Grandpa's Home Cooking

Southern Buttermilk Biscuits For 1 or More

Aren't they pretty! Split and dressed with pure butter and fruit preserves while they are HOT, these biscuits were out of this world delicious. But the best news yet is that you can make these biscuits for just you ... for two ... or for whatever number of people you want to serve.  No fuss, no muss, and no waste ... and they taste like the biscuits grandma used to make when I was a boy.

Nowadays, you can go to the frozen food department of your supermarket and pick up a bag of ready made Southern Buttermilk biscuits ...just  like the ones in my picture. I buy a bag of 20 frozen biscuits and toss them into our freezer. When I want a couple of biscuits, I preheat our oven to 375 degrees. I take the number biscuits I need from the freezer, put them in a dark metal non-stick pan, and bake the biscuits according to directions on the back of the bag.  (You might find the biscuits take 2-3 more minutes to bake than indicated on the bag.)

You can choose the ready to bake biscuits or put your apron on at 6:00 a.m., grab the bag of White Lily Flour (still the best) from the pantry, and go to work. Meanwhile, about 9:00 a.m., I'll be eating hot biscuits. Here's all you have to do to fix them. 

Ingredients:

• Oven preheated to 375 degrees
• Your morning newspaper
• Hot coffee or tea
• A bag of frozen Southern Buttermilk biscuits*
• A dark metal teflon cake pan or cookie sheet
• Pure butter or margerine, soft and ready to spread**
• Preserves or honey

* I've tested 3 brands of biscuits. Mary Jo, Alexia, and Pillsbury Grand. All 3 were good, but I like the Pillsbury Grand the best. They rise, look, and taste as I expect.

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Go to the freezer and pull out as many biscuits as folks will eat. Follow the directions on the back of the bag. Put the biscuits in the pan with the sides touching.  Put the pan in the preheated oven and set the timer for 15 minutes. I've added one more step to the directions. When the biscuits start to brown, about 2 minutes before they are done, I brush the top of the biscuits with butter and finish baking them. This step improves the browning of the biscuits. 

While the biscuits are baking, put the butter, preserves, plates, butter knives, and whatever else you want on the table. Use a hot pad to pull the pan of biscuits out of the oven. Use a spatula to move the biscuits to a serving plate and enjoy eating the hot biscuits!

**How many of you remember, back to the war years in the 1940's, when grandma mixed lard with an orange coloring pellet to make oleo margarine? The product came in a kit which contained the lard and a plastic packet with the coloring pellet. You put the fat in a bowl, opened the plastic button, dropped it in the bowl, and then used a big spoon to knead the coloring into the fat until you had smooth yellow margarine. I can picture Great Grandma See sitting on a chair mixing the margarine. 

Overnight Breakfast Coffee Cake

Here's a mighty tasty coffee cake to serve family or guests. You can make it. It's easy. Put this cake together the night before so the rolls can thaw and rise before you bake the cake just before breakfast in the morning. You'll need a Bundt cake pan to turn out a beautiful cake. I got this recipe from my daughter, Stephanie, who is an excellent baker. 

Ingredients:

• 15-18 frozen white yeast dinner rolls (such as Rhodes Rolls)
• 1, 3.5 oz box of instant butterscotch pudding
• 1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
• 1 stick butter, melted
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

1. Layer all ingredients in the order present in a greased deep Bundt pan. Spray the pan with cooking oil. Add the ingredients, Cover the pan with foil (spray the foil with cooking oil). Top with a clean dish drying towel and allow the cake to sit overnight.

2. In the morning, remove the towel and foil and bake the coffee cake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes. (Some people bake this coffee cake at 350 degrees, but we think 325 degrees works better).

3. Let the cake cool for 5 minutes. Put a platter on top of the cake pan and flip the coffee cake out onto the platter. Each person can use a fork to pull off the rolls as shown in the picture. (We didn't have the pecans for this baking, but I highly recommend that you use them.)

This is a rich and delicious coffee cake!  

