Well, sure I can, what shall I make, besides the obligatory pot of coffee for me? Ashley suggested sausage gravy and biscuits.

Now, this is White Cloud, and the only grocery store doesn't open until 9 am on Sunday, so I trot out to the freezer, grab a package of pork steak and prepare to make some breakfast sausage.

Thaw the pork and cut it into cubes. Be sure to remove the gristle and cartilege...

Toss it into the food processor and pulse it. Don't just grind, not even if you're half asleep, or you'll have pork steak paste...

Add seasonings and mix well. I used sage, marjoram, cayenne, salt, black pepper, a little brown sugar.

Put a small piece in a hot skillet and cook, then taste and adjust seasonings. Mine needed a LOT more black pepper, a little more cayenne. I wish I could take out a bit of brown sugar, but that's impossible...

Make 4 sausage patties and the rest goes into the skillet with flour and milk for creamy sausage gravy:

OK, that's all under control, start the biscuits, the oven has been preheating while the sausage is being made. Keep the butter cold and be sure to use buttermilk, it makes the best biscuits. Don't handle the dough too much, turn it out onto the counter and bring it together. Don't knead it, just fold on top of itself, flatten, fold, flatten, fold again. Three times, Grandma told me that's what makes the flaky layers. It was too darned early to look for my round biscuit cutter so I took another lesson from Grandma and just cut the dough into squares:

Finally, it's done. No gravy over biscuits for me, I had a hot biscuit with butter, a farm fresh egg and a sausage patty, along with that coffee.

So that was what was for breakfast. It would have been faster if the pork hadn't been frozen. The boyfriend was impressed, Ashley was not happy because she couldn't eat any of it, LOL.

Have I mentioned that I am so NOT a morning person?

Annie

If that had been one of my kids I would have smiled sweetly and gotten out the precooked bacon, scrambled some eggs, toasted some homemade bread and poured the coffee.

I'm tired just reading about your 2 hour breakfast.

How do they keep it crisp, since I'm only assuming that it has to be refrigerated?

Annie

I just made a french bagette tonight that had me folding the dough. When I made bisquits, I just kneaded as normal a few times. They are good, but that comment makes sense now about flaky biscuits. I am learning a lot in this forum.
tammy

I nuke 4 pieces for about 30 seconds. Crispy bacon.

The only bacon I really ever cook is the applewood smoked bacon from Wegman's but I can't find it any more.

I saw the pre-cooked bacon in the grocery a couple months ago. Stopped me dead in my tracks. I guess I just don't get it. What I saw was not refrigerated. it was in a vacuum pack.

What a great breakfast. Too bad Ashley wasn't able to enjoy that feast. I'm glad that she is feeling better though.

Tammy, give the folding method a try. You will be surprised how much more flaky your biscuits will be.

Ann

I figure if he's nice enough to work until 3 am, go home and catch a couple of hours of sleep and then drive 30 miles to check on Ashley, I'd make him breakfast.

Besides, he's one of the few guys that Ashley has dated that I actually like, that earns him a bit of extra cooking, LOL.

Annie

Beverly

Annie, glad to hear Ashley is going to live thru the wisdom teeth extraction. Sounds like a nice guy to come and check on her...

Nancy

I was pretty sure of that from Annie's original post. ;-)

Jim

Annie you are simply amazing! If Ashley does not keep this guy I want to be her next BF... even if just an "imaginary" BF.

: )
lyra

Michael/Lyra, I'll add you to the waiting list, but it's a long darned drive for breakfast. (grin)

Peppi, remember, we don't have a McDonald's, and two of the three restaurants here in town have closed, so that leaves Subway, which does not serve breakfast, the bakery which has donuts and pastries and the pizza place that opens at 10 am. Here on a Sunday morning the only thing open is the Wesco gas station and the churches, everything else is a half hour drive away.

I think I'm having that last sausage patty for lunch...

Annie

I'm very concerned about Ashley and I'd like to come over to make sure she's okay tomorrow. Giving you a heads up now so you can take some more sausage out of the freezer today and it won't take you two hours tomorrow to make my breakfast. See how considerate I am? ;)

Glad she's feeling better! You're a good mama.

Tamara

Annie

Tracey

I think the boyfriend will definitely think that Ashley is a keeper with a mom like you!

PS I always wondered what sausage gravy was and now I know. Thanks for posting the play by play!

SharonCb

My mother used to can sausage and I loved it. I think she just fried the sausage, put it in the jars and poured the grease over it. Did your Grandma do that?

jude

I'm afraid if I froze biscuits I'd eat way too many of them, at least this way I have to work for them, LOL. And I did have Italian sausage links in the freezer that we could have had, but they just aren't the same as breakfast sausage, at least not according to Ashley.

I do like red eye gravy but I'm the only one, again, I'm saved by the majority because I won't usually make it just for me. Elery doesn't like any gravy at all, so I can't use him as an excuse either!

I'll have to come to your house for breakfast, I guess, if I want red eye gravy.

SharonCB, I think sausage gravy is way over rated, I always liked the gravy better than Grandma made with diced bacon and the flour stirred into the bacon grease, then finished off with milk. No one else seems to agree with me on that either.

So they don't make biscuits and gravy there in Tenerife or in Canada? It must be specific to the U.S.?

