I have to say, I’ve been cracking away at this thing and I’m starting to see real results! Today’s installment shows an additional 3-4 hours of heavy sanding. Or if you measure time as I do, one disc of Criminal Minds from Netflix (including the episode where Morgan (played by crazy eye candy Shemar Moore) drives an about-to-explode ambulance into a field in the middle of New York City, I die).  Things at work have been really stressful lately (it’s grants proposal season for us) so taking some of my angst out on this pan has been really therapeutic.  After my last installment I switched from steel wool to coarse sanding paper, which really got most of the rust out.  As you can see, it’s really come a far way.

After I posted the first installment my dad (known around the internets as The Capt’n) emailed me a list of advice.  Since he’s salvaged and conditioned many a cast iron piece I was grateful for his suggestions.  He sad that once I’d gotten most of the rust off that I should “burn the bejesus out of it,” so that is my next installment.  In our urban backyard we combined little oil, our large burner, and some baking soda (for fire extinguishing) and smoked out the neighborhood.  This process draws out a lot of the remaining rust, etc, and (according to the internet) restores some of the free radicals that the iron needs.  If you understand why this works, I would love to know.  I trust that it’s an important step but the science is a mystery to me!  Anyway, those that are following along on twitter will know that yesterday we set the pan on fire and it. was. awesome.  I can’t wait to share part 4.  Thanks for following along, and we’ll be back with more cast iron love next week!

Part 1 / Part 2 

Two days after Christmas my baby sister, Genevieve, moved to Dublin.  She’ll be there for a year and even though I only see her a few times a year when she’s in North Carolina, I miss her.  So we decided that for each month that she’s in Dublin we’re going to share a camera using the hipstamatic disposable app.  Soon, our sister Lauren (who lives in New Orleans) will be joining us. Thank you for letting me share these photos each month!  Here is our January selection.

This weekend some friends and I took a “mid-winter” getaway to Morehead.  We planned it in November, as we were discussing how hard life and work can become once it’s cold and dark and dreary.  We were hoping that a getaway to look forward to would help us fight the cold-weather grumps.  And, before I knew it, the last weekend of January was here.  The thing is, the cold weather grumps had never really come.  We’ve had a few days of very cold, even a snow, but for the most part it’s been lovely (and a little terrifying coughglobalwarmingcough).  But wonderful weather certainly wasn’t going to stop us from taking a beach vacation, so on Thursday night we packed up and headed south.

We spent four days in Cateret County, visiting attractions like the aquarium and the Maritime Museum, drinking bloody marys on the beach, and reading on the pier of the Swamp House.  It was wonderful, relaxing, and the weather was amazing.

While we were down there I tried my hand at a recipe I’d been thinking of for a while.  You see, I love pimento cheese.  I love making it, eating it, and serving it to guests.  But I always make the same recipe (my grandfather’s), and I’ve been wanting to try something new.  So I thought about the flavors I wanted to highlight and put together a recipe that included sharp white cheddar, green olives, smoked gouda, pimentos, and of course mayo and spices.

The spread was, as I’d hoped, delicious. The smokey cheese played so nicely against the salty olives, a little bit of garlic and cayenne gave it a hint of a kick, and everything worked together to create a cohesive flavor.  It was perfect with the buttery snack crackers and exactly the sort of snack you want when you’re sitting on the pier all day, reading and watching the marsh life.

This is an owl named Alba that we met at the National Aquarium at Pine Knolls Shore.  She likes to watch the sharks.

Green Olive Pimento Cheese

1 medium size block of white sharp cheddar cheese

1 medium size wheel of smoked gouda

1 small jar of pimentos

1/2 cup green olives

1/4 cup mayonaisse

1 tsp garlic powder

Dash of salt, pepper, cayenne

Grate your cheese.  Dice your olives.  Drain pimentos.  Combine.  Stir in mayo and spices.  Stir until well incorporated, adding more mayo to get your preferred consistency.

Okay, we’re back with part two of The Cast Iron Chronicles!  This weekend I took a good long crack at the pan, in total spanning approximately 3 episodes of Criminal Minds. My first step was to knock the gunk and as much rust as possible off with steel wool.  Now, I know what you’re thinking.  1) Why didn’t I just use an electric dohickey with a sanding attachment (I know for a fact that the Capt’n is thinking that as he send me an email suggesting that I attack it that way) or 2) Why don’t I just cover it in oven cleaner and let it soak overnight?

