An Old-Fashioned Family Breakfast with Biscuits, Ham, Eggs, and More!

Hi. Good morning. Well, I know you usually don’t say good morning but this morning, I mean today, I’m gonna be starting to get the coffee going because we’re gonna make breakfast today. And I know that probably when you’re watching this program, breakfast has been a long time ago because sometimes we’re seen in the evening, sometimes we’re seen in the afternoon. But how about tomorrow? Make a nice breakfast for your family. Today, that’s what we’re doing. A complete, no great, big, fancy breakfast but just a good, basic breakfast. We’re gonna make biscuits. That’s kind of Southern isn’t it ’cause we in the North, we tend to go for the bagels and the toast and stuff. But we’re gonna make homemade Southern biscuits and show how to do omelets and some other surprises along the way so I’m glad that you’ve joined us today. I wanna say hello to all our friends in Kansas City, our friends in Chicago and just anywhere you’re watching today, we’re glad that you’re with us. It wouldn’t be the same without you. I know I say that all the time at the end but it really wouldn’t be the same without you right here At Home. Let me read her that I got. I love to get the mail, you know that. And in this letter, she hasn’t asked for anything. She just says, “Dear Arlene. “I just wanted to write and tell you “how much I enjoy your show. “Every week it gets better and better.” Thank you. “My four small children ask, “‘Mum are you watching your cooking show again?’ “And each week my husband asks, “‘Well, what did Arlene make this week, “‘it sure smells good?’ “That’s because I try everything you make each week.” How about that? “Your show is simple but so informative. “My husband loves stuffed cabbage and in 15 years of marriage, I’ve been too afraid to try to make them myself. “Well, after watching your program, I thought, “‘I can do that.’ “So I did and they were wonderful “and just as easy as you said they would be. “I’m anxious now for the egg plants in the garden to grow “so that I can try this past week’s recipe.” Which remember, we made some egg plant Parmesan. She’s anxious to try to make some of that. “Thanks Arlene for your wonderful program “and for welcoming me into your home each week.” Now, I appreciate that so much because just knowing that we’re motivating someone to try to make that thing. Chicken, for 15 years, her husband loves stuffed cabbage and she never tried because she thought it was too hard to do and she tried and found out that it wasn’t that hard. And that’s what we’re all about. We wanna motivate you to try to make that thing that you think you can’t ’cause nine chances out of 10, you will succeed in doing it. Well, I had another lady. She wrote and she said, “Please send me your recipe “for some of the things that we have been doing.” And she says, “I enjoyed your show. “Do you have an easy recipe for biscuits?” Well, Helen. Today is your day. Like I said, we’re doing breakfast and we’re gonna get started in just a minute. We’ll be right back after this important message, so stay tuned. Okay, that hint that we just gave, I want to show you physically what I’m talking about. Take your strawberry. Take an ordinary, the plastic drinking straw is the best. Push the straw up into the bottom of the berry and try to aim for the center where that stem is. Look what happens. Pulls it right out, nice and neatly and you have a clean strawberry. And no big chunks are wasted. You see it even get that. There we go. Look how nice and neat that was. Let me do one more just so you see it again. Okay. Let me get one that has a plant at the bottom because they seem to do better. You push the straw in, straight up and you’re aiming for that, there’s what you want, okay. You’ve got it. A completely clean strawberry. You pull that out, discard it and your strawberry’s ready to go. I mean what? Is this easy or what? This is so easy. I thought I’d share that with you because I know that you enjoy strawberries. I can tell by the mail that I receive that you’re really enjoying the strawberries. Well, we better get busy because we’ve got lots to do today. All right, first of all, we’re