Time for That Cookin'!

Last night I promised some new cooking adventure, and I aim to please.  :)

So it came up for me to cook something "American". And it was also suggested that I do sausage gravy and biscuits. Now - despite living most of my life in Tennessee, I had never tried to make them. I know, it's a failing on my part, but I had always heard that it was difficult to make.

But I promised I'd try, and so I did. Hit the Internet, as usual, and came up with recipes that were similar in their ingredients and prep time. There were variations, of course, so I picked the one that looked the best to me.

The test batch was - a hit! An unqualified success. And the stuff I prepared for my classes? Well, let's just say I was beating people off with a stick. I'll take that as a compliment.

In other words - here are the recipes I used, along with what I had to do to adapt. As all good cooks know, it can take a bit of tweaking to make something work for you.

7 Up Biscuits

Here is one version of the recipe. They are all pretty much the same. I didn't change a thing about it, but I will say that all the yields on all the versions I looked at were really small. I ended up with almost twice as many biscuits as any of them said I'd get.

But here's a picture of a pan of 'em. They are yummy, for sure!




Sausage Gravy

There are a gazillion versions of this, but none of them seemed all that difficult. Click Here for the one I started with, but I did have to make a few adjustments.

First - I did not realize sausage came in two sizes. So I got the 16 oz. size. When I realized that, I ended up with a couple other slight adjustments.

Second - I swear to you, my sausage was not leaving grease in the pan. It wasn't - none! So, well... you need the drippings to make the gravy with. To make up for it, I added a couple of glugs of canola oil as I made it. No joke - *no* drippings!

Third - One of the reviews said they didn't have whole milk (and neither did I). So I added probably a couple of Tablespoons of butter to make up for the extra sausage and 1% milk. I also used a heaping quarter cup of flour rather than an even one for the same reason.

Fourth - The salt I used was this pink stuff that you gotta grind. I have no idea how much of that and the pepper I put in. I just went along until it seemed right, haha!

Otherwise, I followed the directions just as the recipe says. I was making this for my classes so I ended up making three batches of the stuff, two at one time and one other. I made it in a large cast iron skillet (that was only big enough to double, hence the two different batches that were mixed).

Here's a picture of them all mixed together. It microwaves really well, trust me!




I know there's not a lot of pictures here, but they are what I have for now. Everything was really easy to make, though, so hopefully that will help if you decide to try this classic Southern dish. Really - it's easy!

:)