The school I work at has graduations four times a year. This may seem strange, but we are a year-round school and we have students starting and finishing their programs throughout the year, so it's hard to pick just one time for graduation. Even so, we do have students that have to wait for 2-3 months after their program is over to be able to walk at graduation.
Graduation is always a big to-do (as it should be). But each ceremony does require a lot of planning, and it just so happens that I am in charge of a good deal of the planning (as well as coordinating at the ceremony itself). I usually have to start 5 weeks in advance to make sure everything gets done in time and nothing is left to the last minute. Needless to say, when graduation is over, there is a profound sense of relief followed quickly by exhaustion as I stumble back to my car to head home. I am lucky that my boss is willing to let me take the Friday off after every graduation so I can pack up my car and head out of town to relax at my aunt and uncle's summer home on the coast. It's always a time for me to relax, recharge, have some good food, and read a couple good books.
Last week was our most recent graduation, so Scooter and I went to the coast this last weekend. It was cold and cloudy all weekend, perfect weather in our opinion for settling in front of the fire (which we did) and soaking in the hot tub (which we also did). And of course, we always plan food to cook. We ended up making lamb again on this trip because we loved it so much last time. Saturday breakfast was biscuits and gravy, which is always a team effort. I make the biscuits and Scooter makes the sausage and gravy to with it. I don't mean to brag, but I haven't yet had biscuits and gravy elsewhere that tasted so good. We were going to have pancakes and sausage for Sunday's breakfast, but we had managed to forget the pancake mix so it was eggs, toast and sausage instead.
For this week's recipe, Scooter has agreed to let me post our biscuits and gravy recipe. I'll be using the variation of the recipe we used on the trip (there were one or two ingredients we didn't have--we wanted to cut out another trip to the store--which we include in our best, and secret, variation). I'll start with the biscuits.
Buttermilk Biscuits
What you'll need:
2 c. flour
4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
2 Tbs. butter/margarine, chilled
2 Tbs. shortening
1 c. buttermilk, chilled
What you'll need to do:
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. In a large mixing bowl, add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the butter and shortening and use your fingers to mix everything together until the flour looks like crumbs. Make a well in the center of the mix and add in the buttermilk. Stir everything just until the dough comes together. It will be sticky!
3. Flour a flat surface. Turn dough out of the mixing bowl onto the prepared surface and dust a little flour on the top of the dough. Fold the dough over on itself 5-6 times. Avoid overworking it; your biscuits will be lighter if the dough isn't overworked. Press the dough into a round approx 1 inch thick. Using a round cookie cutter (or a glass), cut out biscuits. Reform scrap dough and continue cutting.
4. Place biscuits on a baking sheet. Bake in oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until biscuits are golden on top.
While the biscuits are baking, time to put together the gravy!
What you'll need:
1 lb. loose sausage meat (we prefer maple-flavored, but it's not necessary)*
1/2 c. chopped onions (optional)
2 c. milk
2 Tbs. flour
1 Tbs. Worcester sauce
1 Tbs. garlic powder
salt and pepper
What you'll need to do:
1. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, saute the sausage meat until cooked through. If you are including the onions, quickly saute them in another small skillet until soft and add them to the sausage meat.
2. Add the milk, flour, Worcester sauce, and garlic powder to the sausage. Turn heat down to medium-low and saute until the sauce cooks down and thickens, stirring occasionally. Add salt and pepper to taste.
3. Pull open a fresh biscuit and use a ladel to pour sausage and gravy on top. Enjoy!
*A side note about the gravy: you will NOT want lean sausage meat for this. The fat that cooks off will help to flavor the gravy and make it really good. If you have it, adding 1 to 2 Tbs. of bacon fat would be even better; the flavor would be a little better and you would be able to cook the onion in the same skillet at the sausage meat because there would be enough fat that the onion wouldn't soak it all up as it cooks.
I will try to get back on schedule with my posts starting next week.
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