So for one- we don’t have any electric dohickeys, and I figured that’s why I have hands. And arms.  I know it would be faster to use power tools, but I’ve got plenty of Criminal Minds in my Netflix queue and all winter to work on this pan.  I’m in no rush.  As for the oven cleaner- because cast iron is such a porous  material I don’t want to use anything on this pan that I wouldn’t squirt on top of my eggs.  Cast iron has a tendency to retain the flavor of things and I don’t care to take the risk with oven cleaner, even if it would probably burn off later in the seasoning process.  I’m very careful with all my cast iron, I never use soap to clean them, only ever hot water. According to my Uncle Everett, Sybil only ever used salt to clean her cast iron, no water at all. So, no harsh chemicals during this process.  Just good old fashioned scrubbing.

I worked on the pan for about 2 1/2 hours. I removed all the pieces of debris and a large amount of the rust.  My plan is to continue with the steel wool and then transition to the coarse sand paper as needed.  I’m already beginning to see through the rust, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel!  I’m so glad to hear that y’all are interested in this process, I am personally loving it.  There’s nothing like sanding the hell out of a piece of metal to take your mind off of the stresses of daily life.

Part 1

My posting schedule for this series will be a little behind the actual work I’m doing, so if you’d like to stay up to date check twitter and instagram (user: biscuitsandsuch). Not an iPhone user? Webstagram or Flickr will have the photos!

I love eggs. And not to sound like a total hipster, but I loved eggs before they were cool.  Pie too. And toy camera photography.  Not leggings though, I’m totally jumping on the trend bandwagon there… But eggs, we’ve always been good friends, especially when a dippy yolk is involved.  Breakfast sandwiches, breakfast pizza, pasta carbonara, I love it.  So, it goes without saying that a cupful of breakfast goodness topped with a soft yolked egg is pretty close to heaven in my book.  Egg heaven.

This recipe was very much a Saturday morning refrigerator dump.  My favorite kind of weekend breakfast, where you sauté up all the leftover vegetable odds and ends from the week, add bacon and a fried egg and, voila, breakfast.  I started with a turkey bacon cup (it was what we had on hand, usually I’m a real-bacon-all-the-way kind of girl), filled it with chard and onions, garlic and potato.  Then we topped the whole mess with an egg and baked.

Dan and I have very different preferences when it comes to eggs- I like mine running all over the place and he likes his firm.  This difference of opinions doesn’t usually impact our relationship, (we’re pretty level headed people when it comes to our eggs) except for when I make a dish like this where the eggs are all cooked together.  If, like me, your family has varying levels of egg preference I have a suggestion- for those that like a drippy, yolky egg, follow the recipe.  For those that don’t, leave out the egg and then top the baked bacon/veggies with a fried egg.  Overcooking an egg in the oven leaves the yolk hard and weird, so I’ve found, after a lot of searching for the middle ground, it’s best just to fry a separate egg.

Breakfast Nests

(makes four)

8 pieces of bacon

4 eggs

2 cups chopped (uncooked) chard

1/2 red onion

1 red potato

2 cloves garlic

Salt, pepper, red pepper

1 pat butter

In your pan, cook the bacon until the fat has begun to come off and it starts to crisp.  Take the hot bacon and mold it into a cupcake pan.  Wrap one slice all the way around the inside of the cup, tear the other piece in half and line the bottom. Preheat your oven to 350

Chop onion, potato, and garlic and add it to the pan.  Saute for one minute.  Chop the chard.  Add it in, along with the butter and seasoning.  Toss and cook until chard has wilted.  Divide between the four cups, pushing it down so that there is at least 3/4 inch of room between the vegetables and the top of the bacon.

Crack an egg over the sink, tossing 1/3 of the whites.  Put the yolk and remaining whites into a cup.  Repeat with the remaining three cups.

Bake at 350 until whites have set.  Yolk should be soft, approximately 20 minutes.

As you can guess from pretty much every post on this blog, I am deeply devoted to cast iron.  In fact, in the hierarchy of food related things that I love I’m pretty sure it goes 1. Pie 2. Bagel Sandwiches 3. Cast Iron.  And often, #3 is an important factor in achieving #1 and #2.  There’s something magical about cast iron- it’s durable, non-stick, beautiful, reliable.  Consistent.  It’s everything that my very expensive stainless steel pans are not.  In fact, in the years that we’ve had both cast iron and stainless steel our cast iron has never left our stove top.  It moves seamlessly from fried pickles to caramel to sopapillas.  Can you tell I love it?

Today I’d like to introduce a new series on Biscuits and Such, The Cast Iron Chronicles.  Creating series, sharing behind-the-scenes peeks, tutorial posts, and overusing the ever controversial serial comma are all part of the big-picture goals for 2012.  As long as that sounds good to you, of course.

