HOW TO: make homemade biscuits and gravy

First a little backstory.

At my old job, after working there for over three years, I discovered something special. The little cafeteria on the 14th floor sold biscuits and gravy on Thursday mornings. One biscuit with gravy cost 85 cents. With tax, 94 cents. Which lead to an abundance of six cents laying around our house. And it was self-service. So you could load up that biscuit with as much gravy as you wanted. So I did.

Now in Denver, that biscuit and gravy fix came calling. But I figured, if you want to do something right, you better do it yourself.

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My first attempt was last week. Before I started, my concern was getting it thick enough. My only complaint from the cafeteria b&g was that sometimes they were too thin.

So last week I loaded it up with flour...and it was too thick. Something I wasn't prepared for. Still good. But room for improvement.

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The first step is putting the biscuits in the oven. I'm not ready to make my own biscuits, and really, don't think I'll ever want to.

Today I browned half a pound of hot Jimmy Dean sausage, breaking it up into little bite-size chunks. Then I seasoned the sausage with Lawry's seasoned salt and spicy montreal steak seasoning. And then I covered the meat with a generous sprinkling of flour. Stir it up until you can't see the flour any more.

Then it's time for the milk. I poured enough to almost fill my small skillet. Considering I had eight ounces of meat, I needed a bunch of milk to find the right ratio. I added a bunch of Worcestershire sauce for flavor.

After cooking it on medium for just a minute or two, it starts to thicken up pretty good.

Right around now the biscuits were ready to come out. So I took the gravy off the heat. Sliced open two biscuits and got them on my plate. That extra minute off the heat helped it thicken up even more. I probably used 1/3 of the flour today as I used last week, and it still got to the perfect thickness, without being too heavy.

I think these were the best biscuits and gravy I've ever had.

breakfast links (get it?)

Inspired by this post, I started thinking about breakfast.

For me growing up, my favorite breakfast was what my Grandpa made. The star of the show was his pancakes. They are super thin, I think it's a Scandinavian/German tradition, not much thicker than some crepes. (Think something like this.) But instead of being crepe like and topped with fruit and nonsense, they're topped with maple syrup and optional brown sugar. I also loved to roll up chunks of sausage inside a piece of pancake--what we called "pigs in a blanket" not to be confused with David Stern's favorite appetizer.

Although the pancakes are good enough to be a meal on their own, to complete the meal I need homemade hash browns and sausage. (And the reason I opt for sausage over bacon, is probably because the sausage goes so well with the pancakes.

Served with a glass of orange juice, now that's a breakfast.

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But wait there's more.

Say you really want bacon. Here's how to cook it for breakfast. (And btw, here's how to cook it for a blt. Hold the tomato on mine.)

So once you've got that pan full of bacon grease, you might as well make some eggs. I guess. I don't like eggs that much. But scramble them, through in some onions, peppers, a little hot sauce, and cover them with melted cheddar and you got yourself some bacon and eggs.

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What about when you really know what you want?

Then it's time for some french toast! I love french toast. I feel like if you're making homemade french toast, that's all you need.

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And last but not least, biscuits and gravy.

This goes back to my love affair with sausage. (Within the last year, Italian sausage has surpassed pepperoni as my favorite pizza topping. Although at some chainy places you probably can't taste the Italian-ness of it, and that ruins it for me. Domino's has a decent Italian flavor for national chains.)

Anyways, I love biscuits and gravy. What's not to like? It's creamy, it's full of sausage. And if you burn the biscuits a little you just need to cover them with extra gravy.

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So what'd I miss? What's your favorite breakfast?