Annie

I'm forever trying to perfect biscuits. Could you explain what you mean by turn them out and then layer? DO you combine the ingredients to make a dough, and then at the point when other people would roll them out and knead, just fold them over? Does it matter what shape the dough is in when you turn it out on the counter (dump out of a bowl or more like a log)? I know, lots of questions for what seems like a simple concept, but tall flaky biscuits are somewhat of a holy grail...

I love B&G and your's looks and sounds great to me Annie! I still need to take on homemade sausage one of these days..... I like ham steak, eggs, and red eye gravy too. Diner food all the way in these parts.

Does the new BF have a dog? Don't let them get one together.....LOL! Sorry, had to give both of you a hard
time on that one. I love Mr. Cooper!

David

I was going to write something funny, but the fact is, you continue to do wonderful, unselfish things for the people you love. And you make it look so easy. You continue to inspire me.
Jo (who has had a really rotten week, and could use one of your breakfasts).

I just dump the mixture out onto my floured counter and kind of bring it together into a ball of dough, it has to be wet enough to hold together but not so wet that it runs on the counter. I pat it out into a square about an inch thick, pick up one side of the dough and fold it in half, up over the top, kind of like I'm making a tart. I pat the dough out again to about an inch, fold in half the other way, pat it out to about an inch. I fold in half the third time, pat it out to about an inch thick and cut, then bake.

Fluffy layers of biscuits, just don't handle it too much when mixing it, and good luck. They all taste good hot with melted butter, no matter the flakey layers.

Annie

Rusty

You do cut it into the dry ingredients, right?

Rusty

Thanks for posting the pictures. I hope Ashley is feeling better by now, and I'm happy that she has a nice BF.

Lars

Rusty, I don't like shortening in most things, I have a couple of cookie recipes that "need" it because the texture just isn't right without it, but I seldom have any. I've been known to use lard too, if I have some on hand, but mostly the biscuits get made with butter.

I keep the butter very cold, cut it into small cubes and then work it into the flour with a very old fashioned hand held pastry cutter. Grandma used to use two knives and did literally "cut" the butter into the flour mixture. When I have "pea sized" bits of butter in my dry ingredients, then I add the wet stuff.

As you can see, I get light flakey biscuits with "layers" because the folding and minimal handling lets the cold pieces of butter stay intact and create those flakey layers.

David, the BF has a cat. He had it before he and Ashley started dating, thank goodness! Oh, and you are truly a smart a$$, that's why I love you. (grin)

Jo, I'm sorry you're having a bad week, you're welcome to breakfast with me any time you need it, even if it is only virtual.....

Annie

Beverly

I don't know what they are making in Canada now but I never heard of it when I lived there. I remember we made baking powder biscuits in Home Ec cooking classes when I was in high school and I think I even made a few at other times as a teen. Otherwise I have made scones from a recipe of my daughter Michelle, but they were sweet and never eaten with gravy.

I think the custom may have originated in USA, perhaps in the south?

Spanish breakfasts are more or less the continental type, with people taking coffee or cold chocolate milk with toast, croissants, or dunking plain Maria biscuits (galletas Maria) in their morning breakfast drink, sometimes a tea.

I've noticed many Germans here tend to eat a small bread roll with butter, sliced ham, cheese and coffee as breakfast.
They line up at the bakery every morning to buy their fresh rye bread rolls.

I'm still eating my diet breakfast every day of two mini slices of a yukky healthy bread from the pharmacy with slices of turkey breast ham and low fat york ham, with a disgusting healthy hot herbal infusion drink, also from the pharmacy. :-)

Pass me the biscuits and sausage gravy please!

SharonCb

I'm going to have to remember to use cold butter the next time I make biscuits. I have to admit that I love Popeye's biscuits, but who knows what's in them.

Lars

Beverly, I told you no one would agree with me on that, including Cooper, who has been eating sausage gravy for the last two days! It just doesn't "warm up" very well.

Lars, you're right, there has been gravy here for centuries, but the sausage gravy is, I think, a southern invention. Then again, it's basically a cream sauce kind of gravy, so who knows, it could be French after all.

Popeye's biscuits? I've never had one but I kind of like the ones from Kentucky Fried Chicken. The only ones I don't like are the ones that come in a can!

I do like them best hot, with melted butter and homemade jam or honey or sorghum molasses, more sweet than savory. That's probably why I like scones, it's the sweet.

Annie

I actually am a morning person and I would love to put together a breakfast like that, but only, and I mean ONLY, if I don't have anything else I need to do lol!!! If I'm going to do serious cooking like that, I like to plan the day to do cooking and that's it.

Here in Boston we don't have that tradition of biscuits and gravies - I never heard of sausage gravy before! What is it? Just a flour/milk gravy with the loose sausage meat mixed in?

You are good! If that was me, he would have gotten something like a cheese omelette and toast - something I could whip up in 10 minutes. You have one lucky family that you go to such lengths to cook for them!!

Lisa

At least it was Sunday, all I had on the schedule was farm chores, so I at least got to stay in my warm kitchen until late morning, before going out.

I keep telling my kids they are lucky they have such an awesome Mom and they just nod and say "yeah, yeah...". (grin)

Annie

Speaking of sweet, have you had biscuits with a little butter and topped with pure maple syrup? That is my hands-down favorite --- better than pancakes IMHO. If I had to choose a 'last meal,' a big plate of hot biscuits and syrup just might be it...