Cleaning out the house

Someone told me that the average household has enough food in their house to live off of for a week or two. It may not be food that you want to eat, but its there. On New Year's Day, I decided to inventory our deep freeze, lazy susan, pantry, fridge & normal freezer.

Lord do we have a lot of stuff, like 3 excel pages worth of food items. One of the many goals of 2009 is to spend money more wisely. So for January, I am trying to avoid the devil that is the grocery store, only going for milk, bread, eggs & fruit. I am also avoiding the grocery store I love & going to Wal-Mart. I hate going to Wal-Mart. Its so big & I hate having to walk around the whole freakin store to find one thing that isn't in a logical place. But, this will deter me from falling into the "Deals". I spent $40 this Sunday on items that should make it through the next two weeks. It will be a miracle if i can make it to February spending less than $100 at the store.

Since I spent like $200 on a baking sale on my last trip to the grocery store, I looked up some recipes for baked goods for breakfast. Saturday morning I woke up and made these cinnamon raisin biscuits. I got the recipe from a friend who had gotten it from a Cooking Light cookbook.

Cinnamon-Raisin Biscuits
Courtesy of Cooking Light

2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup chilled stick margarine, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup raisins
3/4 cup 1% low-fat milk
1 tbsp all purpose flour
1/2 cup sifted powdered sugar
1 tbsp 1% low-fat milk

Combine first 5 ingredients in a bowl; cut in margarine with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add raisins; toss well. Add 3/4 cup milk, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened.

Sprinkle 1 tbsp flour evenly over work surface. Turn dough out onto floured surface; knead 4 or 5 times. Roll dough to 1/2 inch thickness; cut into rounds with a 2/12-inch biscuit cutter. Place on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray, with sides slightly touching. Bake at 400 degrees for 13 to 14 minutes or until golden.

Combine powdered sugar and 1 tbsp milk; stir well. Drizzle over hot biscuits. Serve immediately. Yield; 1 dozen


These totally reminded me of the Hardee's Cinnamon Raisin Biscuits, but with far less fat. I was super excited b/c I got to use my pastry blender as well! Mine made more like 16 biscuits and I used a square cookie cutter instead of a circle. I may have doubled the icing, but hey! I had 4 extra biscuits to top!