Thursday, March 3, 2011

Sausage Gravy & Biscuits



When a birthday comes to our house, the birthday boy or girl gets to choose their favorite dinner.  Recently, it was Miss Calamity's special day.  Being the consummate cowgirl, her dinner of choice was Sausage Gravy and Biscuits.

I didn't grow up making biscuits and gravy, but it was always a favorite on the rare occasions that we went out for breakfast.  I could tell the difference between the "real thing" and the canned goop from a mile away.  Try as I might, I could never figure out how to make good ol' fashioned sausage gravy.  I tried the little packets of sausage gravy mix in the spice aisle - eeww, yuck!  And then, one day, I happened to be at a friends house while she was making dinner.  She was making hamburger gravy, and I had never seen anything like it.  She browned the meat, added some butter, tossed a little flour over the top, stirred it in, added milk and walah - perfect hamburger gravy.  Inspired, I decided to try my own little experiment, but with sausage rather than hamburger.  It was an instant success!  I did make a change or two.  Instead of draining the grease, I left it in (for that great sausage flavor) and   also added some butter.  The results are consistently fabulous.

Here is our Miss Calamity's birthday dinner.....

Brown the sausage over medium
(or over a "slow" woodbox)
Add butter (about 1 cube per pound of sausage)
Sprinkle liberally with flour (I used about 3/4 Cup)
Stir the flour in (it will be quite thick and pasty)
Add milk (I used about 2 1/2 cups -
and then added more as it thickened)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Add some fried potatoes (in cast iron - of course)
And biscuits
Miss Calamity's Birthday Dinner!

25 comments:

  1. Thanks, for the idea on birthday dinners and the recipe, I am going to try this, it looks great and the biscuits look so fluffy just like they should be....

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  2. Happy Birthday to Miss Calamity! I like her choice for birthday dinner. Yum!

    Prepared teacher is right - those biscuits look mighty nice.

    Enola, have you ever made chicken fried steak? I have a basic idea, but no details. Didn't see a recipe for it in your archives. (hint, hint) :)

    NoCal Gal

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  3. hamburger gravy...is basically what any military person will tell you is SOS...served over toast (shingle), biscuits, or rice. the gravy for sos and sausage gravy is just your basic "milk gravy" usually made in iron skillet that has been used after cooking up the bacon. this is comfort food in a hurry! glad that you have been introduced to it!

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  4. Looks great! Being the southern girl I am, I grew up on biscuits and sausage gravy. The way you made it is perfect. I always use the sausage grease as well. No point in wasting it! My rule of thumb for how much flour to use is about 1 tablespoon of flour per tablespoon of grease. You'd be surprised how quickly it thickens once you start adding the milk slowly.

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  5. your biscuits are AWESOME! can you post the recipe and a little "how to" on them? mine never look like that! and the canned ones are too expensive!

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  6. I've been looking for a good sausage gravy recipe for a while! Thanks!
    And check out my survival recipes blog: http://survivalsense.blogspot.com/

    You might find some recipes you like!

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  7. It's great. I just started making my own too, almost exactly. 1/4 flour/lb. and 1 1/2 cups of milk. I got it from my sister who, I think took
    it off a Bob Evans sausage package. Go figure.
    Works good over an English muffin too if your in a hurry.
    Steve

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  8. Happy Birthday Miss Calamity!
    My mouth is watering just from the pictures.
    In the deep south, this gravy is made with ham.
    The gravy is made heavily flavored with coarse ground black or flaked red pepper.
    They call it "Red Eye Gravy" and it is served with those mile high Angel biscuits you made.

    notutopia

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  9. Happy Birthday Miss Calamity! We love sausage gravy and biscuits here. I am a terrible biscuit maker so I usually buy canned but that is something I am working on :)

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  10. Happy Birthday to Miss Calmamity!!

    Sausage Gravy and fried potatoes is one of our favorite dinners!!!

    My kids love love love breakfast for dinner!!

    Dana

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  11. As a pescitarian, I typically do not miss meat, but I did love it when my mom made hamburger/sausage gravy as a kid, and I do sometimes miss it. While reading this though, I thought of making it with tvp instead. I'll have to play around with it and see it it will work.

    I'd also like to figure out those biscuits. We used to eat at a little truck stop in college and they had them too, but mine always turn out short and...dense.

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  12. Happy Birthday, Miss Calamity! May God richly bless you in the coming year!
    Lisa

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  13. Oh, yummy! I bet I could make that for my gluten free kid by using rice flour & his package of gluten free biscuits. Wonder if he'd like it? (He's a bit picky)

    Happy Birthday Miss Calamity!

    Becky

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  14. Happy Happy Day to you, Miss Calamity!

    ditto the request for a chicken-fried-steak recipe. my husband's birthday is next week, i think i'll fix Miss C's birthday supper for dh's birthday breakfast. oh, here's a recipe for taters and onions(and butter!) that i thought looked delicious--you might like to try this for your next family birthday!
    http://mamasminutia.blogspot.com/2011/03/to-point.html

    Birdy

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  15. Dried beef gravy (comes in a glass jar) is made the same way as hamburger/sausage gravy. Good to have in a pinch - reconstituted dried milk works too. This is one of our emergency shelf meals - dried beef, powdered milk, powdered butter, dehydrated onion, homemade biscuit mix.

    Red eye gravy often has coffee used as all or part of the liquid - good either way.

    I would think reconstituted TVP would work well - use whatever fat/oil you choose and some vegetarian Worcestershire sauce plus black pepper and maybe a little finely diced onion.

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  16. Red-eye gravy is typically made from ham drippings and coffee. No flour or milk. It's a totally different flavor, and very good with country ham.

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  17. I read your blog regularly but post rarely...just wanted to say to your daughter--

    Happy Birthday Miss Calamity! =) I hope you have a wonderful year...

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  18. Happy Birthday to Miss Calamity!

    My mom used to make SOS for me with chipped beef. My husband makes some awesome Creamed Beef as he calls it.

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  19. dont ever forget the coffee for your red eye gravy..that is the secret ingredient. and when you have added your flour and milk to the pan remember to cook over low-med. heat and continue to stir until you can no longer stir the bubbles away..means it is cooked. a quick and very good biscuit can be made with self rising flour and heavy cream..yep, just two indredients.

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  20. Save the Canning JarsMarch 4, 2011 at 8:02 PM

    Oh my word! Just LOOK at those biscuits!
    Amazing!

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  21. Sorry, I just had to let you know that voila is the correct spelling. I learned that after marrying a cajun. It is used frequently in cajunland. I don't think it makes sense that it is spelled with a v but pronounced "w", but there you have it.

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  22. Mmmmmmm . . . sausage gravy and biscuits. This is MY favorite breakfast, too!

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  23. Chipped beef? I'd forgotten about that.

    What IS chipped beef, exactly? Enola--can you figure that out and figure out how to can it?

    We used to eat it all the time when I was growing up.

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  24. This is good looking food. Its recipe is looking awkward for me. I never do cooking. So I likely to eat this item instant.

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  25. As a Southern girl, I, I grew up biscuits and sausage gravy. You are perfect. I always use grease and sausage. There is no point to waste! My rule of thumb is to use about 1 tablespoon of flour how much oil per tablespoon of flour.

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