Easy Homemade Biscuits

Biscuits are one of my most favorite foods in the whole world. I've been making drop biscuits for years, but this morning I finally tried out another biscuit recipe from my sister Maria that uses rolled out dough (rolled with your hands) and biscuit cutters. These two recipes are very similar but this one uses cold butter and the drop biscuits use melted butter. These were so good and easy to make!

Since I'm not a morning person, I mixed the dry ingredients the night before and set up my pastry board and everything I would need in the morning to make it even easier to get these in the oven quickly. I also cut the frozen butter with a box grater and then froze it in a plastic bag. All I had to do this morning was mix the butter in with the dry ingredients, add the milk, and cut the biscuits with my biscuit cutter. I made scrambled eggs while the biscuits were in the oven and my boys loved making themselves egg biscuits.

These biscuits were so good - the only thing I'll do differently next time is make a double recipe!

Easy Homemade Biscuits

Recipe courtesy “Sugar Spun Run” Blog

 

2 cups all-purpose flour (250g)

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1 Tablespoon granulated sugar

1 teaspoon salt

6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, very cold (85g), unsalted European butter is ideal, but not required

¾ cup whole milk (177ml) buttermilk or 2% milk will also work

 

 

For best results, chill your butter in the freezer for 10-20 minutes before beginning this recipe. It's ideal that the butter is very cold for light, flaky, buttery biscuits.

 

Preheat oven to 425° and line a cookie sheet with nonstick parchment paper. Set aside.

 

Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a large bowl and mix well. Set aside.

 

Remove your butter from the refrigerator and either cut it into your flour mixture using a pastry cutter or (preferred) use a box grater to shred the butter into small pieces and then add to the flour mixture and stir.

 

Cut the butter or combine the grated butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

 

Add milk, use a wooden spoon or spatula to stir until combined (don't over-work the dough).

 

Transfer your biscuit dough to a well-floured surface and use your hands to gently work the dough together. If the dough is too sticky, add flour until it is manageable.

 

Once the dough is cohesive, fold in half over itself and use your hands to gently flatten layers together. Rotate the dough 90 degrees and fold in half again, repeating this step 5-6 times but taking care to not overwork the dough.

 

Use your hands (do not use a rolling pin) to flatten the dough to 1" thick and lightly dust a 2¾" round biscuit cutter with flour.

 

Making close cuts, press the biscuit cutter straight down into the dough (do not twist it) and drop the biscuit onto your prepared baking sheet.

 

Repeat until you have gotten as many biscuits as possible and place less than ½" apart on baking sheet.

 

Once you have gotten as many biscuits as possible out of the dough, gently re-work the dough to get out another biscuit or two until you have at least 6 biscuits.

 

Bake at 425° for 12 minutes or until tops are beginning to just turn lightly golden brown.

 

If desired, brush with melted salted butter immediately after removing from oven. Serve warm and enjoy.

 

Yield: 6 biscuits.

Easy Italian Sausage Soup Recipe (with Spinach)

I came across another delicious soup recipe that is very easy to make. I changed the recipe a bit by taking out the garlic, onions and red pepper. Since I left those out, I increased the amount of carrots and celery to about 1.5 cups of each. If you like more diced tomatoes, you could use a 28-ounce can of them. I added an entire bag of baby spinach and it would be good with that amount, half the bag, or even without it all together if you don't have any. I also cooked my pasta (I used Rotini) separately and added it into the individual bowls of pasta. That way it doesn't soak up all the broth and get soggy.

Even without the onion and garlic, this soup was full of flavor! Use the link above if you want to see the original recipe. The recipe below reflects the changes I made.

Easy Italian Sausage Soup Recipe (with Spinach)

Recipe Adapted from Cucina by Elena

 

Easy Italian Sausage Soup Recipe (with Spinach) brings together hearty Italian flavors and nourishing ingredients. It’s a simple, rustic dish perfect for a cozy evening!

 

1 pound Italian sausage (mild or spicy), casings removed (or 1 pound ground Italian sausage)

4 medium carrots, peeled and diced

4 ribs celery, diced

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1½ teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon coarse black pepper

64 ounces low-sodium chicken broth

1 (14.5 oz) can petite diced tomatoes

1½ cups Ditali pasta or another small pasta, dry

1½ cups fresh spinach, chopped

Freshly grated Parmigiano cheese, for serving

Fresh basil, for garnish

 

 

Cook the sausage: In a large pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat, crumble the Italian sausage and cook until browned and no longer pink. Transfer the cooked sausage to a plate and drain any excess fat from the pot, leaving two tablespoons to sauté the vegetables.

