Becky's Homemade Biscuits

The key to making great biscuits is having the right ingredients. I use White Lily Unbleached Self-rising flour, Crisco, and buttermilk. Since I have made thousands of biscuits in the last forty years, I do not measure anymore. However, for you I will give you the approximate amount for each ingredient.

Use one cup of flour to three tablespoons of shortening. For a larger batch just double the flour to two cups flour and six tablespoons shortening. Be sure to cut the shortening into the flour. (I just use two dinner knives or you could use a pastry cutter.) Slowly add enough buttermilk to moisten the flour and shortening. Stir until all the flour and buttermilk is mixed. Do not get it too wet. Sprinkle flour on a board and pour the dough out. Sprinkle a little more flour on top and work into a ball with
your hands. Roll it out to about three quarters of an inch thick. Next cut out your biscuits. I use a drinking glass to cut out the biscuits because it has a larger diameter and makes a thicker biscuit. Bake at 375-400 degrees depending on your oven until golden brown.

Survival Cooking

Recently we had several power outages reminding us to get prepared for the inevitable loss of electricity that occurs in the country. We have several propane lanterns and stoves for providing light and cooking food. Baking however poses a slightly different problem. We have two different methods we use to bake in our fireplace. The tried and true method for hundreds of years is the cast iron Dutch over (pictured on the left) and our other method is the high tech cardboard box covered with heavy duty aluminum foil better knows as a reflector oven.

Using the Dutch oven method, we placed the biscuits in a round pan and put them on a trivet in the Dutch oven. We then shoveled out some of the coals and placed the Dutch oven over the coals. Next we placed several scopes of hot coals on the top of lid. The lid has a rim that holds the coals in place.

 You can check the bread by lifting the lid with a tool made by a blacksmith. This tool is specially designed just for lifting the lid without getting burned. Making the biscuits with this method took about 32 minutes.

Here you see the results of using the reflector oven. We placed the open front of the box toward the fire. The heat can be controlled by moving the box closer or further away from the fire. We did elevate the pan on a trivet so heat could circulate underneath. We found it necessary to do this in 1993 when we had a huge snowstorm and was out of power for eight days.  By trial and error we found that elevating the pan created more even cooking. During the snowstorm we had biscuits every morning as well as homemade cakes. The reflector works especially well with a fireplace because the heat is reflected forward. If used at a campfire, it will probably take longer to cook.

Here are the two pans of biscuits we cooked. The reflector oven took a few minutes more because we did not have a large bed of coals. In bad weather our fireplace burns constantly and has a better bed of hot coals, thus reducing cooking time. You really cannot tell the difference between the two. Both methods did the job in almost the same time as an electric oven. So when bad weather hits, either method will keep you in bread, cakes, and pies.

Crockpot Yogurt

You will need milk (whole or low fat), powdered milk, crockpot, food thermometer, whisk or electric mixer, and several tablespoons of plain yogurt with active cultures. (Once you make the yogurt, you can reserve some of it to inoculate your next batch.) I use a one quart crockpot but have used a larger one.

Using a whisk or electric mixer, mix the milk with one half package of powdered milk in a bowl. The powdered milk I buy comes in 3 and 3/4  cup packages.When thoroughly mixed put the mixture in your crockpot and turn it on.

You will heat the mixture until it reaches 180 degrees. This may take several hours depending on your crockpot. Once it reaches 180 degrees, turn off the crockpot (leave on the lid) and allow to cool. At this time remove your plain yogurt from the refrigerator and leave on the counter until it reaches room temperature. Let the mixture in your crockpot cool to 120 degrees. When the temperature of the milk mixture reaches 120 degrees, add 2-3 tablespoons of the plain yogurt and whisk.

Now put the lid on the crockpot and cover in several layers of towels. This allows the mixture of cool very slowly. Leave 8-12 hours undisturbed.

Now you have fresh yogurt with active bacterial cultures. Store in the refrigerator. After several days you may have some whey separate from the solids. Just pour the liquid off. When you are ready to eat, add fresh fruit and honey. Be sure to save several tablespoons for your next recipe.

