A Night of Firsts

So last night the book club was a success and dinner was great. As it turned out everything we ate was a first. I'd never made just a plain roast before... it turned out fantastic. I'd never made Yorkshire pudding and I thought it turned out really good. Candi made a new cookie recipe...also tasty. Candi and Megan also whipped up some scones which were actually my favorite thing we ate. I think the only thing any of us made to eat that wasn't totally new was the gravy. (Which I'm glad for putting in a tight sealing tupperware because when I went out to the car this morning I found it sitting upside down on the seat of my car. I guess I didn't even notice I'd left in out there. Can you imagine how gross it'd have been if there had been old gravy soaking into my seat all night!) A special thanks to Megan for supplying the oven and fancy teacups!


Here are the recipes for all the down home goodness...
Yorkshire Pudding:
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups milk (I replaced 1/4cup with heavy cream since I used skim milk)
3 eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup beef fat rendered from roast

-First of all make sure you get a well marbled roast so there will be plenty of drippings. It also helps to cook it in a roasting pan.
-Stir together the flour, salt and milk with a wire whisk till smooth. Add eggs and whisk till smooth. Let batter sit for about an hour while roast finishes cooking.
-Strain the drippings from the roast. You can cook the batter in either a square baking dish and cut into squares or in individual muffin tins. I used 6 jumbo muffins cups and it was perfect.
-Divide the fat into the muffin tins, about two spoonfulls each and return to a 500 degree oven. Let the fat heat till bubbling and almost smoking.
-Remove from oven and add the batter quickly and return to the oven.
-Reduce the heat to 350 and bake for....I have no idea. Maybe half an hour? I think ours could have gone longer. It's supposed to be crispy on the outside.
-Serve Immediately as in right from the oven to the table.

This is what ours looked like


Candi- When you get the recipes for the other stuff you can just go in and edit this post and add them to the end of it. And hurry up with those scones!

Okay okay, here are the scones:

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ENGLISH SCONES
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1 1/2 c. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 c. sugar
1/2 c. butter
1/2 c. black currants, raisins or chopped dates
1 beaten egg
Milk

Sift dry ingredients together. Cut in butter until it forms
fine crumbs. Add fruit and mix well. Add beaten egg (saving
1 tablespoon to brush tops) and enough milk to form a soft
dough. Do not knead. Form into two equal balls on cookie
sheet and pat each into a 6 inch circle.

Score into 8 triangles each by pressing a large knife across
the circle like spokes of a wheel. Brush tops with remaining
egg. Do not separate. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or
until lightly brown. Delicious served with butter or jam.

We didn't add the raisins because we all thought that would be gross and the batter was very lumpy and sticky, but they came out alright. They were very good with honey.
This is pretty close to what they looked like only without the raisins.

The cookies are actually literary cookies from the mystery/cooking novels by Joanna Fluke
I don't exactly know which book this is from because I keep all the recipes in a folder.
Anyway they are called
Regency Ginger Crisps

3/4 cup melted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 large beaten egg
4 tablespoons molasses
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 1-4 cups flour (not sifted)
1/2 cup white sugar in a small bowl

Melt butter and mix in sugar. Let cool and then add eggs. Add soda, molasses, salt, and ginger. Stir it thoroughly. Add flour and mix in. chill the dough for at least 1 hour. Preheat oven to 375. Roll dough into walnut size balls, roll in the sugar. Place them on a greased cookie sheet and flatten with the spatula. Bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes. Cool on cookie sheets for 1 minute, then remove to rack.

(I don't add the salt because I use salted butter, and when the recipe says not sifted flour she means scoop, level, and dump, not scoop, dump, level, and dump.)

There you go