Ham..

its whats for dinner!

Ok, so dinner wasn't just ham.  It also included biscuits.  And it would have included mashed potatoes, but I vetoed that and substituted baby carrots.

Yes, it was Son 2's week to choose dinner.

Son 2 is probably the biggest fan of my cooking and I love cooking for him.  If he asks me for something, it pretty much guarantees that I will make it.

This probably has something to do with the fact that he was diagnosed with Failure To Thrive at a year old.  You know, left over Mom guilt, but nothing makes me happier than watching him eat.

But I digress, we were talking about dinner, so back to ham.

Actually a Honey Baked Ham, is in my opinion, the most delicious ham around.  Plus, a ham involves no cooking on my part - score!

I also planned ahead, so Thursday's dinner will be the best ever Ham and Bean Soup made with my left overs, stay tuned for the details.

I found these great organic baby carrots at Whole Foods this morning and decided to roast them.  I love roasting veggies, they taste great and nothing could be easier.  I just peeled the carrots, drizzled on some olive oil, sprinkled with salt and roast in a 425 degree oven for about 15 minutes.  Yum!

Ready for the oven

The most anticipated part of the meal were the biscuits.  I used this BHG Buttermilk Biscuit recipe.

Biscuits are super easy to make and those ones that come in the can can't compare to home-made.

First you add all of the dry ingredients and whisk together, then cut in the shortening.  Now lot's of people use food processors for cutting in shortening or butter, but I don't think it turns out as good as when you do it the old fashioned way with a pastry cutter.

Cutting in the shortening

Shortening the size of peas, ready for buttermilk

After the shortening is cut in, make a well in the dry ingredients and add the buttermilk.  Stir this together and when the dough gets to hard to work with a spoon dump it out onto a prepared surface for kneading.

I know that kneading scares people, but it is super easy.  Check out this video if you feel you knead help, knead help, get it??  Ok, bad joke.  Anyhoo..

Buttermilk!

Mix with a wooden spoon

Kneading the biscuit dough

Once you are all finished kneading, pat or roll the dough out into a rectangle.  Now, you can get all fancy and use a circular cookie cutter to cut out your biscuits, but I just cut mine into squares.  Usually because I'm in a hurry and cutting round biscuits wastes dough.

Ready for cutting

All cut and ready for the oven

Let's bake!  Fresh biscuits in 10 minutes

Yummy!

I serve my biscuits with jelly, lots of jelly.  But they also work well with honey or even Creamed Chicken over the top.

Enjoy!