Nancy's Healthy & Delicious Homemade Granola

Grandma Nancy makes her own granola because it is good stuff! She makes it with ingredients she selects and buys individually to insure she'll have the best granola for her breakfast.

Nancy eats cereal for breakfast. Period. Oh yes, now and then she likes to have a plate of Grandpa's bacon and eggs and sometimes she likes to prepare and eat pancakes, which daughter Marta loves. But typically, you can expect to see Nancy sit down at breakfast with her big bowl of cheerios or wheat flakes, her homemade granola, and fresh blueberries and/or bananas, chopped fresh dates, peaches, or strawberries. Nancy brings a bountiful bowl of goodness to the table nearly every morning.

Here's Nancy's recipe for homemade granola that is out of this world. Nancy regularly makes granola on Sunday afternoon.

Ingredients:

• 6 cups Oatmeal (Old fashioned Quaker Oats--no quick oats!)
• 1/2 Cup Wheat germ
• 2/3 Cup Flaxseed meal
• 1 Cup Almonds, slivered
• 1 Cup Pumpkin seeds
• 2/3 Cup Coconut
• 2/3 Cup Walnuts or pecans, chopped small
• 1 Cup water
• 1/2 Cup brown sugar
• 1/3 Cup Canola oil
• 1/2 Cup molasses
• 2 teaspoons Cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 1 Tablespoon Vanilla

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. 

2. In a large bowl combine oats, wheat germ, flaxseed meal, coconut, pumpkin seeds, and nuts and mix well.

3. In a large saucepan, combine brown sugar, water, oil, honey, molasses or sorghum, salt, cinnamon, and vanilla.

4. Heat until thoroughly mixed; do not boil. 

5. Pour syrup over the dry ingredients and gently stir until coated well.

6. Spread onto large cookie sheets.

7. Bake at 300 degrees for 20 to 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

8. For a crunchier texture, bake an additional 10 to 15 minutes.

9. Stir in an airtight container in a dry place.

10. Granola will keep up to 6 months but it's gone at our house so fast that you can expect Nancy to sometimes make it twice in a month (unless more than 2 people are it daily). 

Fill airtight tins of granola and give goodness for Christmas. This would be an especially nice gift for a person living in an independent living facility.

Bacon and Eggs

Crisp bacon, eggs over medium (or as you like them), and nicely toasted raisin bread is a fine way to start the day. Here are some instructions for a breakfast that looks and tastes good.

Ingredients:

• Premium bacon that has a nice blend of lean and fat
• Fresh eggs
• Raisin bread (or your favorite artisan bread)
• Soft butter or butter like spread
• Fruit 

Equipment/supplies:

• Teflon skillet
• Tongs
• Thin blade spatula
• Paper towels

Instructions:

Fry the bacon first, then prepare the toast, and do the eggs last. If you want to be well prepared put the bread in the toaster oven, but do not start the toasting until your bacon is fried.

Fry your bacon one notch below medium heat (about 325 degrees). If you use too much heat the bacon will burn. Preheat the skillet to the desired temperature before you lay the strips of bacon in the pan.

Use tongs to turn the bacon often. If the ends of the bacon curl (or other parts), use your tongs or a sturdy spatula to flatten the curl and hold the press until the fat has had time to start cooking brown. Do this on both ends and then turn the bacon. Repeat the process on the flip side. If you keep turning the bacon and keep flattening fat that is curling, your going to have nice crisp bacon. You really don't want strips of bacon that are half burned and/or half uncooked fat.  Frying bacon requires your attention, so stand at the range and keep turning the bacon and pressing out fat curls until the bacon is fried crisp. Enjoy the aroma! When the bacon is fried to perfection, use your tongs to lift the strips from the frying pan and lay the bacon strips on paper towels.

Dispose of all of the fat remaining in the skillet and use paper towels to wipe the skillet of any remaining fat or bacon bits to have the skillet ready for frying your eggs. Set the fry pan off of the burner and let it cool.