going to be doing some broiled grapefruits. If you’ve never had a broiled grapefruit, you don’t know what I’m talking about because they taste so different than just a plain, regular, fresh grapefruit. Very tasty. I’m gonna start with the biscuits because they need to cook a little longer. We’ve done some grapefruit and we’re gonna show those to you in just a minute. We’re gonna be doing an omelet with a lot of different fillings in it that you might like to try. But first, let’s start with, let me tell you first about flour. Youknow I’ve told you about White Lily flour before. Any self-rising flour can be used for these biscuits. But it has to say this. “Don’t try to do this recipe with regular all-purpose flour “because they will look like pancakes.” And you want high, puffy biscuits. You have to have, see the difference with this is that they have some leavening in there probably baking powder, baking soda, whatever. There’s a leavening in self-rising so you don’t have to add it. So don’t use all purpose flour. Use the self-rising flour. If you can, use White Lily. That’s my favorite. It’s not really easy to get here in the Pittsburgh area but sometimes when we go on vacation, if you go down South, it’s very prevalent down there. So I buy few bags to last me till I think I’ll need it next time. Spoon the flour into the cup. Don’t dig that cup down into the bag. Not when you’re making biscuits because the flour is important. It has to be light and not pounded down, okay, or packed down. So for this recipe, we’re gonna use two cups of White Lily self-rising flour. I smell the coffee going over there. You know, you get up in the morning, the first thing we do at our house is we get the coffee going and then we decide whatever else we’re gonna have for breakfast. Okay, there’s one. And there’s just something about that coffee brewing that makes you think better about what the rest of the meal should be like, right? And I know that just sounds funny but that’s the way it feels like at our house because then we’re gonna decide if we’re gonna go the bagel route or if we’re gonna go biscuits or just have a really light breakfast. So the two cups keep them light and don’t pack the flour down. I saw somebody doing this one time, and mashing it down with a spoon. That’s a no, no. You don’t wanna do that. Level it off with a knife, back and forth, okay. There’s our two cups. Okay, I’ll move that out of the way. Then what we want, is a fourth cup of shortening. Now here, I have to tell you, I put a fourth of a cup but usually, I do a little bit more than that because as my dad says, he likes them short. Now he calls putting in a lot of shortening and making them short, which means flakier. And when I make them for him, I do make them a little more short, as he says than what the recipe normally calls for. But there’s your, you keep scraping it over so that as you push down on it, you will fill all the little bubbles in there, the air holes then we’re gonna add that. Now, I don’t know how we’re going to be able to tell you this on a recipe that you’ve been waiting for and you’re telling me you like the new numbering system. I’m glad you do. It makes it easier for all of us. I appreciate your patience with us because sometimes when you’re in a new system, it has a little delay. Well, ours does too. So thank you for your patience and waiting to get the recipes. I always put an extra little glob in. That’s about, maybe a tablespoon or so. Just take the knife and go down like that, whatever you get. That’s what I do. Then you’re gonna take a fork and you’re gonna start cutting this Crisco. I like Crisco the best. Could probably use any other kind. Some people use lard, some people use butter, some people use a combination but this is what I like. Okay. And you start to cut this in. Anytime you cut the oil or the grease or the butter into the flour, you’re making a pastry. This is the same principle that you do a pie crust. You cut the lard, or the butter or the Crisco into the flour until you get little morsels. Boy, I’m really flopping the stuff all over the place here. Sorry about that. They have to be morsels like oatmeal and sometimes that