Cornmeal Drop Biscuits

 Yesterday, I decided to try my hand at making Texas Chili (you know, the kind with bite-sized pieces of beef and no beans?).  My inspiration was that I have been craving chili, but I know my husband doesn't actually care much for the ground beef/bean version.  A couple of years ago, when we were swimming in Roma tomatoes fresh from our garden, he made a big batch of Texas Chili and it was DIVINE.  The problem was, he did not use a recipe, nor did he record anything, nor can he remember really anything he put in it.  

When I saw the newest issue of Cooking Light, with it's recipe for Chili Con Carne (A.K.A Texas Chili), I thought I had hit the jackpot.  I mean I usually LOVE recipes out of cooking light.  Many of our family favorites have come straight from their pages.  I don't know WHAT happened but this recipe was TERRIBLE- totally bland without any real deapth of flavor!  Not to mention VERY time consuming and EXPENSIVE to make.  We were able to season it up enough to make it edible- no way was I just throwing that expensive pot of chili out.  By the time we were done though it was incredibly spicy and I had to make soup for the kids to eat.  

Enought about the bad chili, do you know what was good???  The Cornmeal Drop Biscuits that I made.  I do believe that they are the best conrbread recipe I have ever made.  My kids couldn't get enough of them either.  As an added bonus, unlike the Bad Chili, they are cheap and easy to make.  

Cornmeal Drop Biscuits   

1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour

3/4 c. fine yellow cornmeal

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

2 Tbsp. sugar

1 stick (1/2 c.) butter- the recipe calls for unsalted, but I went ahead and used salted and they turned out great

1 c. milk

Preheat the oven to 375*.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, set aside.  In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar.  Using a pastry blender (I don't own one of these, I always just use a fork and that works fine for me.) cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with a few larger clumps remaining.  

Pour in the milk; using a rubber spatula, fold milk into the dough, working in all directions and incorporating crumbs at the bottom of the bowl, until the bowl just comes together.  The dough will be slightly sticky.  DO NOT OVERMIX.  

With two large spoons, drop mounds of dough (about 1/3 c. each) about 1 1/2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet.  The origional recipe says this will make 10 biscuits, I made 12.

Bake, rotating the sheet halfway through, until the biscuits are golden, 15-20 minutes.  Slide the parchment paper and biscuits onto a wire rack to cool.

Recipe from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook