{Happy Birthday Jeff}

Jeff doesn't like celebrating his birthday. We're working on it. Last year there was a mandatory surprise party that marked his first birthday married to an awesome woman. This year he got to spend his birthday in China. While there aren't whole lot of people here to help me force this man into celebration, I did manage to make the morning noteworthy with some home-made biscuits and gravy from scratch.* We've come so far with cooking in China with the meager instruments we have. I'm super proud.

Happy Birthday Jeff!
-Ashley

*Jeff helped with the gravy. He's just better at it than I am.

Awesome Super Easy Recipe For Biscuits

Ingredients
2 cups All Purpose Flour (An entire bag of flour costs less than 1 can of biscuits, fyi.)
1 Tbs baking powder (The stuff in the white can, not the stuff in the orange box that you can also brush your teeth with or add in with your laundry detergent...pro-tips!)
1 Tsp salt
1 Tbs granulated sugar (That's the stuff you put in your coffee, not the stuff you find on doughnuts. Mmmm....doughnuts.)
1/3 cup of shortening (Use margarine. It's cheap and you don't have to worry about accidentally buying lard...which would work, but your Hebrew and Muslim friends couldn't join you for breakfast.)
1 cup of milk (If you use one of the non-milks like soy or almond, this recipe is vegan. But, I guess if you're vegan you know that already. Carry on.)

Directions
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. I know the packaged biscuits only say 375, but that's because their chemical additives make them weak!
In a large-ish bowl (The one you use to make cookies in should be fine. You don't make cookies from scratch? Well, that's a discussion for another day. Also, your family doesn't love you as much as they could.*) mix together all the dry ingredients. Cut in the margarine. That means to cut up the margarine into cute little square pats and put them into the bowl. Then, mix in the margarine (I've found hands work best for this...but when do they not?) until what's in the bowl resembles coarse meal. Gradually stir in the milk until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. If your dough seems too sticky, add a tablespoon or two more flour. If it's too dry, add more milk.
Turn out the dough onto a floured surface (like your counter top, or a large cutting board placed on top of your counter top). Knead the dough. You don't want to over work it. Just until there are no sticky parts. Roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness. Use a round cookie cutter (or the rim of a glass if you're cool like me) to punch out the biscuits. Or, you could just pull off a little less than a handful and call them drop biscuits, if presentation means nothing to you.
Place the cut outs onto a greased cookie pan. Place in the oven for 13 to 15 minutes, or until the tops and edges start to brown.