Salt-and-Vinegar Glazed Carrots with Herbed Buttermilk-Honey Biscuits

New this week:

(This is kind of like the beginning part of the church service where they make all the announcements about who had a baby and when the Women’s Group is scheduled to meet.)

• New subscriber: Welcome, Gloria…it’s great to have you here! 
• Special thanks: To Rachael Monaco, who this week featured a number of Kissing the Cook recipes on her Facebook page and who, herself, publishes some great-looking recipes for the Buffalo, NY edition of the Examiner on-line publication (http://www.examiner.com/buffalo). Check out Rachael’s articles: there are some summer recipes there right now that you might even find useful this weekend! 
• Other notes: Followers of Tawnya’s food blog will be interested in knowing it has moved. Click here for her new location.

Now let's eat!

This week, we continue with our Country Oven-Fried Steak recipe. In last week’s post, we made the star of the show, the steak itself, along with the all-important gravy that must be applied generously to both the steak and the traditional mashed potato side. In part 2 this week, we continue with the other two side dishes: Salt-and-Vinegar Glazed Carrots with Herbed Buttermilk-Honey Biscuits.

A couple of notes before we begin:

• As was the case with the buttermilk-dipped steaks used for last week’s Country Oven Fried Steaks, if you don’t have other things to do with the rest of the quart of buttermilk you get at the supermarket, you can use acidulated milk to make your buttermilk biscuits. You can make it by adding 1 tablespoon of white vinegar to every 1 cup of room-temperature low-fat milk and letting it rest for five minutes to create a controlled curdle. (Just don't call them Acidulated Milk Biscuits or you'll spend too much time explaining and too little time eating.) 
• In general, the process of glazing carrots consists of mixing the carrots in a pan with your glazing ingredients, and cooking until the mixture is reduced so much there’s little or no liquid left in the pan. This makes for a delicious glaze as long as you end the cooking at the right time, but you can imagine how keeping the heat on the carrots even a little too long can leave them burned and unworthy of the rest of this delicious meal. Be careful out there.

Let’s start with the biscuits. (The recipe below makes about eight 3” biscuits.)

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

While the oven is preheating, in a large bowl combine 1-1/2 cups of all purpose flour and ½ cup pastry flour (or 2 cups all-purpose flour); 1 tablespoon of dried parsley, rosemary or any other herb that matches well to the rest of the meal; 1 teaspoon of kosher salt; 2 teaspoons of baking powder; and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda. After the dry ingredients are mixed, cut in ¾ cup of very cold butter substitute (keep it in the freezer till you’re ready, making sure it doesn’t freeze) until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Make a well in the center of the mixture and add 1 tablespoon of honey and ¾ cup low-fat buttermilk or acidulated low-fat milk. Quickly mix with your hands until a sticky dough forms.

Put baking sheet in oven. While the baking sheet is pre-heating, turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and fold it onto itself at least 3 or 4 times to form layers.

Roll or pat the dough to ¾” thick and cut with a 3” biscuit cutter. Transfer cut-out biscuits to the baking pan. Gather the scraps and repeat.

Use your thumb to make an indentation in the top center of each biscuit to help the top rise evenly. Brush with melted butter substitute and bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

While the biscuits are baking, let’s make the carrots. The recipe below makes four servings.

Cut 1-1/2 pounds of carrots into 1” pieces on a bias.

Place the carrots, 2 tablespoons of butter substitute, 1 tablespoon of kosher salt, ¼ cup white wine vinegar, and 2 tablespoons of honey into a skillet large enough for the carrots to be in a single layer. Add enough water to come half-way up the carrots.

Bring the liquid to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Simmer with the cover ajar until the carrots are tender, about 8 minutes.

Remove the cover and raise the heat to high. Toss the carrots frequently while the liquid evaporates and the carrots get a shiny glaze. (Remember not to overcook. It’s ok to brown the carrots a little – it’s even good to do so - but not to burn them.)

Once the liquid has cooked off and the carrots are glazed. garnish with parsley and serve!

And there you have it! If narrative recipes aren’t your style and you prefer a cookbook style, notebook-ready version of this or any other Kissing the Cook recipe, send me your e-mail address and it will be sent.

See you all next week! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and, as we enjoy some great food this Memorial Day weekend, remember to kiss a veteran.  And, after that, kiss the cook. :-;