Biscuits and Gravy

This is a hard one, because:

• I don't measure with my gravy
• I phoned it in with the biscuits, and used canned ones
• I don't measure with my gravy
• I didn't take as many pictures, this was my bad day, the day my car broke down, and I was focused on getting dinner on the table, not pictures.  Oops.

Ok, so I'm going to try to do this anyhow.  Normally we make homemade biscuits, and oh how I wish we had this time, because the refrigerated kind were wrong.  Wrong flavor, wrong texture, just wrong.  I need my flaky, made with lard or butter, yummy, drop biscuits for this recipe.  Though to anyone who asks, no, you didn't see me using lard, nope, no way, not me.  (I only use lard in biscuits that are for a savory application.  If people are going to be eating them sweet at all, no way, it's butter all the way.)

So, I had a pound of sausage left from our trip to the butcher a few months ago.  We didn't go this month, and I am regretting it, so I have big plans for the butcher in September.

Ok, so 1 pound of sausage, and I add to that a half a stick of butter.  I find that the sausage I get from the butcher is a little too lean for making the roux later on.  So, I fry up my sausage with a little butter, breaking it up as I go, so that it is in little pieces.

Once the sausage is cooked, I add the flour.  It's supposed to be an equal amount of flour to grease, so I add about 6-8 tablespoons of flour.  I played with the recipe this time, and added half regular flour and half chicken flour.  Chicken flour is something you can buy in bulk if you have a store with a huge bulk section, like we do at Winco, just know that it is a little salty, or you can buy chicken flour by Bisquick.  I did the latter, put it in one of my storage containers, and then added regular flour to it, diluting the salt content.

Ok, so at this point we have sausage, butter, and flour in a pan.  I make sure the flour has soaked up all the grease, and that the sausage is well coated.  If you have used the chicken flour, you will see it is a little yellow in color.  I cook this on high heat for about 3-5 minutes, until it kinds of melts and is less flour like, and more paste like, this way the flour taste is gone.  I suggest most people do this on med to med-high because it can burn really easy.  My high isn't very hot.

Once you get to this point, you need to add milk.  I add whole milk, but that is mostly because whole milk is what we keep in our house.  I will pour in about 2 cups of milk at this point.  Then I cook it, constantly stirring, letting the flour get off the sausage and into the milk, and all the stuff that stuck to the bottom of the pan.  Now, once it comes to a boil, you are at the peak of its thickening.  If it seems really thick, add a little more milk, about 1/4 cup at a time.  Wait for the boil, and see where you are.  If you like a thick gravy, stop adding milk when it's as thick as you like.  If you like thin gravy, keep adding milk until it is as thin as you want.  Never add too much, because while you can always add, you can never take away.

Once you get to this place, where your gravy is as thick or thin as you like, I'm a medium girl, I want it thick enough to be smooth and creamy and thick, but thin enough that it drips down the sides of my biscuits.

Ok, back to subject at hand.  Here is where you add salt.  I start with a teaspoon and move on from there.  Taste constantly.  Add salt slowly, remembering that the chicken flour, if you used it, has salt in it.  One it is salty enough, I move to the pepper.  I like to use a course grind on my pepper grinder, and put about 2 teaspoons of pepper in.  Then I put about 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne in.  After that, because I love garlic, I add a teaspoon or so of garlic powder.  At this point, gravy is totally your own, it's the way you like it.  Sometimes I will add sage, because I love sage and sausage.  Other times I want it to have extra zing, so I use more cayenne.  I always add dried parsley, because I like the way it looks.  Sometimes I will add onions at the browning of the sausage.  Gravy is unique.  Once you have the basic recipe, its all yours to play with.

Well, that's it.  That's my gravy.  Like I said, I phoned it in with the biscuits, but the gravy, that's mine, all mine, 100% authentic.

Enjoy.