Jalapeño Cheddar Biscuits

Olivia moved into the BYU dorms this week. We carried boxes up three flights of stairs in eighty-five-degree heat and I had to keep telling myself the sweat was sweat and not anything else. Her roommate is from Idaho, polite, organized — Olivia in a different font. I helped her hang the white-board calendar above her desk. I helped her stock the mini-fridge. I left her a dozen labeled freezer bags of soup and chili and a printed list of Sunday-prep tips she did not ask for. She hugged me in the parking lot. She said, 'Mom, I'll be fine.' I said, 'I know.' I knew. I cried in the car anyway.

It rained Tuesday morning and I took it personally, which is unfair to weather but accurate to my mood. The week was a fall week, the kind where the light through the kitchen window arrives at a particular angle and the freezer hums in a different register depending on the temperature in the garage. I made notes in my prep notebook on Sunday afternoon, the way I always do: meal name, ingredient list, cost per serving, prep time, freezer instructions. Twenty-eight bags. Two hours and eleven minutes. A little slow this week, by my standards, but Brandon was helping and the conversation was good, and I have learned, slowly and against my own grain, that the conversation is sometimes the point and the time is sometimes a courtesy I extend to my husband for being willing to chop onions on a Sunday afternoon.

The children are doing what they do, which is the central report of every week of my adult life. Ethan, 20, is in the Philippines on his mission. He sends emails on Mondays. I read them on Mondays. The day is now structured around his email. Olivia is 18, at BYU studying elementary education — the path she chose at age seven and has not deviated from once. Mason, 15, is in Brazil on his mission. His weekly emails are short and full of jokes. He does not write much about the work. He writes about the food. Lily is 14, in high school, asking the kind of questions in Sunday School that make the teachers uncomfortable, which I find difficult and also, secretly, admirable. Noah is 11, the comedian, the performer — the kid who does an impression of my disappointed face in front of company, and gets away with it. That is the family report. I do not have a system for these reports. I just listen and remember and call back when I said I would call back, which is most of the time and not all of the time, and the difference between most and all is the territory of motherhood.

I do not preach in this blog. I never have. My faith is in here the way air is in a room — invisible, essential, not discussed. I am still a Latter-day Saint. I am also a woman who has sat in front of a casket the size of a bread box. I do not see those two things as contradictions, but I do not pretend they sit easily together either. The bench in the chapel where I sit on Sunday is the same bench. The woman is not. The faith makes room for the woman. That is what I have learned to ask of it.

The recipe of the week was Denise's rolls, which I have made some specific number of times in my life and have refined to a system that I now hand to other people in printed form. The version I made this week fed eight, cost under fifteen dollars, and required twenty-six minutes of active prep, which is within my requirements and not a coincidence. I taught a freezer meal class this week and someone cried at the cost-per-serving column on the handout. I took the cry as a compliment. I have stopped explaining the freezer-meal philosophy to people who already follow my work, and I have stopped apologizing for it to people who do not. The philosophy is simple: tomorrow is coming whether you are ready or not. You can either be ready or not. I pick ready.

The week ends the way most of them do — with a labeled bag, a tomorrow, a kitchen light I leave on for no one in particular, and a quiet that holds.

I said the recipe of the week was Denise’s rolls, and that is true, but what I made Sunday afternoon while Brandon chopped and the kitchen filled with the particular kind of quiet that follows a hard week — what I made for us, for the table that still had people sitting at it — were these biscuits. They are not gentle. They have heat and salt and something to say. That felt right. The week had heat and salt and something to say, and I needed a recipe that could hold that without apologizing for it.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 14 min | Total Time: 29 min | Servings: 12 biscuits

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 1/4 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
2 jalapeños, seeded and finely diced (about 3 tablespoons)
3/4 cup cold whole milk or buttermilk
1 tablespoon butter, melted (for brushing)
Flaky sea salt, for topping (optional)

Instructions

Preheat. Heat oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Mix dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, kosher salt, garlic powder, and cayenne until combined.
Cut in butter. Add cold butter cubes to the flour mixture. Using your fingertips or a pastry cutter, work the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with some pea-sized pieces remaining. Do not overwork.
Add cheese and jalapeños. Toss in the shredded cheddar and diced jalapeños, stirring to distribute evenly through the flour mixture.
Add milk. Pour in the cold milk all at once and stir with a fork just until a shaggy dough comes together. Stop as soon as no dry flour remains — the dough will look rough, and that is correct.
Shape biscuits. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and pat gently to 3/4-inch thickness. Cut into rounds with a 2 1/2-inch biscuit cutter, pressing straight down without twisting. Re-pat scraps once to cut remaining biscuits.
Bake. Arrange biscuits on the prepared sheet with sides just touching for soft edges, or spaced 1 inch apart for crispier sides. Bake 12–14 minutes, until tops are golden and biscuits are cooked through.
Finish. Brush hot biscuits with melted butter and sprinkle with flaky sea salt if using. Serve warm.

Freezer instructions: Cool completely, seal in labeled freezer bags in single layers, freeze up to 3 months. Reheat from frozen in a 350°F oven for 10–12 minutes, or wrap in a damp paper towel and microwave 45–60 seconds.

Nutrition (per serving)

Jalapeño Cheddar Biscuits — The Rolls I Made the Week She Left for College