Grill’n Time

We started a tradition in our house a few years ago called Breakfast for Dinner. My son Riley just has taken the word “for” out and calls it “breakfast dinner”. His favorite food for breakfast dinner is biscuits. This kid is not even five years old and can knock down the same number of biscuits as I do any day of the week. I tend to agree with Riley. There’s nothing like homemade biscuits with some grits, crisp bacon, jelly, and cheddar cheese. The biscuits are by far the star of the show.

One of the reasons Riley likes biscuits so much is that he almost always gets to help make them. Sometimes he just helps roll the dough and cut the biscuits. And then there are times when we let Riley get right into the mixing process. And he LOVES this part of making biscuits. What we end up eating is Four Year Old Biscuits.

Here is how a four year old makes biscuits, with a very small amount of assistance and close supervision of course.

Before you begin: Preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.

Step 1. Add 2 cups of all purpose flour to a large mixing bowl

Step 2. Add approximately 1/3 cup of vegetable shortening and pinch into small pieces. (Dad helps)

Step 3. Add 2/3 cup of low fat butter milk.

Step 4. Cut loose your your four year old to mix these three simple ingredients together.

Do you think we were having fun at this point?

Step 5. Kneed the dough into a ball and sprinkle with some excess flour. Sprinkle some flour on the counter as well. (Dad helps)

Step 6. Roll the dough out until it is approximately 1/4 to 3/8 inch thick. (Thickness depends on how thick you want your biscuits.

Step 7. Use your favorite cookie cutters to shape your biscuits. A floured rim drinking glass will work too.

Step 8. Place the fun shaped biscuits onto a baking stone and bake at 450 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until they are golden brown on the outside. I like to bake them even a little longer to get a good crisp outside shell.

Click for a larger view of these yummy four year old biscuits.

Now you are ready to feed the biscuits to the four year old. Enjoy!!!

Our family embarked on a new challenge this Christmas season. We constructed our first gingerbread masterpiece. There are a ton of people doing gingerbread houses. Houses are great, but it is the trains that excite our boys. My wife found the detailed plans for this gingerbread train in Familyfun Magazine.

UPDATE: We plan to do it again. We hope to build a bigger and better train this year.

Below are the results of our first attempt at following the FamilyFun plan for building a train. I will provide pictures that tells the story much better than my words. You can click on any of the images for a larger copy.

Get all the right stuff first!

Find a professional rolling pin operator.

Cut out the dough using the printable templates from FamilyFun.com. We used card stock for durability.

Gingerbread Dough Ready for the Oven

Gingerbread Dough after the Oven

Trim the gingerbread dough while it is warm.

Here Riley is using frosting to glue together graham crackers that were used for edible support.

Always use a professional decorating team.

Make sure the decorating team has some fun.

Applying the finishing touches to the Gingerbread Train.

The finished product.

A close up of the train cars.

A last look at our version of the Gingerbread Train.

We spent a total of three days building this train. That was two weekend afternoons of dough preparation and baking. We then spent about three hours on a Monday evening assembling and decorating the train.

Oh…We have been asked several times already about the snow. The snow is just a dusting of coconut shavings.

You can see another picture of this train on my main blog The Land of Ozz. If you would rather build a gingerbread house then you need to check out Simply Recipes: How to Make a Gingerbread House.