Make your toast. I prefer using a toaster oven because I've found this to the best appliance to toast and one that provides a wide range of capability for other cooking tasks, including baking, broiling, and convection cooking. I like it better for making toast than a pop-up toaster because it doesn't pop-up, provides more space for toasting, and provides a variety of better controls for making toast. 

Have soft butter or a butter like spread at the ready. Spread soft butter/spread while the toast is still hot and the spread will melt immediately. You'll not tear up the toast trying to spread hard butter that will tear up the bread. Plate the toast.

Crack the egg(s) and pour the yolk(s) and white(s) into bowl(s) for each person to be served. For example, if you're going to fry two eggs for Mom, crack two eggs and put the eggs in a bowl for Mom's serving. I like to get the eggs ready in bowls because I break fewer yolks and I like to keep the yolks intact so that folks who wish to do so can dip their toast in the yolks. (If you prefer to have fewer dishes to wash, just crack the eggs and pour them into the hot skillet.)  You'll also break fewer egg yolks by using a thin blade Teflon spatula for frying eggs.   

Put the skillet back on the burner and preheat it to a medium  temperature (350 degrees). Melt two pats of butter in the skillet (or use a small amount of olive oil; you do not need extra virgin olive oil which should be reserved for table use). 

When your skillet is preheated, carefully pour an individual serving of eggs into the skillet. When the bottom layer of the egg white is cooked carefully slide the thin blade spatula fully beneath one egg and then turn it over. Repeat the process for each egg. (Do not keep frying until the edge of the egg starts turning brown. You'll eventually develop a sense of the right time to turn eggs.)

To eliminate unnecessary grease, put a pad of paper towels in one hand and be prepared to turn the egg out onto one half of the paper towel when the egg is nicely fried. Flip the egg to the other half of the paper towel pad and then gently turn the egg out onto the serving plate. Repeat the process for the next egg. Add bacon and some fruit to the plate and serve the perfect breakfast with juice and coffee.

You'll probably not make a perfect plate of bacon and eggs every time, all of the time, but you'll soon learn you can make a perfect plate most of the time. I love the pleasure I get from turning out a perfect or near perfect plate of bacon, eggs, fruit, and toast.

Basil Eggs

French basil eggs is one of my bride's favorite breakfasts. And my bride is very important to me and my cooking. 

Nancy and I were married 32 years ago on June 19, 1978, at Wailuku, Maui, Hawaii. On the way out of the judge's office, we asked the district court custodian if he would take our picture. We wished we would have asked him sooner, before the bridesmaids left the office to change back into their work clothes. Hearing about the plan for our wedding from a phone call the judge received from the woman who issued our marriage license, the office staff dashed home, got all dolled up, and returned to the courthouse to be our witnesses. It would have been nice to have a picture of everyone and a picture of them showering us with rice as we left the building. I've posted our wedding picture and a picture of the black sand beach where we camped below my recipe for French Basil Eggs. 

I'm happy to have prepared most of our home cooked meals in our 32 years of marriage. My great grandmother taught me to cook when I was a boy. She use to tell folks, "Someday this boy is going to make a woman a good wife." I've tried my best to live up to her promise. My father, Lloyd Pipes, was not the primary cook in our family, but he cooked the family breakfast every morning before gently waking mom to tell her that her breakfast was ready. He was often in the kitchen to help mom prepare lunch and dinner. Everyone who knew him remembers him to be the first one to jump up from the table after a meal to take the dishes to the sink and become engaged in washing the dishes. He helped mom clean the house. And dad was also quick to engage my brother, Jerry, and I in the work of the house. Dad always held hands with mom when they took a walk. We boys knew our dad loved mom. Grandma Margaret taught me how to cook and dad taught my brother and I the recipe for loving a wife.