Anyway, back to The Cast Iron Chronicles.  My friends Brit & Aaron (coconspirators in the Dan-turns-27-party plan) recently moved from LA to Alexandria.  When they moved into their new house they found (among other things) this cast iron pan in their back yard.  As you can see, it’s in bad shape.  Covered in rust, battered and weather-worn.  I immediately claimed it.  They brought it up when they came for the party and today I finally took a crack at it.

This series, probably four or five installments, will follow the pan as I remove the rust, dirt, and grime and bring this beauty back to her former glory. My plan is to use a combination of steel wool, sand paper, and vegetable fats to remove the rust and season it again. The Capt’n gave me a few tips, as he has restored many a cast iron cookware item in his day, including Sybil’s cauldron. Even so, I’d love to hear any tips you have for conditioning cast iron, or anystories from your own projects. This should be a fun ride!

Tomorrow is the anniversary of our first kiss, many moons ago.  I know that once you get married other anniversaries are supposed to melt away, but I figure- why not just celebrate more?  We always celebrate the same way– by going to Dougherty’s, the pub where we decided on a whim to gamble our years-long friendship.  Thankfully it was a successful gamble.  At Dougherty’s we’ll get burgers and fries, people watch and maybe even try to figure out what made that night so unusual.  Who knows.  I just remember being surprised.

Afterwards we’ll come home and I’ll pop two of these in the oven– individual apple crisps.  They’re each a perfect one serving, one apple baked with cinnamon, brown sugar, and butter.  Sweet, but not too sweet.  Filling, but not too heavy.  A special dessert to celebrate a special day.

Baked Apple Crisps, For Two

2 medium size red apples

2 tbsp butter

1/2 cup dry oats

3 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp flour

1 tsp cinnamon

Peel and slice apples.  Combine 1 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp sugar, and apples in a pan.  Cook over low heat until they soften slightly.  Divide into two small serving dishes and turn your oven to 350.  In your pan, melt the rest of your butter.  Pour over oats, remaining sugar, flour, and cinnamon.  Toss.  Divide the topping evenly over the two dishes.  Bake for 35 minutes.

Midway through the holiday madness I was contacted by a fellow North Carolinian who was wondering if I would be interested in reviewing some cheese straws.  Not just any cheese straws, but his family’s 100 year old recipe that his mother and uncle just started selling in small, artisan batches.  Now, I’m picky about product reviews because I hate the idea of disappointing someone or, worse, making you all feel disillusioned by what goes on here at B&S.  But cheese straws? From a sweet brother and sister combo in Concord, NC? How could I resist?!?

These bad boys arrived on our doorstep just before we headed on our whirlwind Christmas vacation.  I snagged a few for the road and then spent the next week thinking about them.  They are perfect, everything a cheese straw should be.  Spicy, soft but not too soft, cheesy, salty, amazing.  As we were setting up for Dan’s party last weekend Charlotte (a Tennessean and lover of all things cheese straw) and I spent a fair amount of time savoring these, trying to taste for different spices, carefully considering how we felt about them.  Our conclusion? Delicious.  Everything a cheese straw should be.  We strongly suggest that you visit Ritchie Hill’s site and see for yourself.

In other news, it’s a new year, which means it’s time for goals and planning and thinking into the future.  I know the past few weeks around here have been heavy on the reflections and musings side of things (and light on the recipes and eating side of things), but forgive me as I take one more stab at it (I’ll be back tomorrow with more of the edibles).  My B&S related goals for this year are as follows:

- Continue expanding our recipe collection

- To actually make some instructional movies like I keep promising

- To take more process shots now that I have a fancy new flash

- To add to our set and prop collection

- To create images that inspire and to push myself to stay creative

- To write a post dedicated solely to the photography on this site

- To eat more pie

That’s not such a huge list, and hopefully it’ll be something that is constantly morphing throughout the year.  I’m hoping that 2012 is a year of big growth for me, in the kitchen, in the garden, as a photographer… I have high hopes.  That being said, I’m interested in hearing the sorts of things you would like to see around here.  More pie? Less musing? All the cheese? Let me know.  Let’s make 2012  a great year, together.  Okay, that’s enough cheese.

*Ritchie Hill didn’t pay me to say nice things about them.  In fact, all they did was send me a box of cheese straws (complimentary).  And I ate them.  And they were delicious.

Today is Dan’s 27th birthday. Happy Dan’s birthday, internet!  I may have mentioned here, once or a thousand times, that birthdays are very important to me.  They’re not so important to Dan, but over the years I’ve been trying to nudge him in the celebrate-wildly-have-lots-of-fun direction.  It’s a slow process.