takes a little bit of time but it’s worth it. Just be patient. Now say from looking at that, I can tell I’m gonna need a little bit more Crisco in there so I just add until I feel like it’s enough. I would say probably it’s closer to a third of a cup of Crisco. That’s for two cups of flour. Okay. And normally, if I’m in a hurry I’ll get my hands in this because you can tell by the feel. And once you have made biscuits for a while you’ll begin to feel what they feel like and you’ll know what feels just about right, if there’s not enough or if there’s too much flour or whatever. You’ll be able to tell, okay? So once you have that cut in, then we use buttermilk because it’s richer and that’s what it’s called for. It’s about 3/4 of a cup, 2/3 or 3/4 of a cup of buttermilk. Now, the principle behind good biscuits is you do not work and work and work the dough. You don’t do that. When you do a yeast dough, you have to knead it so that you’re kneading it and you’re kneading the air into it and it’s making a good dough. This is not that kind. You want to work with this the least amount that you can. So, the only thing you do, is you gather this together. You stir it only till it comes together. Okay. I always have a tendency to save back a little bit of moisture because I think boy, if I get it all in there and then it’s too wet, what am I gonna do? Okay. See this is not all together yet but you don’t wanna work it and stir it and stir it. You wanna just stir it until it starts to gather into a ball which it’s doing. Okay. This might be a little dry but I think we’re gonna make it. What I do then is pour or spread just a little bit of flour on my counter. So this doesn’t look like anything yet because it hasn’t come into a shape or into a form. But you don’t wanna work it that much because it shouldn’t. The more you work them, the tougher the biscuits will get. The same with pie crust. The more you work a pie crust, the tougher it gets. So I scrape this out of the bowl. Okay. Put that over there. And all I do is with my hand, I begin to mold it and shape it. And remember what I told you? You don’t, you’re not gonna knead this. Don’t knead it because they get tough. Just shape it with your hand. Just keep shaping it. If it feels like it’s a little moist, add just a little bit of flour. Don’t put a half a cup on it. Just sprinkle very lightly with some flour so that it doesn’t stick to you hand. Okay. You keep shaping it, rolling around and around, shaping it. Okay. Until it gets to pre uniform. You think that looks pretty uniform there. Okay, then I take my rolling pin and you might feel like, well, this is a little damp. Just put just a tiny bit of flour so you can get them cut out. Now here’s the key. It depends on how high you want your biscuits. Some people roll them out till they are very, very thin and when they puff up, they’re not very tall. And it also depends on what size you want. But I tend to like the biscuits about that size and I like them thicker. So we use the biscuit cutter and you dip it into your flour bag because it’ll stick to it if you don’t. And you start, trying to aim so that you get the most for your money. Okay? And I need a baking sheet to put them on. I’ll get my baking sheet here. Ah, over here. Okay. Now this is on an un-greased baking sheet. Okay. Remember there’s a lot of different things that determine. If it’s a humid day, your biscuits sometimes don’t turn out so good. Humidity plays a big part and a big role in the way your biscuits turn out. I wanted to take time to show this to you because they say if you can make a good biscuit, that’s a mark of a good cook. Now I want to take the time to do this very slowly. See how they pop right out of there? Now these are thick and these will come out as high biscuits. These go into a very hot oven, a 500-degree oven for eight to 10 minutes. And but I tell you, when they come out, they’re as light and delicious. And get the butter ready and make sure you have it handy. And maybe the honey or whatever you like to put on them. Sometimes we use the preserve, sometimes we use honey. Okay, where are we time wise? They are still in to make sure I get my– [Producer] 10.

• 10 minutes? Okay, I think we’ll do it. Now, don’t throw these little scraps away. These are good because you can re-roll them. Now they’re not gonna be as flaky as the original one because you have handled them more. But surely, you can pull them together. Okay? Like so. Just remold them and recut. Okay. And basically, you’ll get a dozen or so out of this much flour. All right. They’re very light. Let’s get these in the oven so we can get started with some of the other things. Remember, 500 preheated oven. It has to be pre-heated and they go about 10 minutes. I’ll do this just so I know. There we go. Okay. Now and to accompany biscuits, there’s a lot of good things to make but I thought that we would enjoy today, just learning how to make good omelet. And omelets are very easy. People think, “Oh that’s too difficult to do.” I don’t think so. Once you get and learn the basics of what an omelet is all about then you know, if you adhere to that same formula, every time you’ll have a good omelet. One of the things that you must do is you must always have your eggs at room temperature. I am not really sure I know why but I know that they’re fluffier and better if they are at room temperature. And so that’s why I do it. I also make mine a little different in that instead of just eggs and water or something like that, sometimes I’ll add a little flour to it. And when I do that, it makes it puff up almost like a frittata. So, we’re gonna begin so I’ll move some of these things out of the way. Begin with three eggs. Now, I’ll tell you that this makes a whole panful of omelet and it will serve more than just one person, believe me. This is a big, puffy omelet. Okay. So we do the three eggs and they are at room temperature which is very good. You want to take your little whip, break them and just begin to beat them. Okay. Get them pretty fluffy here. Now, I add just a little bit of not warm, not cold just room temperature water, a couple of tablespoons. Okay. A little bit of salt and pepper. Salt. A little pepper, not too much. All right. Put some oil in a skillet. You put oil in a hot pan and then it won’t burn. And next thing I do is I take some flour, just a couple of tablespoons. Now if you like eggs hot, I know there’s a lot of people that like tangy things, something that’s got some zip to it. And they add Tabasco right about now. That’s fine. If you wanna do that, put your Tabasco in now. Once you add the flour, you gotta really beat this so there’s no lumps to that. You can add some Parmesan cheese now if you want to, whatever, okay. I’m gonna put a few bits of onion in here, let it get started to get brown. Omelets can be filled with so many things. You put the basic egg omelet together and then what you fill it with before you flip it can be bacon, you can put cheese, you can put sausage, you can put broccoli that you’ve blanched a little bit. Those are numerous things that you can do, all kinds of things. And what I’m going to accompany this omelet with is a piece of ham that I have purchased at the store and basically now, these slices of ham are 94% fat free. Foodlands carries a nice selection of this particular brand. It’s Cook’s ham. It’s 94% fat-free which is what everybody looking for and you just brown it in a skillet. It doesn’t take time at all. You can even do it on the grill if you wanted to. It’s a nice accompaniment to biscuits. Down South, they eat a lot of biscuits with ham in them. They grill the ham. I was telling some guys on the crew, I said when I was a little kid, I can remember, my mother and dad. The only time ’cause Dad’s a preacher, so the only time that he really had to sleep in was only Saturday morning ’cause Dad also worked a job besides pastoring. I’d say on a Friday, Okay, tomorrow morning, I’m gonna make you breakfast in bed. And they would be, I’d go up there with my little notepad and I’d say okay, what do you want to have this morning and they’d tell me oh, I’ll have scrambled eggs or I’ll have this or I’ll have that. And I’d take it down like I was a waitress and you know, two hours later, I’d have the breakfast ready and they’d be, “Arleen, come on. “We’ve got things to do. “This is Saturday, you know.” But they were very patient with me and you know, those are the things you remember. Those are the things you remember about home, fixing breakfast in bed for your folks. And my mother was an early riser and so she’d be doing anything just to hurry up and get this breakfast over so she could get on with all her chores. But they were very patient. And that’s the kind of things you remember when you get to be my age that your parents did for you. They were patient with you. They would tolerate some of the silly, little fun things that you wanted to do and that’s so important to remember that. Okay. So we’ve got it going here and you wanna make sure that it cooks. You gotta keep putting a little hole in the center so that that omelet, I’m gonna turn this us just a bit, so that your omelet will cook clear through ’cause you don’t wanna put any of your fillings in just yet. What I like to do when I have some fresh dill, I like to sprinkle that on. Nothing like fresh dill or even dried, fresh dill. You’re gonna want to be sure these nonstick skillets are a must when you’re doing something