 

Sauté the vegetables: In the same pot, add the carrots and celery. Cook over medium heat until the vegetables are softened, about 8-10 minutes. Stir in Italian seasoning, salt, and black pepper, cooking for another minute.

 

Simmer the soup: Return the sausage to the pot. Add the chicken broth and diced tomatoes with their juice. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 10-15 minutes, allowing the flavors to meld together.

 

Stir in pasta and cook, stirring often, until pasta is cooked to desired doneness, about 10 minutes. Alternately, cook the pasta separately, drain and serve with the soup.

 

Stir the chopped spinach into the soup, cooking just until wilted, about 1-2 minutes. 

 

Garnish and serve: Ladle the soup into bowls and top with freshly grated Parmigiano cheese and a sprinkle of fresh basil. Serve hot. Enjoy.

 

Serves 6.

Italian Wedding Soup

Last year my sister Maria sent me an Italian Wedding Soup recipe she makes for her family. I never got around to making it, but I recently saw an Instagram reel from Dena Fenza and it reminded me I still needed to try it, so I tried Dena's recipe tonight, and it was incredible! Both of the recipes linked above are pretty similar in terms of the ingredients (although the amounts differ slightly), but Dena browns her meatballs on the stove and the other recipe bakes them in the oven.

This soup takes a little more time to prepare than other soups because of having to form the little meatballs, but it is well worth the effort! You can do some of the prep ahead of time - I chopped the veggies and made the meatball mixture in the early afternoon. I used a teaspoon measuring spoon to scoop the meat mixture so they would all be the same size. I counted about 75 mini meatballs! I refrigerated them on a plate until after I picked up my kids from school - that made it easy to start cooking as soon as I got home. I made it in my large wide round dutch oven so there was plenty of room to brown all the meatballs at once. I cooked my Acini Di Pepe separately so it wouldn't get too soft, which worked out well for my picky eater who only wanted broth and pasta.

The recipe below reflects any changes I made to the original. Next time I may leave the onion out (at the request of one of my sons) and try beef broth instead of chicken broth to see which I prefer. I thought the soup was delicious as-is though!

Italian Wedding Soup

Recipe Adapted from Micia Mammas Blog

 

Italian wedding soup is a kid friendly, easy and delicious soup that everyone will love. The soup is made up of broth, veggies, pasta and the star of the recipe is cute mini meatballs. It is a perfect soup for a cold winter day. 

 

This Neopolitan soup is originally called “minestra maritata”, which translates to “married soup” It is not served at Italian weddings but its meaning refers to how its flavors come together in a beautiful marriage!

 

Growing up this soup was a dish that my Grandpa made all the time.  I can still remember helping him roll the mini meatballs. He taught me to sear the meatballs first. It adds such great flavor to the soup. The smell of it just brings me right back to his kitchen. 

 

 

Meatballs:

½ pound ground pork

½ pound ground beef

¼ cup panko breadcrumbs

¼ cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

¾ teaspoon garlic powder

3 Tablespoons chopped fresh parsley or 3 teaspoons dry parsley

¼ cup olive oil

 

Soup:

1 cup onion, diced

1 cup celery, diced

1 cup carrots, peeled and diced

64 ounces chicken broth

1½ teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon pepper

5 ounces baby spinach

1 pound Acini Di Pepe pasta

 

 

In a bowl, combine the pork and beef with the bread crumbs, Pecorino Romano, beaten egg, salt, pepper, garlic powder and chopped fresh parsley. Form into mini meatballs (about 1 teaspoon or less each).

 

In a soup pot over low/medium heat add ¼ cup of olive oil. Add in the meatballs, working in batches if you have to. Once browned on all sides (about 8 minutes), remove from the pan.  Repeat this process until all the meatballs are cooked and removed from the pan. This oil has great flavor but you will need to remove half of it from the pan or else the soup will be too greasy. Also, try to strain out most of the remaining brown bits from the pan.

 

Next, add in the onion, carrots and celery and cook on a low flame for about 10 minutes or until they become soft. Season with salt and the black pepper. Stir the mixture and cook for about 2 more minutes. Add the meatballs back in and then add in the broth. Raise the temperature to low/medium and bring to a simmer. Cook for about 30 minutes, making sure the veggies are cooked. Add the spinach and cook a few minutes longer, until the spinach wilts. Taste for seasoning and add salt or pepper if needed.

