white color...wood finish is so over rated :)  Well really my logic was that I would want darker cabinets and here in Alaska I don't think that is a great choice.  I want to brighten up things as much as possible because Lord knows that in December we only see the light for a few short hours. 

I am off to the tile place this morning to pick out flooring and counter tops....wish me luck as this is where the battle begins.  

Learning Experience

Sorry for the lack of house updates, we have been very busy working on the house...every night after work and all weekend, everyday is a working day.  We get home at 8:30pm, go to bed and repeat.  Holy moly, it will be nice to have some free time when it's all said and done. 

We have come to learn A LOT about building a house.  We've learned that if something can go wrong, it will.  I've personally learned that Sever is amazing at making people stick to their word and make things right.  Team Paulson has been through a lot with this house and it isn't even close to finished.  One of the greatest things we have learned is that we have awesome neighbors that bring over a case of beer just when you are ready to bag it because nothing is going right.  We've learned that something that you invest all your time, energy, and a lot of your money into is something that you will never take for granted.  And lastly, we've learned that this is just our first house, it won't be perfect and we won't live in it forever. 

Now for a picture update...

The Past 6 Months!

Down South

When I met Sever he always referred to the lower 48 as "down south," which I thought was silly.  The south is the heart of the bible belt, where you eat biscuits and gravy?! Well, now it makes complete since... Alaska is north of the lower 48, so when we head to Seattle and Oregon we are going "down south."

On St. Patrick's Day I headed to America for a week long visit.  I was fortunate enough to have a dear friend pick me up from the Seattle airport, drive me to her sister's house where we wined and dined all night.  Thank you Charise and Sarah for the hospitality.  On Friday we headed south for Oregon and made it just in time for dinner...

Saturday brought my wonderful father's birthday and if you know the Bryant family then you know that birthdays are a BIG DEAL.  We celebrated with a birthday breakfast, a day of shopping (us girls), and a delicious rib dinner at home with the grandmas.

We spent a few nights playing poker. My brother has this new found love of Texas Hold 'em...little did he know that I have been playing poker with Nanny since I was five years old.  We saw it out to the bitter end...and I won! Can't run with the big dogs when you are still peeing like a pup Sam. :) Next time I'll show him a thing or two about black jack.

Of course we had to spend a couple of nights at Divine Yogurt.  Yum-o!  I love frozen yogurt!

 

The next day my sister and I spent hours walking around Home Deport, where I photographed EVERYTHING that is going to go in the house.  Toilets, bathtubs, lights, sinks, bathroom fans, and toilet paper holders. You name it, we checked it out! 

A coffee date with the Wellers was a must, thank you guys for meeting up with us on such short notice!  I love this sweet family!!!

Then, I forgot to take more pictures.  I had many wonderful lunch and coffee dates.  I had the chance to finally meet Miss Audrey Johnson, she is so stinking cute.  Thanks to everyone that made time to see me, I miss you all already.  Hopefully I will be back in June for my brothers graduation from OSU...holy cow, where has the time gone?!

 My mom and sister drove me to Seattle so I could catch my flight.  Of course you don't go to Seattle with out a stop at Pikes Place, duh!  So we headed out early and of course had time for a few pictures at the market!

Fresh made doughnuts, I could have watched them make doughnuts all day! 

And of course, hazelnut chocolate!

 

Then it was off to the airport to catch my 7pm flight.  My mom and sis dropped me off around 3, with plenty of time to shall we say, wait.  I went and had a couple of beers (remember I hate flying) and did some people watching. When I made it to my gate to wait for the boarding call I noticed a less than energetic hustle and bustle of the Alaska Airlines crew.  Sure enough the 6:30 announcement came on "Passengers of flight 69 with service to Ketchikan, we apologize for the in convince but he have no first officer for this flight.  Please come to the counter to pick up your comment card (a postcard that I had to mail in, in hopes that I will get some free airline miles...)."  Say what?!  I had just mustered up all my strength to get on that plane, that plane that was not going anywhere.  UGH!  So I hustled myself to the ticket counter and got booked on another flight, found my bags and waited for 2 hours for Sever's mom and grandpa to come pick me up (Sever's grandparents live a few hours north of Seattle).   

I did however get to have a short visit with Sever's grandparents, whom I had not seen since August. We went to their art show and had yummy ice cream.  They even drove me past the beautiful daffodil fields so I could take my picture of the day!  Oh glorious spring, when will you come to Alaska?!  We stopped to see the baby lambs on the way to the airport shuttle, they were so cute and brought back memories of my college roommate and dear friend Angela working at the sheep barn during lambing season...(that is another story). 

And indeed our flight had a pilot this time, we made it back the night before Alaska Airlines had to cancel 180 flight due to computer problems...thank goodness!  Sorry for the long post!