The many faces of surprise

As you well know, I always look good. I always have on makeup and I never have a bad hair day. My clothes are always highly fashionable and well-accessorized. I never have fat days. And drinking wine never makes my hands and feet swell. And I'm always in a good mood and never crabby. And my hiney always looks skinny. I never take a bad picture because I'm so extremely photogenic. Seriously, I should be a super-model.

So, being the picture of perfection that I am, it is extremely difficult to show you these next pictures. But I'm all - ALL - about being honest. Honestly. When it comes to being realistic, I guess I should be a role model or something.

We're all friends here, right? I'm pretty sure you won't take me off the pedestal. Or knock me off. Or use a crane and a wrecking ball to remove me. From the pedestal.

So . . . observe the real me. Preserved for all eternity by Lisa, who took the pictures at the surprise party. You may need a glass of wine before you start.

Hi Karenpie. Aren't you glad you were chewing gum before you walked into the surprise?

Because I firmly believe the gum detracts from my double chin.

Oh. Oh dear. Where did the gum go? It was the best part of the pictures.

And finally . . . .

The lovely, gracious, gentle face of surprise.

The super models are runnin' scared now.

Fat Friday: Biscuits

Oh man, are you in for it. You're going to get my famous, highly-sought-after, treasure of a biscuit recipe today. And this is the best part - it's free! I won't even charge you! Of course, I fully expect you to find me and throw money at me anyway. These biscuits are that good.

When my kids smell these baking they're like, "SWEET, MOM!" I like to make them when we have soup or my favorite - pot roast. I make roast in the crock pot, coating the meat in flour before searing it, then slow cooking it all day with carrots. When it's on the table and cooling down a bit, the juices thicken into gravy. I take a biscuit, break it open and put that thick, roast beef gravy on it. Forget jam or honey or preserves. I'm all about the gravy, man. Gravy is my friend.

My mom used to make the best gravy ever. When I was a kid, we'd come home from church, and Mom would start frying chicken for Sunday dinner. She'd make milk gravy with the chicken drippings and it was the best. EVER. I challenge anyone to make better chicken gravy than my mom.

I'm not much of a turkey or brown gravy gal. Exception being the roast beef gravy.

Why am I talking about gravy so much? I think my gravy levels have fallen dangerously out of therapeutic range. I need a transfusion NOW.

But biscuits just go with gravy. Like chocolate goes with hazelnut or peanut butter goes with dill pickles. WAIT. Did I just say that out loud?

OK, you caught me. I really eat peanut butter and dill pickle sandwiches and if I hear one more, "Eeeeeewww! ", from you guys it'll end up on Fat Friday so you better watch the smarty pants comments.

Could I digress any more from the subject matter? Let's make biscuits. But before I do, let me show you what I'm wearing . . .

A new apron, modeled by Katie who isn't too happy I pulled her away from SpongeBob. I saw it in a little tea shop today, when I was with Davi and Lisa and Susie. Davi took us all out to tea so we could meet her sweet MIL, visiting from Texas. This apron was in the gift shop and it made me laugh out loud! Plus it was pink. How could I pass it up?

So anyway, now that I'm appropriately attired, I can make biscuits. Ready? Here goes . . .

You'll need:

4 c. flour (I use half whole wheat pastry flour and half all purpose)

2 T. baking powder

2 t. salt

4 t. sugar

1 t. cream of tartar

1 c. (2 sticks) butter, cut into pieces

1-1/4 c. buttermilk

That's it. Nothing fancy. Except maybe the cream of tartar. What the heck does cream of tartar do? Anybody know? Should have paid more attention in home ec I guess.

Whisk all the dry ingredients together in a big bowl . . .

. . . and cut the butter into the dry ingredients. It should look like this -

Voila! See the small little pebbles of butter? You don't want them to be perfectly incorporated into the flour. The idea is to have little, flour-coated butter balls scattered throughout your dough. When the biscuits are baking in the oven, these butter pebbles will melt, cause steam and the steam will cause the dough to separate into layers as it bakes. Lots of layers = flakiness and tenderness.

I guess what I'm trying to say is - all those years of taking cooking in 4-H makes me a genius food blogger.

Bye. It's been nice knowing you.