Ross Pipes French Basil Eggs:

Ingredients:

• 1 pat of butter
• 6 eggs, whisked well in a bowl
• 1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped (plus more for garnish)
• 1/4th cup green onions, chopped
• 1 heaping Tablespoon of sour cream
• Salt (for the table)
• Fresh ground pepper (for the table)

Instructions:

Over a medium burner, melt a pat of butter in a Teflon skillet. Toss the onions in the skillet and saute' them until translucent. Pour the whisked eggs in the skillet and begin to scramble them. Add 1/2 cup or more of chopped fresh basil and continue scrambling the eggs until they are perfect. Then add the 1 heaping Tablespoon of sour cream to the eggs and thoroughly mix the cream into the eggs before moving the eggs from the skillet to your prettiest serving bowl.

You should know that when you combine the eggs and sour cream the cooking process will stop, so make sure the eggs have been cooked to your satisfaction before adding the sour cream. This also offers you the benefit of be able to keep the eggs warm over a low burner if you have a few quick things to do before calling everyone to the table.

Ross and Nancy Just Married, June 19, 1978

After the ceremony we immediately drove the nearly 50 mile, four hour drive along the beautiful and narrow coastline mountain road to Waianapanapa State Park (near Hana). We pitched our little tent on a cliff overlooking a beautiful black sand beach. We were pleased that there were many trees with fresh ripe papaya. We prepared a papaya feast to enjoy after eating our canned Dinty Moore beef stew that we heated on our single burner backpack stove.

 
 
 

"A Breakfast Fit For A King"

My Dad, Lloyd Pipes, is pictured at the left.

I got a good start being born into the family of Lloyd and Charlotte Pipes. I was a chubby by the time I was three (but lean by the time I was 12). Always fresh in my memory is the food of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, at home in Indianapolis. Dad gave Mom, my brother, Jerry, and I the jump on each day, every day at 7:00 a.m. sharp! Each day’s start was as regular as the clock. Dad served his family bacon and eggs every morning it seemed like 365 days a year. “When Dad hollered, “Come and get a breakfast fit for a king!” you'd better be on your way to the table.

Dad got up at 5:30 a.m. every morning. The first thing he did was to get down on his knees and pray. Then he would sit in his easy chair and read his Bible. I know this to be true because I was curious and I sometimes woke up and toddled my waif down the dark hall and sneaked a peek into the living room. And what did the little boy see? His dad was either on his knees praying or sitting in his big chair reading the Bible.

After his devotions, I saw Dad in the kitchen. The first thing on the agenda was to fix a pot of coffee. My Dad loved his coffee—“Oh my boy, you want to drink your coffee HOT and black!” he would intone. 

Dad started cooking breakfast while the coffee was brewing. He methodically poured each of us a glass of orange juice and put them in the freezer (he wanted the juice to be ice cold when we came to the table). Then he carefully fried 12 perfect slices of bacon. If slices turned out not to be as good as he expected, he fried replacement slices. He wanted breakfast to be perfect 7 days a week.

When the fixings were close to being done, Dad would go their bedroom and gently wake Mom, give her a little smooch and tell her that her breakfast was ready. This meant that her place was set and a glass of near frozen orange juice was waiting for her (the juice wouldn't be frozen, but there would be ice crystals in it). Bread was in the toaster, ready to be toasted.

Dad then ran back to the kitchen, got her bread toasting, fried and plated two perfect eggs, arranged three strips of bacon and her hot toast on the plate, and I swear, finished his presentation just as she was entering the kitchen, when he deftly slid the plate in front of her. 

Can you believe this? God knows I’m telling it like it was, day after day after day—except for the days when Dad bad sick, including the weeks he was laid up with fractured vertebrae as a result on falling down our icy steps with my heavy newspaper bag hanging on his back to help me deliver my papers. He was the king. 

After serving mother, Dad would run back and stand in the hall between our bedrooms and holler, “Okay you boys, you come to the table right now for a breakfast fit for a king!”  And we knew, we had better bolt out of our beds and be in the kitchen pronto. 

From the beginning, Dad taught me to cook breakfast and to do it right!ent Harrison’s Home in Indianapolis

Lloyd Pipes breakfast fit for a king

Ingredients: Per Dad (but I’ve made some additions which are included.)

