Biscuits and Sausage Gravy Always Taste Right

Biscuits and gravy are fabulous any day and for any meal, such as tonight's dinner. It's also fairly quick--one of the auto-pilot meals I make where all the thinking is following the ruts in my brain from so many previous times. If I am only cooking, not doing 15 other things at the same time, this all takes about 1/2 hour for me.

Also, there is no picture because 1) I didn't think of it in time; and 2) Uncle Joel (one of my brothers) took the last of the biscuits and gravy home with him.

By the way, he joined us tonight for dinner and for putting together a jigsaw puzzle. He's an automatic "yes" when I ask if he wants coffee. I was off there tonight.

I ground some coffee, but the percolator post was in crooked, so I really just heated some water for no reason because it didn't drip through the grounds. Try two produced a coffee that was lame brown water. Grounds not finely ground enough. Try three was good ol' Folgers and made a nice part of the evening for us--dedicated coffee drinkers.

Here is how I make Biscuits and Gravy:

1. Preheat oven to 450F.

2. For the gravy part: pan-fry one pound ground sausage. Leave the grease unless your meat is swimming in it.

3. Throw in a few spoonfuls of flour and stir. Never thought to measure it; it always just works out.

4. Add milk. I suppose if I measured the milk, it would be around a quart.

5. Stir on high until boiling, then cook and stir for two minutes at a lower boil. Have you ever cleaned up boiled-over milk mess on a hot stove? For your sanity, just go to a lower boil at this point.

6. Cover and set aside or just keep on lowest burner setting.

7. For the biscuits, pour about 1 tsp vinegar (guess what... I don't measure, just pour a bit) into a liquid measure, then top it off with milk to 3/4 cup.

8. Add 1/2 cup vegetable oil to milk mixture. Set aside.

9. Mix dry ingredients in large mixing bowl: 2 cups flour, 2 tsp sugar, 4 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp cream of tartar. I've been out of cream of tartar the last few times I've made these biscuits, and they still turn out just fine.

10. Add liquid mixture to dry mixture, and stir with fork just until it's moistened. (That's a word that some people hate, yet it perfectly captures the state of formerly dry matter that has absorbed liquid of any sort.)

11. Pat it out to about 1/2" thick on the baking sheet you're using anyway. Why bother getting your counter messed up?

12. Short on time? Just cut squares now with your butcher knife and let it go. Longer on time? Cut out biscuit shapes, re-patting dough as needed to use it all.

13. Biscuits like buddies, so keep those biscuits close together on the baking sheet, touching sides, and bake at 450F for 10-12 minutes until they are golden brown.

14. If your yummy sounds are loud enough to attract the neighbor's attention, just be sure to share the love with them. Maybe give them a take-out bag during this whole social distancing damper that's thrown on us right now. Once social distancing is over, just invite them in. There's always room for one more at the table!

Kara topped off our meal with scrambled eggs she made all by herself using her own methods. I just stepped out of the way, since what do I know about making scrambled eggs? She did a great job!