Make a well in the center of your butter ball infested dry ingredients and pour in the buttermilk. Stir and mix until you have a dough that can be rolled out. I sometimes have to add a bit more buttermilk to get it to come together.

When I found this recipe - around 20 years ago in some women's magazine - the instructions said to "knead the dough 10 or 11 times". I totally blew this off. Personally, I think the less you handle the dough, the more tender it is. Plus it made my hands messy. I'm way too high maintenance to stick my hands in gooey dough. Why else did God invent spoons and spatulas for crying out loud?

Put the dough on a pastry cloth or a heavily floured countertop and pat it down. You don't even need to use a rolling pin - just your hands will do.

See how thick it is? Just under an inch. Now start cutting out your biscuits!

I use a biscuit cutter. These are sold in sets of graduated sizes and this 2-1/2 inch cutter is perfect for me. You can also use cookie cutters but make sure you use something with a sharp edge. I've seen people use drinking glasses and this will press the dough together around the edges, making it hard for the biscuit to rise and separate into those flaky layers. Biscuits like their clean sharp edges, man.

Since they don't spread like cookies, I load them all on the cookie sheet together. This recipe makes 19 biscuits and I can fit them on all at once.

Bake 12 - 14 minutes at 425F, until they're a nice golden brown across the top.

Beauty. You can see the layers from the side. Mmmmmm - buttery, flaky goodness coming right up!

Can you also see how they're a bit lop-sided? I have no idea why they do this. Feel free to fire me as the expert.

We all have our favorite ways of eating them. Matthew likes his plain - no butter or anything, Katie likes butter and strawberry jam on hers and Duane and Daniel like honey. They put the honey on carefully then let it soak in until it's at the perfect honey-saturation level before eating it. I like mine with rhubarb butter or gravy. They're especially good the next morning, sandwiching a sausage patty. And if that isn't a heck of a reason to double the recipe . . . .

How do you like your biscuits?

May The Force Be With You . . .

In case you've been living under a rock, in a land without access to the Cartoon Network and your age falls outside the range of 7 - 11 years old and you've never heard of Star Wars (wait - is that possible?) - then you don't know that last Friday was the season premier of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Season Three".

Let's just pause a moment to let the sounds of the "Hallelujah Chorus" die down.

Because, my rock-dwelling, non-cable-enjoying, non-Star Wars-loving friends, if you missed this premier, your life is going to spiral downward into a series of unfortunate events (to borrow a phrase from my close, personal friend, the Pioneer Woman).

My kids have been counting the days until this event. Checking and rechecking the cable listings every Friday night and bugging the heck out of me. Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Hallelujah Chorus) is an event of such magnitude that they will turn down sleepovers with their friends to watch it. Unless of course, the friends in question feel the same way and schedule their Fridays around it, too. Then everybody's happy.

So, how to celebrate this momentous occasion? Definitely with snacks. Most definitely.

So . . .

Remember these cookie cutters? I got them last July with my precious William-Sonoma gift card. A fabulous way to spend it, by the way.

Here's what the cookie cutters look like. You roll the dough out about a 1/4 " thick and cut them out. Then, you push down on the plunger-spring-thingie and it makes the decorative impression in the dough. Super easy!

And oh so appropriate for the night's festivities.

Here's what they looked like, baked, and before you get any ideas about me making royal icing and doing things like "flooding" and "outlining" to make the cookies look like the ones on the package . . . . let me just say this:

HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!

I think you know me better than that.

Boba Fett. Instead of the grayish green that is appropriate for Boba, we went with what we had.

The same for Yoda. No slime green sanding sugar hanging out in my cupboard. Yoda was a lovely shade of mint green.

The Storm Trooper was easy - white sugar I have. Hey! I sound like Yoda!

"The cookies, you will make. With you, the Force will be."

And that brings us to Darth Vader. Super villain and evil practitioner of the dark side of the Force. Former Jedi knight but without a scrap of nice-guy left in him. Also with a terrible asthma problem. Dude could have used an inhaler but that's another subject for another post.

How could we convey the absolute monster Darth Vader is, in cookie form? We'd need to call on every ounce of artistic ability. We'd need to -

- make him pink?

In our house, Darth Vader, the most feared dude in the universe, is not afraid to explore his feminine side.

Besides, the pink brings out his eyes.