Riding The Ferry

Before the John Snodgrass Bridge was completed in 1958, people living across the river in the valley and on Sand Mountain only had access to Stevenson by crossing the Caperton Ferry.
Art Williams and Jim Payne were school bus drivers that would pick up the valley students and take them to the ferry crossing. All the students would get off the bus and stand on the ferry in rain, sleet, snow, or sun to make the 10-15 minute ride across the Tennessee River. On the other side of the river another bus would be waiting to take us to the school. Never did a child fall into the river. Imagine today's parents allowing students to ride the ferry (without life jackets) twice a day to school.

For any emergencies after dark, the ferryman had to be awakened to get people across the river.
The last ferryman was Gander Owens. He lived in a house next to the ferry crossing so he would available 24/7.

Sunflowers for the birds

Raising sunflowers for the winter feeding of birds is easy and simple. Plant the sunflowers in full sunlight in the spring and fertilize with time-released fertilizer. The blooms can be enjoyed all summer and the dried heads harvested in the fall. We let the seeds mature and remove the head before  the seeds begin to fall off. After they are dried, place them in a plastic container to keep out mice and insects. When winter arrives, simply take out a head and place out for the birds. They will come and pick out the seeds. When they finish with one head just put out another one.

The native sunflower is somewhat smaller than the more familiar cultivated variety. The Common Sunflower was used by the Indians for flour. They made bread from the ground seeds and used the oil for cooking and grooming their hair.

You may want to harvest the sunflower seeds for yourself but be prepared to spend some time hulling the seeds. The nut meat is an excellent source of Vitamin E which is a very important fat-soluble antioxidant. They are also a good source of magnesium and selenium.

Another Battle

It appears raccoons have been reconnoitering our corn patch waiting for exactly the right time to invade- when the ears of corn are perfectly formed. From past experience we knew to be ready. As you can see in the pictures we were not quite successful. Our corn was planted inside a 6 foot tall fences guarded with several different kinds of animal traps. We used marshmallows for bait, but the sweet corn was more appetizing to the coons.

When they got in the field they proceeded to tear down a stalk of corn, pulled the shucks apart exposing the corn, and took a few bites off the ear. They then moved on to the next. Much of the ear was not eaten but wasted.

Raccoons are omnivores- eating both plants and animals. They will eat fruit, acorns, crayfish, insects, rodents, fish, young rabbits, turtles, garbage, birds and eggs. However, their absolute favorite is corn and grapes. They adapt and co-exist with humans often making them a nuisance and health concern as they often carry rabies. The wetlands adjacent to our property are a prime habitat for raccoons, and we are plagued with them every year. They not only get in the raid the corn, they will get in the chicken pen and kill hens. They will eat the entire chicken usually killing only 1 or 2 at a time.

We are always looking into other ways to deal with them. One very effective method will be to electrify the fence. That will be a future project. When you live as we do, there are always daily battles with nature. Nature wins more than we would  like.

Yucca Valley

In Alabama this plant is called the Yucca plant. It is also called Spanish Bayonet (Yucca Smalliana),  and you may have even heard it called Beargrass. You can see the abundant creamy white flowers 1 to 1 1/2 inches in diameter blooming from May to June. It also the namesake for the Valley in which we live.

The yucca plant was the inspiration for the naming of Yucca Valley, AL on the south side of the Tennessee River near the present town of Stevenson. Yucca Valley is a 7-8 miles long and a mile wide at its widest point. It runs parallel to the Tennessee River and along the base of Sand Mountain. ending at a TVA lake called Raccoon Creek.

The valley was first settled by the Chickamauga band of the Cherokee Indians during the latter part of the seventeen hundreds. This valley made up part of what is called "Crow Town" by the Cherokees. The Indians in the valley were hostile to the American settlers coming into the area. The power of the Chickamauga's was broken by the Sevier and Campbell expeditions in 1782. At that time the population of the valley was about 1,000 warriors. My ancestor, Doublehead, continued to fight the white encroachment until the 1800's. We will more on Doublehead in a later blog.

The McCoy's moved to Yucca Valley in 1830 and intermarried with the Cherokees. We don't know exactly when the name, "Yucca", became accepted, but we have letters with the postmark of Yucca, AL in 1851. The last post office in Yucca Valley was closed in November 1944 and moved to Fabius, AL. We later received our mail from the Stevenson, AL post office.