Lars, I thought I was the only person on earth that just cut square biscuits, other people think that's so odd but I find it easy and kind of comforting, they're more like Grandma's biscuits. I do the same thing with scones, or pat them round and make pie shaped wedges, I seldom cut anything round for some reason. Rusty, I don't like shortening in most things, I have a couple of cookie recipes that "need" it because the texture just isn't right without it, but I seldom have any. I've been known to use lard too, if I have some on hand, but mostly the biscuits get made with butter. I keep the butter very cold, cut it into small cubes and then work it into the flour with a very old fashioned hand held pastry cutter. Grandma used to use two knives and did literally "cut" the butter into the flour mixture. When I have "pea sized" bits of butter in my dry ingredients, then I add the wet stuff. As you can see, I get light flakey biscuits with "layers" because the folding and minimal handling lets the cold pieces of butter stay intact and create those flakey layers. David, the BF has a cat. He had it before he and Ashley started dating, thank goodness! Oh, and you are truly a smart a$$, that's why I love you. (grin) Jo, I'm sorry you're having a bad week, you're welcome to breakfast with me any time you need it, even if it is only virtual..... Annie

so frustrating...had to hit Verizon again to pay bill...they removed me from paper bill in error...then headed up to best buy thinking they had repaired my big computer...(not done) so ok... headed to wal mart. none of my special chai tea, none of the sugarfree candy we like...did pick up some pantry items...BUT! walked out into a downpour! by the time I got home, pulled a container of stew, and crawled into bed to warm up...but it was really good for the dreary day...we were luckier than some in the Detroit area...they had flooding!!

D'oh, I should have checked Cooking Forum, too! Oh, well, I'll remember next time. Thanks to Sophie's tip, I was able to crack the breast bone and get the bird to lay flat and symmetrical. It looked great going in and coming out. But ... eh, don't think I'll try that again. Contrary to everything I've read about the benefits of spatchcocking, it did not cook evenly. We checked temps in a few places and got readings that were at least 10 deg - and often more - apart. No idea what I did wrong. Instead of eating at 2:30, we sat down at nearly 4pm. It looked gorgeous and tasted good but it really messed with my T-day timeline. Thankfully, our good friends (more like family) were really good-natured about the delay (we'll just drink more wine!). Never did get any KAW pics, I was in crazy prep mode the whole time and forgot until we sat down to eat (finally!) and I didn't feel like getting up to take pics. Anyhoo, I'm going back to the way I used to make turkey using Emeril's Brined Turkey recipe. It's a bit of a pain to haul a big bird out of the brine and rinse it but it came out juicy and delicious every time. And on time! Oh, but the kitchen worked great! Love having an island with nothing but counter for prep and staging between oven and DR, etc.

So the gravy involved experimentation, yelling, throwing food out, and frenzied remaking. I had a little pork stock and a good amount of duck stock. I expected someone to bring some turkey drippings, and we had boxed chicken stock for an emergency. I thought it would be fun to make a few kinds of gravy. So I did something that made perfect sense to me. I put about 2 c of AP flour in a saucepan and browned it. It was fun, I got to do that rolling thing where you move the pan to get the contents to roll into a wave and thus mix. Okay, the kitchen got a little smoky but oh well. My idea, you see, was that I'd have a jar of this pre-browned flour on hand for future "instant" gravies and general thickening. Because sometimes you need a sauce thickened right away and don't have time to mix raw flour with a little of the liquid, whisk it smooth, add and cook until the floury taste is gone, and you don't want the texture of a cornstarch thickened sauce. Then I made the gravy for my low cooked deep fried pork cubes. I simply put the pork stock in a small saucepan, added butter and pork fat, then stirred in the pre-browned flour. It worked great: dissolved right away, no clumping, no further cooking of the flour needed, and easy to adjust the degree of thickness by adding a bit more pre-browned flour (let's call this PBF for short) because the thickness responded immediately. That was easy, I thought. Then SWMBO started, not yelling exactly, but loudly expressing her disappointment and astonishment that I had cooked the raw flour, which is Never Ever Done and Unheard Of. DD took a few minutes to comprehend what I had done, then joined in the vocalization of Great Dismay. Protesting, DD proceeded to make the duck stock with my PBF. And immediately claimed it was a disaster. I was busy frying confit duck breasts so I didn't see what she did. I think she may have used the PBF as if it was raw flour, starting the roux by cooking butter and flour. Maybe the PBF quickly became burned - since I didn't do any additional cooking of PBF during the actual gravy making, I am not sure how it would tolerate further cooking. I just don't know. Anyway she said the texture was gritty and the taste was burned, and that all the duck gravy had to be thrown out. Throwing out a pint of duck stock is not something that makes DD happy. She said so. In the end, she started all over with the Normal Sane Roux Method You Dummy and made gravy with the turkey drippings and chicken stock, and it was fine. The pork bites drizzled with gravy turned out to be very popular. So there. And I have a jar of PBF that I need to hide or label as something else, lest SWMBO or DD find it and throw it out.