 

When there are about 15 minutes of cooking time left, cook your pasta and drain and put in a bowl.  You can add a small amount of olive oil to the pasta so that it does not stick together. I don’t like to cook the pasta in the soup because I find it becomes too soft. Serve the soup with the pasta and top with grated Pecorino Romano cheese.

 

Serves 7.

Nonna's Famous Traditional Italian Meatballs (Polpette)

I love meatballs but I don't make them that often. A few months ago I came across this recipe which I've now made twice. The meatballs cook right in the sauce which means the recipe is very easy - even for a weeknight! I made a few changes to the recipe below to reflect what I did differently, but if you follow the link above you can see the original one. These are so delicious and best of all - my boys love them!

Nonna's Famous Traditional Italian Meatballs (Polpette)

Adapted from Cucina by Elena

 

These nutritious homemade meatballs are the perfect meal to make on a Sunday afternoon and freeze for weeks to come! This is another tried and true simple, flavorful and mouthwatering recipe from my Nonna. 

 

Polpette (Meatballs):

1 pound of 80-85% lean ground beef

2 slices of stale bread or ½ cup coarse bread crumbs

½ cup milk

½ cup parmigiano reggiano, finely grated

1 egg

3 tablespoons fresh minced parsley

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Sugo (Sauce):

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 whole onion

2 large cans (28 oz) good quality crushed tomatoes

Seasonings of choice (I use salt, pepper, Italian seasoning and garlic powder)

Red wine

5 fresh basil leaves, whole

 

 

Make Polpette:

Place bread and milk in a large mixing bowl and let sit for 2 minutes, until soft.

 

Add egg to bread and milk mixture and mix to combine.

 

Add ground beef, parsley, parmigiano, salt, and pepper. Mix WELL with your hands.

 

Take a spoonful of the meatball mixture and gently roll it between your hands to form 1½-inch meatballs. Set prepared meatballs on a cookie sheet and cover with plastic wrap.

 

Make Sugo:

Pour extra-virgin olive oil into a dutch oven and brown the onion on medium heat. Add canned tomatoes, seasonings and red wine and simmer, 10-15 minutes.

 

Plunge your meatballs into the pot with the tomato sauce. Turn the heat to medium-low. Cook for 20 minutes or until meatballs are fully cooked in the center. Once finished cooking, add the basil and cover with a lid. Turn off the heat.

 

Cook your favorite pasta, gnocchi or polenta, as directed by the package, to serve with meatballs. Before you drain your pasta, add a little bit of the pasta water to your sauce. You can also eat without the pasta and serve it on yummy bread. Generously top with parmigiano and serve hot!

 

NOTES:

Make Meatballs Ahead of Time - I always make a double batch of the meatballs and freeze them for a busy weeknight.

To freeze meatballs: Place them on a baking sheet in one layer so they aren’t touching, and place them in the freezer. Once frozen, transfer to a freezer-safe container with a tight lid. Freeze for up to 2 months. Add frozen meatballs to the broth when ready to use and simmer until warm. You can also add them to homemade tomato sauce.

Easy Soft Italian No Knead Bread

One of my favorite recipe websites and Instagram pages to follow is Cucina by Elena. Her recipes all look so good and are authentic Italian. She always posts about this recipe she refers to as "Mom's bread" that she makes all the time, an Italian no knead bread that her mom taught her how to make. There is a video here of her making it.

She has various Instagram reels and posts with links to ingredients and tools she uses, but to simplify I'll link them below. Her mom recommends using a "bread box" to store all the ingredients so it's easy to just pull it out and mix the dough. The amount of the needed ingredients are written right on the containers as well, to make it even easier. Here are her links to:

• The actual box that she uses to store the containers in.
• The set of containers for the ingredients (she writes the amounts of ingredients needed on these).
• A scale to weigh the flour.
• A Mason Cash mixing bowl.
• The Food Nanny/NuQuest dough hook.
• Kamut flour.
• She usually bakes this as a round boule in a dutch oven, but she recently made it in her favorite stone loaf pan.