Karenpalooza

You know, last week I thought my husband had outdone himself. I was very sure (and still am, natch) that my spouse is the best. I don't want to hurt your feelings or be the cause of any envy in your life, but in the history of husbands in the universe, I got the best one.

The birthday surprises he pulled off - without me suspecting a thing - made me feel like the queen of everything. So at the cooking party when he hugged me and whispered in my ear,

"No more surprises, OK?"

. . . I fervently agreed. He had pulled off the surprises of the century both with the cooking party and getting my mom and sister here without me knowing. Amazing.

Chapter Two

Last weekend Melissa and I went to Madras, Oregon to watch a sprint triathlon (or, as we elite athletes call it, a "tri" or a sprint). Davi and Amy - two members of the Chicks - were competing in it. Keep in mind I did not do it (I know - it's a shocker), I just went along to cheer.

I found out Davi and Amy were training for this sprint when we were training for Portland to Coast. I just naturally thought their families would go along to watch and cheer, but no - they were going by themselves.

Whaaaaa . . .?

How can you do something as cool as a triathlon all by yourself? It's HUGE. It's the culmination of months of training and hard work. It was beyond obvious they needed a cheering section. At that point, Melissa and I nominated ourselves as the fan club. We became their "people". When you're an elite athlete you need an entourage, you know.

I can't do tri's but I can do entourage.

Besides, someone needed to take pictures.

Amy and Davi, you guys ROCK. You are STUDS and I'm so proud of you!

Melissa and I just wore cute earrings and watched the event. When you're the entourage it's important to be well-accessorized. You also have to wear black pants. You can't wear shorts unless you do the tri because . . .

. . . these marks are on your legs and let me tell you, it's like wearing an Olympic medal, people. Next year I'm going to bring a Sharpie and write on my legs so everyone will think I did it too.

The numbers can blend right in with my varicose veins.

So, back to the story . . . we finished up in Madras and drove home, stopping to shop on the way back. I was feeling a bit guilty about being gone. I mean, the last couple of weekends have been all about me - Portland to Coast, my birthday weekend and all those happenings - I felt like I hadn't had a weekend with the family for a looooooong time. I kept calling Duane and giving him updates like,

"Hey Honey, we're back in Portland and we stopped to shop in the airport shopping center. I'm trying on shoes at DSW. I shouldn't be long, I'm trying to hurry the other girls along."

And what did Duane say?

"Don't worry about it. You should check out IKEA while you're there."

Um, huh? Check out IKEA? Did those words come out of my husband's mouth? I've never been to our local IKEA but from what I understand, it takes, like, all day to do IKEA. Apparently, my family was doing fine without me. So, I felt slightly less guilty but was still ready for home.

When we got home I tried to get in through the garage but it was locked. Weird. So the four of us hiked around to the front and as the front door opened . . . .

Karenpie, what ARE you looking at?

Friends.

Friends yelling, "Surprise!"

Duane had to come outside and get me. I was standing in confusion, thinking, "I didn't know Nathan and Colleen knew the Jung's." Or some nonsense like that. It's interesting when people from different parts of your life intersect, isn't it? It took me awhile before I realized I was the common denominator.

It was yet another surprise party. Thrown by my husband. For me. Me, me, me, me. ME.

Me.

I gotta tell you. I'm sick of me. And I know my friends are sick of me. I'm surprised Duane isn't sick of me - all the work he's been doing. All the subterfuge and secrets and "OK, now we can talk about the last one but we still have to keep the next one quiet."

Dawn handed me a cosmo when I got to the kitchen even though she's the one who needed it. And of course Glenn is the one who coined "Karenpalooza". Very appropriate, indeed. Seeing as how he, Dawn . . .

. . . and the Jung's have been in on every single thing. Oh the lies that have been told! It's a great relief to them all to have everything out in the open and over with. Although seriously, folks, is it possible to have too much Karenpie in your life?

Don't answer that.

So the third and final party (I don't know, should I expect something next weekend, too? Dawn? Patti? Duane? You guys still with me?) was a big bash! Oh my word the food. And the cosmos.

And another cake (note the "Happy 29th" up there - har. har.)

And the friends.

Oh, the friends!

Friends who are really, really good at keeping secrets.

And making cosmos.

And making brownies.

Friends who bring fabulous wine.

Friends who rearrange schedules to hang out with me.

Friends I've known since high school who came all the way from California.

