Biscuits & Gravy

If you've never had biscuits & gravy, it's time.

I didn't grow up eating this southern staple. No, I learned of it's existence when I was in my early-20s visiting folks in Pennsylvania. A stop at Cracker Barrel along the way was my introduction into the world of creamy sausage-filled gravy over hot buttermilk biscuits.

I was hooked.



And if you can learn to make it for yourself, it will work wonders in your life. It can even find you a husband.

I kid you not. I met my husband because of biscuits and gravy. Oh, yes, it's true!

The Petty Officer who came to my office every Tuesday at Naval Air Station Key West to collect recyclables was a southern boy from Alabama. We'd known each other for a year or so already, but had only just started flirting. Of course my conversations always turn to food eventually, and he made a statement that I'll never forget.

"No Yankee girl can make good biscuits and gravy."

Oh, that got my dander up! So I invited him to my house for a dinner of biscuits and gravy. Show up he did--and he brought along his roommate, my Mr.W.

So ladies, if you're single, learn how to make biscuits and gravy. It's okay if the biscuits are canned--it's the gravy that he'll ask for again and again. I promise.


Southern-Style Sausage Gravy
serves 4

1 pound roll pork breakfast sausage, any kind desired (some people like it hot; I like regular)
5 to 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
about 4 cups milk
salt and pepper

Fry sausage in a large dutch oven until browned; remove with a slotted spoon to a paper-towel lined plate.

Measure the fat remaining in your pan; you want 5 tablespoons. If you don't have that much (I only usually come up with around 3), add butter to make up the difference. Stir in flour to make a thick paste. The rule for milk gravy is 1 T fat : 1 T flour : 1 cup milk, but I just eyeball it.

Add milk a cup at a time, stirring in completely before the next, until desired consistency is reached. Return sausage to pan and taste; season with salt and pepper as needed.

Serve hot over buttermilk biscuits.

Sausage-Potato Soup

We've been guaranteed a white Christmas. This photo was from 7am today.


It snowed Friday. Saturday we had a bit of a reprieve--long enough to get shoveled out and do some final Christmas shopping. Then came more snow overnight and through Sunday. Church services were canceled due to snowy, icy, unplowed roads. As you can see, it's still snowing.

With all this chill, most people are staying home, snug in their warm houses. We've been eating very simply, keeping in mind the feast that's to come on Christmas Eve. This was our favorite this snowy weekend--especially while we watched the Falcons win against the Minnesota Vikings: Sausage-Potato Soup.


Made from a humble tube of breakfast sausage, invented to use up some on-hand ingredients instead of braving the weather to run to the market, this soup really satisfied us in-between shoveling sessions.

And we've been doing a lot of that.

It's guaranteed to warm you up, help blood glucose levels (the exercise from snow removal can drop sugar quickly) and get some healthy veg all at the same time. It's low-fuss, no-nonsense, and takes about 30 minutes to put together in only one pot, providing you already have some cooked sausage on-hand.

You could use any sausage or ground meat/poultry for this soup, according to what you have available and taste preferences.


Sausage-Potato Soup
makes about 6 cups prepared soup

about 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1/4 cup chopped carrot
1 pound breakfast sausage, cooked in advance and chilled to remove extra solidified fat
3-5 waxy potatoes, peeled and sliced about 1/4-inch thick (or as desired)
2 cups chicken broth
4 cups water
salt, pepper, garlic powder and red pepper flakes, as desired
1 cup cooked white beans (optional)
1 cup chopped frozen spinach

In a large soup pot, saute onion and carrots in olive oil until onion is soft. Add cooked sausage, potatoes, chicken broth and water with a good pinch of salt. Simmer, covered, until potatoes are tender (about 10 minutes, depending on how large you cut the potatoes). Keep in mind that your sausage might be salty, so don't oversalt.

Taste broth and check for seasoning; season with salt, pepper and red pepper flake as desired. I used a sprinkling of black pepper, about 2 teaspoons of garlic powder and a tablespoon of red pepper flake for added kick.

Stir in cooked white beans and frozen spinach. Heat another 5 minutes or until warmed through. Serve steaming hot in mugs with a piece of crusty italian bread for sopping.

Delicious.

Greens, Beans and Sausage Soup

Remember the greens I made?

I had a lot leftover, after only consuming what went on our hamburgers, so I decided to make soup out of them. This is another typical dish from my hometown that I enjoyed growing up.



Greens, Beans and Sausage Soup
makes 4 servings

olive oil
5-6 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 15-ounce can cannelini beans (or other white beans of choice)
1 cup water
1 cup chicken stock or broth
3-4 cups cooked leftover italian greens
1/2 pound medium italian sausage, without casings, shaped into small meatballs

In a soup pot, saute garlic in olive oil over a medium flame for about 30 seconds, or until fragrant. Add beans, water, stock and leftover greens and cover. Bring to a simmer and reduce heat to low.

Add sausage and simmer, covered, for 15-20 minutes or until sausage is cooked through, stirring occasionally.

Serve piping hot with bread for sopping up the delicious liquid.



This recipe is perfect for altering. Add other vegetables you may have on hand, cooked small pasta or even potatoes to this warming soup. Perfect for any time of year, and certainly very quick to prepare!

TGIR... and a Sausage Supper

Thank God It's Raining!



It has been disgustingly hot over the last few days here in Central New York. And I mean hot. 90 degrees (Fahrenheit) in the house hot.

And that means too hot to eat, much less cook.

But it's been raining today. And thank goodness, because it's cooling things off nicely--inside and out. It's amazing how creative one can be when you want that cool breeze to come inside, sans water, of course.

Thundercat is frantically bouncing from window to window to make sure she's not missing a thing. The life of calico cat ownership, I suppose.

Today's supper began with a desire to heat the kitchen as little as possible, and to achieve a grilled outdoors flavor without actually grilling outdoors.

It's not as difficult as it sounds.

I use a grill topper pan right on the stove. You know the ones. Sometimes they're made of wire mesh, other times they're black metal with lots of holes. They allow you to grill veggies without them falling into your bbq fire.

These pans work great on top of the stove, both for grilling bread and vegetables. (Anything else will drip too much and make a mess on your stove.) I don't have a hard-and-fast recipe, but I'll share my method with you.

I grilled a sliced yellow onion, a quartered green pepper, several quartered mushrooms, and a sliced eggplant (all the vegetables were lightly brushed with olive oil before cooking). This was all done in stages, and as each veg was lightly charred and tender, they were transferred to a saucepan.

I also pan fried about a half-pound ring of sweet italian sausage, cut into chunks (casing left on), which was also transferred to the saucepan after browning, followed by one 8-ounce can of tomato sauce. (And here is where you can get creative--add garlic, herbs, hot pepper flake, or anything you wish. Watch the salt, though--that sausage tends to be salty!) The lid went on and the whole deal simmered for about 30 minutes over low heat.

Wow! The veggies softened further--the eggplant fell right apart, which is really best here so that Mr.W won't know what he's eating--and melted right into that tomato sauce. We ate the whole deal with italian bread for sopping. (It could also be served over your favorite pasta, along with some yummy melted mozzarella or provolone cheese.)

It is a perfect hot-weather meal--easy fix on the stove that didn't really heat up the kitchen at all, made early in the day and reheated in the microwave at dinnertime, served with a nice chunk of italian bread. Yum!