Girls, Guns and Twain (plus biscuits)

I recently started a "dinner club" that includes my girls and the girl next door. So here's their first shot at making dinner all by themselves. Chips and salsa (okay, they didn't make that part), biscuits, chuckwagon beans, broccoli and garlic, peach pie.

And if you couldn't tell, it was Western themed. I read some excerpts from Mark Twain's book Roughin' It and they were in hysterics. Their favorite quotes:

• from a story about a gun called an 'Allen'... "If she didn't get what she went after, she would fetch something else. And so she did. She went after a deuce of spades nailed against a tree, once, and fetched a mule standing about thirty yards to the left of it."

• from a story about their ride in the stagecoach: "Every time we avalanched from one end of the stage to the other, the unabridged dictionary would come too; and every time it came it damaged somebody. On trip it 'barked' the secretary's elbow; the next trip it hurt me in the stomach, and the third it tilted Bemis's nose up till he could look down his nostrils— he said. The pistols and coin soon settled to the bottom, but the pipes, pipe stems, tobacco, and canteens clattered and floundered after the dictionary every time it made an assault on us, and aided and abetted the book by spilling tobacco in our eyes, and water down our backs....Still, all things considered, it was a very comfortable night."

Who knew... girls would like guns and Twain? (But everybody likes biscuits.)


Chuckwagon Beans

Mix all and bake about 45 minutes or until thick, at 400 degrees...

• 1 medium onion, chopped (the only thing the girls refused to do!)
• 2 large cans pinto beans (25-28 oz), drained
• 1 cup water
• 3/4 cup ketchup
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1 sausage substitute, sliced into rounds (we like "Field Roast: Grain Meat Co.", Mexican Chipotle... hot & spicy!)


Whole Wheat Biscuits

Sift together...

• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 TB baking powder


Cut in until crumbly...

• 1/2 cup room temperature butter


Add and mix with fingers until dough holds together...

• 1 cup buttermilk (or yogurt)


Roll dough to about 1/2 inch thick. Cut circles with cookie cutter or mouth of a small cup. Bake at 400 degrees, about 12 minutes.

Dinner Club photo by L.L. Barkat.