Monday, August 3, 2009

Holy Moses, SOO busy.


We have been jam packed, full to the brim--with business. With school, work, weddings, dogs, and everything else in this life, summer clothes are now on clearance...which means summer is coming to an end.

I've been learning sooo much in school, and while I could impress you with my new fancy french terms, I'm just gonna show you how to make good ol' southern style biscuits and gravy. Paul and I aren't huge breakfast fans. Neither of us ever eat breakfast in the morning and neither of us are huge breakfast-for-dinner people. We have both recently discovered, however, that we share a love for biscuits and gravy--any day, any time. In college (the first time around) you could never, ever catch me up in time for breakfast (or class) during the week--but come Saturday brunch I could almost definitely be found in the dining room chowing on a HUGE plate of biscuits and gravy.

I've never really had any idea how to make gravy (this biscuits part doesn't seem so hard, especially when you're a fan of frozen bread/dough products) until last week at school when we started making sauces. I will now share with you, from my masterful, sauce-trained, culinary mind, step-by-step, picture-by-picture instructions on how to make some of the tastiest, most yummiest sausage gravy everrrr.



Start with the biscuits, get them baking.


Gather your sausage.

Throw it in a hot skillet, over med-high heat.

Mash it all up.

Keep on mashin'.

Until it gets nice and brown and yummy and golden and crispy. Drool.

Pull the sausage from the pan and set it aside, leaving the grease in the skillet.

I added butter to get a little more fat in the pan, my sausage didn't produce much grease. If you have greasy sausage, you may not need the butter. You'll need about 3 tablespoons of grease/fat.

Add 3 tablespoons on flour. We are now making a roux. (Oooh, fancy culinary term. A roux is fat and flour...a thickener..)

Whisk your flour into your grease until not clumpy (I don't have a non-wire-whisk...so I used a spatula...whatever works.)

I forgot to take pictures of a few steps...It gets a little hectic at this point. Slowly whisk in 3 cups of milk, then toss in the sausage. It will look a little thin, so let it sit for a bit to thicken...if it doesn't thicken up, mix more flour and melted butter then pour it in. (1 tablespoon of flour to 1 tablespoon of butter.)

Flavor with lots of salt and pepper (to taste.) (By the way, TT means "to taste"...not 2 tablespoons. People in my culinary lab did not know this.)


Tear open your biscuits and glop the gravy on top. Yum.


Drool.



If you like a recipe:

(This will make enough for about 6 biscuits)
6 biscuits
1 lb. ground sausage
3 cups of milk
3 tablespoons of flour
1 tablespoon of butter (you may need more or less depending on the fattiness of your sausage)
coarse salt
pepper

Brown sausage in medium skillet on med-high heat.
Remove sausage from skillet, leaving drippings in the pan.
Melt 1 tablespoon of butter into skillet.
Whisk 3 tablespoons of flour into melted fat until not lumpy.
Slowly add 3 cups of milk into skillet.
Add sausage into gravy.
Let thicken for 5-7 minutes, serve over biscuits.
(Again, if it doesn't get thick after this time--mix 1 tablespoon of melted butter and 1 tablespoon of flour, then pour into gravy and whisk until not clumpy. Let thicken again. Continue to do this until desired thickness is reached.)


The end.


Heaven on a plate.