like this. Okay, see how it’s setting up already? But then look at how loose it is in that pan. It’s horrendous to try to do something like this in one of those not a well-seasoned pan because they just stick and you end up making scrambled eggs, right? Forget the omelet, go right for the scrambled eggs if you have a problem like that. But this will set right up and you can see that it is. It’s cooking, I don’t want it to go too fast because it will burn on the bottom. It’s getting just nice, I don’t know is you can see how brown that is, you can see it’s just a little bit lightly browned. Oil is the best to do this with. Butter will burn cause you’re cooking for longer, for a long period of time. So let’s let that set a little bit. Let’s take a little look at our piece of ham which is just browning. I’ll turn that up a little bit. A lot of water in hams is hard to find. I guess down South, they have these fresh hams that don’t have water added to it. This just about there, okay. Just about there. And keep pouring it to the sides so that the part that isn’t cooking starts to set. Then in this one, let’s add some good old cheddar cheese. Okay, everybody likes cheddar cheese. See how our biscuits are doing. They just have a few minutes. Okay. And we’ll crumple up a little bit of bacon. This is pre-cooked and drained very well. Okay. How about a little bit of sausage? We’ll go for the ultimate as one of the restaurant changes calls it. And we’re just about there. When you get to this point, it’s time to flip it. You see now, well you know how to flip an omelet. Well, I’m gonna show the easiest way in the world. If you can get your spatula under like I am, you’re ready to go. If you can’t, here’s a way, I’ll show you how to do it. You take the plate that you’re going to serve it on. It’s up here, okay. And all you do is pour it out. And when you pour it out, you flip it over. Okay. Well, that didn’t work too good. Let’s do it again. There we are. See how golden brown that is? It’s beautiful. Now just take a few tomatoes and we want to make it look nice when we put it out on a platter. This would serve two very hungry appetites because the biscuits that will go with it and the broiled grapefruit which I haven’t forgotten. I’m gonna show you that in just a minute. These are all parts of a very good breakfast. ‘K, then if you don’t have parsley, don’t worry about it. But if you do, it’s nice to put some of that. There is our omelet, okay. Now, let’s take a little look at… The biscuits are coming up. They’re browning beautifully. We’re gonna be be right back in just a minute and we’re gonna finish up the whole breakfast. I’m going to present it to you but here’s a very important message for you. So please, listen closely.
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• Specifically for recipe number 111, it’s really important for you to mention the number. Let me show you how to do, this is just a regular grapefruit. If you have a grapefruit knife, it’s curved on the end, you would use that. But if you don’t, just take a knife. These are very juicy and these are the Indian river pink that I’m using here. You just cut around it and then cut every segment, go around every segment and cut it out, okay. When you have done that with both of them, then you take some regular brown sugar, sprinkle it over the top, have a little baking dish. It’s really important for that. Add a little bit more. Do it on both of them. Okay. This is gonna go under the broiler, not in to bake but to broil. And what I do then is take just a little bit of butter and put it on the top of each one of them and put under the broiler for about 10 minutes or until I get hot and bubbly and start bake on top and they get almost like crunchy. Well, you can see by what we’ve already prepared that we just decorated a little bit with the strawberry. That’s what your broiled grapefruit looks like for a breakfast meal. And you can see we’ve got it all set up. Here’s our omelet that we have filled with cheese and sausage and what else did we put in there? Cheese, sausage, bacon, the ultimate omelet really. And here’s our bowl of fresh strawberries. I want you to see these light and fluffy biscuits. They break apart. They are so, look at that, as light as you can imagine. Put a little bit of marmalade on there or some strawberry preserves or maybe some honey. The people down South enjoy honey on their biscuits. And we’re finishing it out with our ham that we have just browned on a skillet. We’ve not added one thing to that ham. Just cook the water out of it to dry it out a little bit and let it brown. And I have some sausages left over from that the ones that we had done to fill the omelet. But basically, this is a basic, basic breakfast and just from here, put that coffee in that cup, drink that juice and you’ve got a wonderful Saturday morning breakfast. You know, Saturday’s could be very special at your house. Just take the time to prepare something special for your family. If they like waffles, don’t do the frozen ones. Do the good ones. Do these good pancakes. But whatever you do, be sure to join us the next time right here At Home because it just wouldn’t be the same without you. We’ll see you then.
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