Gravy 'n Biscuits

Hey, Y'all,
Well, I figure maybe you know where my mind is this morning? Yep, on good ol' gravy n' biscuits for breakfast. Now, some of you fellers may not know what I mean by gravy n' biscuits, because you may never have had any, or what you had wouldn't pass muster here in the southern part of the U.S.

Around here, gravy is not that brown thin stuff that you put on meats that you have roasted. Naw, it is that ambrosia-like mixture that you make when you have cooked sausage in the skillet, and then fried a few eggs in the sausage grease, and then, you take a handful of flour and toss it into the grease, add some salt and pepper, and brown the flour to a golden brown, stirring it constantly. Once it is browned, you carefully add a small bowl of milk or evaporated milk mixed with water and stir until the water and flour together are thickened to a nice consistency. I say carefully, because the steam that rises from the skillet can burn the hound out of you. You gotta have spoon with a handle long enough to keep you from getting scalded.

Learning to make good gravy takes doing it quite a bit of times and experience. You don't learn it overnight. You also want to put bits of sausage into the skillet when you make your gravy, to give it flavor.

The biscuits that go with the gravy also take some experience to get right. When I learned making biscuits from my mama, she made her biscuits using the same bowl every morning. It had a well of flour in it, to which she added salt, soda, baking powder and lard. She would mix those ingredients together and then buttermilk. She would slowly mix in flour with the mixture, until she had a ball of mixture that had to be the right consistency, which she would then lift out onto the floured cabinet top. We had one of those cabinets that had a flour bin that we stored the flour in, and the top part of the lower cabinet was made of a smooth galvanized metal that was used for making biscuits. I just use the cabinets in my kitchen to roll out my biscuits.

My mama then would roll out the biscuits with a rolling pin, cut them out with a biscuit cutter and place them in a baking pan, and in about fifteen minutes or so, we would have sausage (or ham), fried eggs, biscuits and some of the best gravy you ever put into your mouth. Yum! It makes me hungry just to sit here and think about it. Hey, y'all, come to my house sometime and I will make you some true southern gravy n' biscuits!

Well, this is Blabbin' Grammy signing off for today. Got things to do, places to go, people to see, but it has been great chatting with you all. Lookin' forward to another posting tomorrow. Gramps and I will be heading in to Knoxville to spend a day with family and friends. I think it is supposed to maybe rain today. We may eat breakfast at the Cracker Barrel. They know how to make gravy n' biscuits. Bye for now. See you later. Much love to each of you, my friends.