Poor Boy Biscuits

I have been craving stew for a month and a half. No joke. Around Thanksgiving, my mom told me that she had made stew and since then, that's all my tummy has been able to think of.

Problem was, the stew meat was in our freezer in the pole barn. Do you think that I could remember to take it out? I park in there daily. The dog's kennel is attached to the pole barn. Multiple times a day I am in this pole barn.

So my grand plans to have stew simmering in the crock pot all day to enjoy with a fresh, crusty loaf of home made bread hot out of the oven? Well, we improvised :)

I made the quick 3-hour stove top stew using a recipe from The Pioneer Woman, but there's no quick recipe for homemade bread. Our pantry was empty of Jiffy mix and there weren't any Grands in the fridge. What's a girl to do? 

So I tweaked a recipe for Baking Powder Biscuits just a tiny bit and let me tell you, yum. It's a very simple recipe using only five ingredients that are commonly stocked in most pantries; flour, baking soda, salt, shortening and milk.

Unless I know ahead of time that I'm going to be cooking or baking something that calls for milk, I typically don't buy it- I'm more of a fan of almond milk. I have found that a lot of times when recipes call for milk, I can substitute water and there's not much of a problem. Otherwise, equal portions of evaporated milk and water should substitute just fine.

Here's what I did:

Preheat oven to 450

In a big bowl, combine the following; 

2 Cups Flour
2 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
3 TBS  Shortening
2 TBS Butter
Pinch of Salt

Add 3/4 cup water and blend together with a fork until crumbly, like this;

Use your hands to knead it into a ball. Then it's like hamburger patties, just rip off a nice sized hunk and patty it up! Try to keep the thickness around half an inch to avoid them being a bit doughy in the center once they're cooked. 

I bake them on a greased pizza stone for about 12-15 minutes and they come out with a nice crust on the bottom. 

Now I wouldn't go substituting these for grandma's dinner rolls, but they're inexpensive, simple and best of all quick! 

We ate them the next day warmed up with a little drizzle of honey :)

Poor Boy Biscuits

Preheat oven to 450

2 Cups Flour

2.5 tsp Baking Powder

3 TBS Shortening

2 TBS Butter

Pinch of Salt

3/4 Cup Water

Combine with fork until crumbly. 

Use hands to roll dough into ball.

Form biscuits using hands, roughly 1/2" thick.

Place on greased stone or cookie sheet.

Bake 12-15 minutes.