Friends who bring the cake.

Friends who run triathlons and still have the energy to lie I mean keep secrets.

Friends who, without fail, put up with my weirdness and inappropriate behavior and still want to come to my house and help me celebrate.

Friends who take charge and take pictures so I can remember the night because it's all a blur.

And my best friend.

How'd I get so lucky? That out of all the husbands in the universe - I got the best one?

Amen.

Fat Friday: Homemade Bisquick

Yes, really.

Remember about a thousand years ago when I told you about Zucchini Pie? Bisquick is one of the ingredients needed for that recipe. Today I'm going to show you how to make your own! Your life will be complete.

You know, I've always been a label reader - mostly looking at fat content and calories. Lately I look at everything, especially the ingredients. I've decided if I can't pronounce an ingredient listed, I'm not buying it. Monocalcium phosphate? Seriously? I need that in my pancakes? Get away from me tricalcium phosphate and datem. Maybe you're good - I don't know. I just know that you're not on any ingredient list in my recipe box so BEGONE WITH YOU. It really bugs me when those things are listed on enriched flour.

So, what you're telling me, Gold Medal, is you took perfectly good freshly ground whole wheat flour, removed all the good stuff to make the flour white and pretty, then added a bunch of chemically altered nutrients back in to make the white and pretty flour more nutritious? Gah.

Ooh - COOL! I'm on a soapbox. A soapbox tangent. Thank you for listening. Back to the Bisquick.

I'm always looking for homemade ingredients. I've tried salad dressing, granola, cream cheese and stuffing mix. Some have been good, some not so good but the challenge is there. The challenge to rely on ingredients that are available and that I CAN PRONOUNCE.

I combed the internet for homemade Bisquick and I wish I could tell you where I eventually found this. The recipe needs a form of fat and most of the recipes I found used Crisco. Interestingly enough, I wanted to stay away from that. Shocker.

So, let's get going! This is super easy. My kids could make it.

You'll need:

4-1/2 c. whole wheat pastry flour

4-1/2 c. all-purpose flour

1-1/2 c. dry milk

1/2 c. baking powder

1/4 c. sugar

1 T. salt

2 t. cream of tartar

1-1/4 c. canola or grapeseed oil. I'd avoid olive oil because of the strong flavor.

Looking at the above picture, can you tell I shop at Walmart? They should give me some kind of kickback for advertising the Great Value brand. My biggest dream realized - to be a Walmart spokesperson.

Click here for the printable version.

Actually, I'd rather be a Bob's Red Mill spokesperson. I LOVE their stuff. And they're local - not so many food miles on the backs of their products.

Did I ever tell you about the time I met Bob? Our local grocery store was doing a big grand-opening and had all kinds of promos. Bob was there giving away samples of his Gluten-Free Brownies. He was even wearing the same hat. I went into crazed-fan-stalker mode.

"Bob? Is that you? REALLY? I have your picture all over my pantry! I LOVE your products!"

Bob was very good-natured. He gave me a bunch of free coupons and samples and personally invited me to come eat at his restaurant, at the Mill. Yep. Bob and I are tight, now.

OK, enough shameless name-dropping. Back to the recipe.

Put all the dry ingredients in your mixer bowl.

Give it a few whisks to mix it up.

Then, using the paddle attachment, turn the mixer on low speed. While it's running, begin pouring in the oil. Pour it slowly, in a thin stream, keeping the mixer going the entire time.

Once all the oil has been added, grab some and hold it in your hand.

. . . and - oooh! action shot! - squeeze it tightly.

It should hold together like this. If it's still too crumbly, add more oil, a teaspoon at a time (with the mixer running, remember) until you reach the right consistency.

I think the original recipe gave a shelf-life of 6 months if stored in the freezer. Mine has lasted much longer than that.

It fits in this 3 qt. container just fine.

I put the handy-dandy pancake instructions on the lid. So Duane, the resident Saturday Morning Pancake King, can do his pancake magic. Yes, I'm spoiled. I freely admit it.

I also admit that this recipe isn't low-fat. At least not as low-fat as the Reduced-Fat Bisquick you buy in the store. But you know what? I'll take more calories if it means I know what's in the food my family and I are eating.

Says the person who's favorite fast food is McDonald's.

I'm all about keeping you guys on your toes.