This year, by far, has been my most successful. To frame the story you should know that I am horrible at secrets and surprises.  Take for instance Dan’s 25th birthday, where I planned a whole surprise weekend, blind folded him, and drove around in circles to throw him off only to discover when we arrived that he had already figured out everything that we were doing.  It was a great weekend, but a major surprise letdown.

About a week ago, as we were driving between our three Christmases, I had the idea to throw Dan a surprise birthday party.  I started texting people to see if they were available, furiously began planning my cover story and how I would get him out of the house, and made a menu in my head.  By the time we returned home from the holidays, everything was planned and the party was set in motion.

The problem with surprise parties is that there is an inherent layer of lies just to keep everything secret.  And because I am a very bad liar and Dan knows me very well, another layer of lies sprang into existence to explain the “I have a secret” face I kept making.  I wove a tangled webs of secrets and lies, and the more time went on the more confusing it became to keep it straight. Thankfully I only had to hold it together for a week.

The basis of my cover story was that my very good friend Brit and her fiance Aaron were coming up to visit so that Brit and I could work on wedding stuff and Aaron and Dan could have guy time.  The boys ended up brewing beer, and then going out to a bar with our friend Gordon so that Brit, Charlotte (another good friend from school), and I could set up.  The “super secret wedding stuff” story was the saving grace, as the idea that there were things we had to do that Aaron couldn’t see was plausible and easily bought.  Also, the plan to have friends over for dinner meant that I could make pizza dough and a cake without arousing suspicion.  The boys whisked Dan away and we got to work hanging streamers, blowing up balloons, and making banners.

By 6.30 I had baked seven specialty pizzas (we did 10 overall), the apartment was transformed into a birthday wonderland, the fridge had been tetrised with an insane amount of beer (thanks, friends!), and we were all packed into the living room.  I was sort of convinced that Dan had figured out that the surprise was coming, so I was bracing myself for the disappointment.  Was I ever wrong.  As you can see in the photos and video below, they walked into the apartment and Dan just sort of looked around, shocked, for a few minutes.  It was glorious.  I have never felt so sneaky.

photo by Rachel

Ultimately this party was such a huge success because we have a group of amazing friends from school, work, water ballet, and life in Baltimore that came together to celebrate Dan.  And that was such a great feeling.  I couldn’t be more thankful for the help and secret keeping that went into this party.  Thankful, and sure that I won’t be doing this again for another decade or two.

Yesterday (Birthday Day 2) we went out, got breakfast sandwiches, spent our Christmas gift certificates, curled on the couch and watched Twin Peaks, and generally relaxed. Tonight we’re getting all gussied up and going to a favorite restaurant, Woodberry Kitchen.  This year has been one of the best Dan’s birthdays yet! Happy Birthday to my sweet husband!

A small aside- this past week Dan and I decided to make a rather large business investment, we bought a new camera.  My wonderful, dedicated, steadfast Nikon D40 has been on its last legs for a while, and it was time for an upgrade.  We purchased a Canon 60D, plus a Canon 430 EXII Speedlite flash.  I’m still learning my way around both but so far they’re amazing and I’m SO excited for this next stage in my photographic life.  That, plus the Diana+ with an instant back, is the reason for the gratuitous photos in this post.  Thanks for putting up with me!

Dan’s Birthday Surprise! from elena rosemond-hoerr on Vimeo.

Red Velvet Cake

cake:

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp cocoa powder

1 3/4 cups sugar

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups vegetable oil

1 cup buttermilk, room temperature

2 large eggs, room temperature

3 tbsp red food coloring

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp white vinegar

cream cheese frosting:

16 oz cream cheese, room temperature

4 cups powdered sugar

2 sticks salted butter, room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

Sift together dry ingredients.  In a stand mixer or large bowl, mix together wet ingredients.  Beat until combined with paddle attachment.  Slowly add dry ingredients to wet ingredients.

Preheat oven to 350.  Oil and lightly powder three 9 1/2″ round cake pans. Pour cake batter evenly between three cake pans.  Bake for 30 minutes or until cooked all the way through, rotating halfway. Transfer to racks and let cool completely.

To make the frosting, combine all ingredients in a mixer.  Beat slowly to incorporate and then on high until fluffy, approximately 4-6 minutes.

Lay the first layer on the cake stand/plate, top side down. Spread a good layer of icing in between.  Add the second layer, also top side down. Spread more icing. Finish with the third layer, top side up. Ice the top and sides.

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