Do you ever make “brinner”? That’s a term I first came across on one of my favorite all time TV sitcoms, “Corner Gas”. You’ve probably never heard of it but it was broadcast for 6 years on CTV (that’s Canadian TV). Brinner is “breakfast for dinner” and when I’m feeling lazy or in the mood, I love to do eggs or pancakes or a skillet scramble or biscuits and gravy for dinner.
Well, that’s what we had last night—sausage gravy and homemade biscuits. This is one of my all time favorites because it’s stick to your ribs good. It’s the ultimate comfort food.
My Mom used to make this for “special occasions” like the opening of fishing season when we’d traipse off with my Dad in search of rainbow trout. But, rather than biscuits she’d use toast making it classic “SOS” with ground beef.
Bacon has gotten so damned expensive that I recently broke down and bought a big tube of Jimmy Dean sausage—the long, fat 3 pounder that you slice through the plastic casing just like I remember my Mamaw and also my Dad doing with the farm sausage wrapped in cheesecloth and hung in the smokehouse on the farm inKentucky. I sandwich slices of the sausage between pieces of wax paper and freeze it in plastic bags so I’ve got convenient portions for when I want to cook it. I get it for $2.33 a pound at Costco which is about the cheapest you can get it.
I make my biscuits from scratch. Here’s a link to my homemade country biscuit recipe post:
http://www.cheap-bastid-cooks.com/mamaws-homemade-country-biscuits/
And here’s the Sausage Gravy recipe that makes the meal:
Sausage Gravy and Biscuits
Ingredients:
- 1 batch of biscuits (see link to recipe above—or you can use refrigerated biscuits)
- ¾ lb breakfast or pork sausage (or ground beef)
- 2 cups milk (appx)
- ¼ cup flour (appx)
- 1 medium tomato (sliced)
Directions:
Get out a medium sized skillet and set it on the stove with the heat set to “5 o’clock” if it’s electric—a low medium/high. Put the sausage in the skillet so it can brown. Slice up the tomato and set it aside. Have the milk and flour ready on the counter next to the stove. When the sausage is browned, turn the heat down to about “7 o’clock” on the stove. Check the fat that cooked off from the sausage and if necessary add a tablespoon or two of cooking oil (you want about 3-4 tablespoons of fat/oil in the pan).
OK, there’s 2 ways to do this and you can do it either way. You can scoop all the cooked sausage out and make a roux or you can just add the flour to the meat fat/oil in the skillet. Just figure it this way, put the same amount of flour into the pan as fat/oil. If you’ve got 4 tablespoons of fat, add 4 tablespoons of flour. Then use a whisk or spoon to stir, stir, stir until it’s all incorporated together.
Slowly add the milk to your roux. Keep whisking. Don’t put all of it in yet—about ¾ of it. Let it come to a boil. To quote Emeril “Always add cold to hot or hot to cold” and “You’ll never know how thick your gravy’s going to get until it boils”.
When you’ve got enough liquid for the amount of gravy you’ll need, let it all come up to temperature and start bubbling a bit (adjust your temperature if you need to). Give it some gently stirs and lightly scrape the bottom and sides of the skillet to keep things mixed up. If it start to get a bit too thick, add a bit more milk.
If it’s too thin, let it simmer a bit. And if it never thickens up enough you can always do the “cornstarch slurry” trick and dissolve a tablespoon of cornstarch in 2 tablespoons of cold water and pour it into your gravy (works like a charm).
You’re done. Take a couple of plates and break 2 or 3 biscuits in half on each one. Then put 2 or 3 slices of tomato down. (If you’ve never heard of this before, it’s “southern style” and it really, really adds something to the dish—plus you can claim “healthy” benefits from the addition of the tomato). Then smother the biscuits with gravy, add a shake or three of black pepper and enjoy!
The Cheap Bastid Test: This is pretty cheap. You’ve got ¾ lb of sausage which costs about $1.80. The biscuits are about $1, the tomato about $.35. So for about $3.50 you’ve got a good meal for 3 people (4 if 2 are kids). At a restaurant this will set you back about $6 per person. So this is a bargain!
That’s the Cheap Bastid Way: Eat Good. Eat Cheap. Be Grateful!
