Oatmeal Biscuits; Bunny Slayer no more

The continuing Saga of Sedi, the (former) Bunny Slayer

Sedi, the German Shepherd, jumped out of the car on the way to the mountains.

She had an unplanned sit…. And couldn’t get up.

Other than hold her tail up so she could pee, there was nothing we could do – poor old girl.

We lifted her into the back of the truck, told Emma the big white dog, not to sit on her and hoped for the best.

She still couldn’t stand when we got there.  We had to get the neighbors and a blanket and carry her through the village to
get to the upper level of the house to get her inside.

Naturally she bit the nice neighbors.  Poor girl.  She was so
scared.

She finally was up and walking carefully the next day.

I’m not sure if she felt badly that she couldn’t play with the big dogs or was relieved to not have to go out with them.

This is what it looked like when one whispered ‘walkies’….

That’s little Sedi, off to the upper right, trying to stay out of the way.

Just for good measure, there was another member of the clan that met us at the door for all walks.

This is the newest, youngest member, just a year old on Christmas day.

Isn’t she pretty?  They’re looking at something over the side of the road.

There was still a few patches of snow, but it had rained for 2 days so most of it was gone.

Of course the rain caused a small rock slide so the road to the upper part of the village was closed.

This is the last corner, before we get to our friend’s house.

There are only a few guard rails, in strategic spots.  If there were guard rails all over there’d be no place to push the snow (duh!)

One new thing – see the little green sign?

Since we were there last year, the walking path has been signposted and the trail marked with the usual painted yellow stripes on the trees and rocks.

The walking trail goes down to the left – you can see the green sign; and a bit further on it splits, you can just see 2 yellow signs.  The road is on the right – in case you didn’t recognize it.

You know, now that I see the photos, and what good condition the road is in (this is a 2-way road, BTW) I don’t know what I was worried about.

As to parking….

With the upper road closed, it was wherever one could squeeze a car in….

We had lots of lovely Catalan food,good wine from the Ribera del Duero, and some nice walks….

More about all that later.  For now, it’s a cold, dark, rainy/snowy soup day.

And what goes better with soup than biscuits.

For those of you who don’t know and / or don’t bake: Baking powder biscuits are extremely easy to make, they are light and wonderful eaten with melted butter while still hot
from the oven.
They resemble hockey pucks the next day so don’t bother
to save the leftovers…
Although you could crumble them and serve them
with sausage gravy for breakfast…

The trick to tender biscuits – handle the dough as little as possible.

Oatmeal Biscuits

3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup oatmeal
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sugar
2 tbs butter (chilled is best)
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice and enough milk to equal 1/2 cup    let stand 5 – 10 minutes; you are making sour milk – you may not use all of it.   Oh, and you can’t ‘sour’ long-life milk.

Combine lemon juice and milk and set aside to sour.
Put all dry ingredients into bowl. Add butter and cut in with pastry cutter, fork or 2 knives. The idea is to get the butter and flour mixed so that it looks like tiny pebbles or small peas. Add half the milk and stir lightly and briefly until just sort of combined. Add the a bit more milk until you get it to sort of stay together. (The way to make light biscuits is a minimum of handling – trust me, it works.)
Scoop dough out onto a heavily floured surface – any clean counter top or table will work. Knead lightly 5 – 7 times – that is: press it together lightly, turn it over and do it again, folding it over on itself as you turn it. It’s not going to look well mixed or smooth like bread dough.
Rub flour on a rolling pin and lightly roll dough out to 3/4 inch (1.25 cm) thickness. Try to get it square shaped. Instead of the usual circles cut the dough into 2 – 2.5 inch (5 – 6cm) squares. This makes all of the biscuits from one rolling; less handling = lighter biscuits.
Put biscuits on a baking sheet and bake for 10 – 12 minutes in 450F (225C) oven or until lightly browned. Remove and serve immediately.