I don't find it necessary to buy these items, as all of my baking ingredients are in the same general area of my kitchen and I would have nowhere to store a bread box, but I wanted to link them for anyone who might want to do what she does. However, I did buy one of the Mason Cash mixing bowls in the Turquoise color - yes, from Home Depot, of all places. They give a 10% military discount and I had a gift card so it hardly cost me anything. It's big, lightweight, pretty and perfect for many recipes that I make. I also bought a dough hook because it looks perfect for mixing not only bread and focaccia dough, but also pancake, cake and muffin batter. I might try the Kamut flour at some point, but right now I will use what I already have - either King Arthur All-Purpose or Anna 00 flour.

She didn't link the steel cut oats or ground flaxseed that she uses, but I used Bob's Red Mill Organic for both of them. The ground flaxseed meal comes in both golden and regular - she says to use either one (I used golden so the color would blend into the bread more, in the hopes my picky eater would not notice!). I was able to find these at the commissary we shop at, and once I had them, I mixed a batch of dough that same night to bake in the morning.

For my first loaf, I baked it in a small round dutch oven. It was so delicious! My boys said "Mom's bread is the best bread!" after they first tried it. My dough came out pretty wet and did not look like hers does in the videos, so next time I will weigh my flour and see if it comes out more shaggy like it should. Other than that, it was very quick and easy to make and very good.

For my second loaf, I baked it in a new bread loaf baker that I recently bought. This was my first time using it - to avoid sticking, I used lightly floured parchment paper and it worked perfectly. This time around, I weighed my flour instead of measuring it in measuring cups and my dough was a lot easier to work with, so recommend doing that if you have a scale. I also used my new dough hook which made mixing very easy. After making it in both shapes, I definitely prefer the loaf pan. The bread again was very delicious.

If you enjoy homemade bread, give this recipe a try!

Easy Soft Italian No Knead Bread

Recipe from Cucina by Elena

 

The softest and most delicious homemade no-knead bread recipe. This bread has a few unique ingredients that separate it from hundreds of others. This will soon be your tried and true bread recipe! 

 

2¼ cups (500 ml) of warm water (might need a little more)

¼ teaspoon instant yeast or active dry yeast

¼ cup steel cut oats

¼ cup ground golden or regular flaxseed meal

4 cups (500grams) all-purpose flour (such as King Arthur brand), 00 flour, or Kamut flour

2 teaspoons of salt

 

 

In a large mixing bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water.

 

Add the steel-cut oats and the flax meal and mix well (I use a fork to mix). Add flour and salt to the mix and incorporate well. Mix with a wooden spoon or dough hook for about 2-3 minutes.

 

The dough will be sticky and slightly wet. If it seems dry, you may need to add a little more water.

 

Cover the bowl with saran wrap and let it rise on the kitchen counter for at least 8 hours – up to overnight. The dough will double in size.

 

After the first rise, transfer the sticky dough to a floured surface and shape it into one large boule or two baguette-shaped logs*. Transfer onto floured parchment paper. Sprinkle with additional flour on top. Cover with a kitchen towel. **If using mix-ins, see NOTES.

 

Let rise again for 50-60 min (on the parchment paper covered with a towel).

 

With a sharp knife score the dough with 2 longitudinal cuts for each baguette OR 2 scores on top of the large round boule

 

Preheat oven to 450°. Meanwhile, place a 6-quart Dutch oven (or heavy cooking pot with oven-safe lid) in the oven as it preheats.

 

When the oven is preheated to 450°, take out the Dutch oven and place the baguettes or the large boule inside (with parchment paper). Place back in the oven to bake for 33 minutes with the lid ON. After 33 minutes, check if the top of the bread is golden brown. If you like it darker brown, take the lid off and cook an additional 6-10 minutes.

 

Put the bread on a cooling rack and let cool completely. Or, take a slice when still warm and enjoy.

 

Notes:

* To make in a loaf pan, grease and flour the pan (or use parchment paper). Splash the top with a little bit of water before baking it since it will not get the steam effect like the cast iron with lid. Bake at 400° for 35 minutes. It will make 1 large 9x5” loaf.

 

** Mix-Ins: If using mix ins 1) divide the dough in half 2) roll each dough on a floured surface into a rectangle. Sprinkle desired toppings evenly on the dough 3) fold the dough over on itself about four times 4) this will create two baguettes 4) continue to Step 7 in instructions.

Dough mixed at night

Dough fully risen the next morning

Shaped and put in a dutch oven to finish rising

Dough risen for another hour, scored and ready for the oven

After baking for 33 minutes with the lid on

After baking for an additional 8 minutes with the lid off

It smells amazing!

Delicious!