• Orange juice: We had plenty of orange juice.
• Bacon, Oscar Meyer bacon, carefully selected to include a nice blend of lean meat and fat.
• Eggs, Farm fresh and large
• Potatoes, I’ve added hash browns to Dad’s menu. You’ll need boiled potatoes, bell peppers, onions, sliced thin (mushrooms are optional).
• Toast, including raisin, sunflower, and wheat. My wife, Nancy, has added a variety of home-baked breads.
• Preserves: A variety of the best available.
•  Coffee: They didn’t have gourmet coffee then, but we do now and added it to Dad’s menu.
• Fresh fruit: Dad loved fruit. We always had fresh fruit in the house to eat whenever we wanted it. In later years Dad made fabulous fruit salads for us and for the church.

We had plenty of milk and coffee. It is a very good idea to have cereal (to be politically correct), but we didn’t eat much cereal. Grains were for farm animals when I was a boy.

Dad never put cream on the table for coffee, except for company. He didn’t believe in putting crème in coffee.  “What? You put cream in your coffee? Well, what’s happened to you son! Oh my—black coffee is the best.”

Instructions: (Per Dad, with our additions.) 

The bacon—Fry bacon slowly in an electric skillet at 325 degrees. “Don’t walk away or take your eyes off the bacon, boy! Stand there and keep turning the bacon so it cooks evenly, until it is a beautiful golden brown. That’s the secret—fry slow over low heat and keep turning the slices. Don’t you burn the bacon. Do it right, son!”

“Move the fried bacon to paper towels to soak up any remaining grease. Then put three slices on every plate.” Dad arranged the plates on the counter next to the electric skillet. He pour the grease out of the skillet into an empty can. Don’t pour grease down the drain. That’s why you see the plumber at the neighbors.”

The toast—“Do it right now boy. Stand there in front of the toaster. Don’t walk away from the toaster. Keep your attention focused on what you are doing! Have your butter soft and ready to spread the instant that toast is cooked. Put 2 slices of buttered toast on each.”

The eggs—Press the end of a stick of butter on your skillet and move it around as the butter melts to evenly coat the skillet with a minimum of grease. It isn’t good for your health to over butter! Have the electric skillet set to 325 degrees (just below medium on a range burner). Carefully break the eggs into the skillet. Fry a  single serving of 2-3 eggs at a time. Don’t turn them too soon.  Don’t burn those eggs. When the first side is perfectly fried, turn them over with a big, thin Teflon spatula with a sharp beveled edge. You got to scoot under and pull those eggs up so’s not to break the yokes. You’ll soon learn the perfect time to turn the eggs. Don’t walk away from that stove. Keep your eyes on the eggs!”

About a minute later you going to be ready to scoop them eggs up—and flip them eggs back over onto the plate—the original side up is the prettiest way to lay them eggs out. Now just keep frying’ eggs and as each plate is done you serve them immediately. Have those folks at the table drinkin’ their coffee and ready to eat so's you can put that plate of hot eggs in front of them. I must say that dad always had a pad of paper towels in hand and he turned those eggs out onto the pad to take up any excess grease—Dad would never serve you a greasy plate of eggs. I use such a small amount of butter that I turn those eggs out onto the plates.

Broken yokes?—Dad saved those for himself because he only served perfect eggs to guests and family. Don’t you serve your guests or family any broken yokes boy!

Hash browns — Fresh shredded potatoes are hash browns and they are only fried one way. Right! Keep the fire down to 325 degrees. Pour a little Crisco vegetable oil over the potatoes. Keep your eye on the potatoes and turn them often. Fry them up to a golden brown and serve them hot—with some ketchup, salt, and pepper there on the table to season them up. I decided it is more than okay to toss in some chopped onion, green pepper, and mushrooms. 

If you’re serving hash browns—cook them first before you start your bacon and then put them into the oven a low temperature to keep them warm. Keep an eye on them and cover them if necessary to keep them from getting too brown. I prefer the Simply Fresh brand of hash browns which are ready to fry.