Sausage & Gravy Biscuits

[Cooking Goddess]

I like sausage and gravy. But I find most southern cooks get carried away with the pepper to the point that it is all you can taste.....

Oh, Addie--I was just going to say that you need plenty of pepper in the gravy!! .....

Isn't it interesting how we all like different things? I've grown to like more bite in my flavors than I had been able to enjoy years back, but Himself certainly likes his food to be a bit zestier. Solution? Most things I cook are flavored for the tenderest tastebuds at the meal, then the crushed red pepper and the two pepper mills (one black, one tri-color) go on the counter by the pot. He can add more to his heart's delight. I've actually made a few dishes lately that I enjoyed and he didn't need extra pepper! win-win.

 

[Jessica_Morris]

Do you have a quick and easy recipe Jessica? I usually stop when I see "cut in the flour...". I'm not afraid to cut shortening into flour, it's just that my poor old fingers think they get enough with pies and scones. However, a really good recipe could entice them to make biscuits.

I have a somewhat of an easy way of making homemade biscuits. But I don't normally go by a recipe. Let me get back to you on that one, and maybe I can put some kind of recipe together for you

 

[GotGarlic]

This one is from Cooks Country: http://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/recipe-for-buttermilk-drop-biscuits/

I use the same method but I use 1/2 and 1/2 instead of buttermilk because I always have it in the house.

 

[Addie]

We like it spicy! But out of curiosity, have you tasted the sausage and biscuits of "most southern cooks"?

Yeah. I lived in Texas for more than two years. At that time I enjoyed the sausages with gravy over biscuits. And I still do. I don't enjoy exorbitant amounts of pepper mixed with gravy and seasoned with sausage. I believe that the cook should season the food as it is cooking. But I also believe that the cook should leave room for the eater to add additional seasoning if they desire it. I used to watch my husband who was from the South, open a quart of buttermilk and take the top off the pepper shaker and pour half of it in the buttermilk. While married to him, I bought more pepper than table salt.

Yes, I am very familiar with Southern cooking and the taste buds of a Southerner.

 

[GotGarlic]

Yeah. I lived in Texas for more than two years. At that time I enjoyed the sausages with gravy over biscuits. And I still do. I don't enjoy exorbitant amounts of pepper mixed with gravy and seasoned with sausage. I believe that the cook should season the food as it is cooking. But I also believe that the cook should leave room for the eater to add additional seasoning if they desire it. I used to watch my husband who was from the South, open a quart of buttermilk and take the top off the pepper shaker and pour half of it in the buttermilk. While married to him, I bought more pepper than table salt.

Yes, I am very familiar with Southern cooking and the taste buds of a Southerner.

Right, because all of us living in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky have exactly the same tastes on everything. Gotcha.

 

[Addie]

Right, because all of us living in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky have exactly the same tastes on everything. Gotcha.

No. And I see no need to attack me either. I simply do not like a tablespoon of pepper in my food.

 

[pacanis]

Right, because all of us living in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky have exactly the same tastes on everything. Gotcha.

Yeah, but only VA has the large satellite dish in the front yard as its state flower!

 

[GotGarlic]

No. And I see no need to attack me either. I simply do not like a tablespoon of pepper in my food.

That's not an attack, Addie. Just an observation that not everyone of a given group is the same, as you implied when you said you are familiar with the taste buds of "a Southerner."

 

[Aunt Bea]

I like coarse ground black pepper and a good shake of cayenne in my sausage gravy!

I serve it in the winter over potatoes, baked or boiled.

I usually buy a couple of pounds of sausage, fry it all up into crumbles then freeze it in one cup containers. It thaws quickly in the microwave and can be added to a basic white sauce. The small containers of frozen sausage crumbles or ground beef crumbles are great for a variety of quick meals.

When I was a kid we used to have the plain milk gravy with slices of fried salt pork and baked potatoes for dinner, today that would be considered child abuse!

 

[pacanis]

You know what else is good, Bea? A couple SSU eggs on top of the sausage gravy & biscuits. Or make a thin layer of eggs and line a bowl with it, then put in the gravy & biscuits. I like re-creating that sausage skillet thing Bob Evans used to have.

 

[Oldvine]

I use the sprinkle flour over the cooked crumbled sausage method and don't get flour-gummy bits in my gravy. Maybe if the ratio isn't right that might happen, but so far so good. It almost seems as if the flour disappears as it joins the sausage bits waiting for the milk. What ever is happening, it all gets gobbled up.

 

[Aunt Bea]

You know what else is good, Bea? A couple SSU eggs on top of the sausage gravy & biscuits. Or make a thin layer of eggs and line a bowl with it, then put in the gravy & biscuits. I like re-creating that sausage skillet thing Bob Evans used to have.

That does sound good!

I've had it with a hash brown patty, a poached egg and sausage gravy.

The diner called the sausage gravy Hillbilly Hollandaise!

 

[pacanis]

Hillbilly Hollandaise. I like that!

 

[taxlady]

Do you have a quick and easy recipe Jessica? I usually stop when I see "cut in the flour...". I'm not afraid to cut shortening into flour, it's just that my poor old fingers think they get enough with pies and scones. However, a really good recipe could entice them to make biscuits.

You do know you can cut butter or shortening into flour with a food processor, don't you?

 

[jabbur]

My sausage and gravy recipe is the same as the Bob Evans link. I need the Bob Evans sausage to make it too. I've tried other sausage but it just doesn't taste the same. I grew up in Ohio and Bob Evans was the best place to eat. I even worked at one for a little over a year during college. It was tough when we moved to Virginia and there was no Bob Evans sausage! I'd buy a bunch and freeze it to bring it down here every time we went home to Ohio. I rarely have to add any salt and pepper since the sausage is so flavorful. I think one of the tricks with the sprinkling flour on the cooked sausage is to then "cook" the flour. I've never had a problem with lumps or pasty flavor when I cook the flour kind of like a roux.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

...I grew up in Ohio and Bob Evans was the best place to eat. I even worked at one for a little over a year during college. It was tough when we moved to Virginia and there was no Bob Evans sausage! I'd buy a bunch and freeze it to bring it down here every time we went home to Ohio. I rarely have to add any salt and pepper since the sausage is so flavorful...

I'll second this. And I'll happily have seconds on the BE sausage gravy! So far I'm remembering that there is one in Winchester VA, and one in Jacksonville, FL, and....

 

[Cooking Goddess]

You do know you can cut butter or shortening into flour with a food processor, don't you?

I know that, but I don't do it. I rarely use the food processor since it's in the basement. By the time I go down, move other stuff out of the way, come back up, unpack it, set it up...I can have the shortening cut in! And were I to send Himself down for it? It would take even longer to explain - and easier to draw a map.

I swear our next home will have a huge kitchen with an abundance of counter space. This one? Meh. I miss my old house with its landscape of counter surface. *sigh*