Biscuits and Gravy

quote:

Originally posted by Lone Star

Sausage gravy and buiscuts is not just for breakfast anymore.

It is a wonderful cold night supper!

My husband is from the Deep South. Of England. He's from Eastbourne, 60 miles south of London, and has been over here in Maryland since 1991. We spent the weekend with a friend in Richmond several years ago, and went to one of those all-you-can-eat breakfast trough places. On the steamer table was . . .biscuits and gravy. Hubby had never had this, and, being an adventurous eater, got some. He'd tried grits and liked them, so why not? He loved them! The next day, our host was making breakfast, and made biscuits and sausage gravy for hubby. It's basically a rue made with browned sausage grease, with the sausage mixed back in.

Several months later, our host became guest, and hubby proudly served Biscuits and Sausage Gravy. Our guest said, "Wow! Where'd you learn to make these?!" Hubby said, "Well, you showed me!" But in the intervening time, hubby had been experimenting with the recipe. He now uses loose bratwurst meat rather than ordinary sausage meat, and gets Pillsbury cornbread biscuits instead of plain. They're faaabulous.

However, later that year, his mother came over from England for a visit. (Cue scary music.) Once again, he made up the nummy dish, and she took one look at it and said, "I'm sorry, but I can't eat this. It looks like someone's eaten it already." lol!!! Ah well, can't please everyone.

I love biscuits and gravy! The only places anywhere near Toronto where I've enjoyed this delicacy is at the breakfast buffets of Elias Bros. Big Boy Restaurants. Unfortunately, all the ones I knew of in Toronto and London, Ontario have long since closed.

I make biscuits and gravy occasionally for supper instead of breakfast. I make it with 1 roll of Jimmy Dean regular and 1 roll of hot, and use PET milk in the gravy.

Just the way my MIL makes it....(eeekkkk!) but it is soooo good!

Much the same here, the ultimate "breakfast isn't just for breakfast any more" meal.

Hot sausage, Tennessee Pride for choice. Make patties, leaving a goodly bit unformed. Fry up the sausage in a NON-non-stick skillet (you want the crispy bits), cooking the loose sausage along with it. I usually add the loose meat about halfway through so it stays soft. Remove the patties, pour off just a bit of the fat (enough to fry a couple of eggs, and make a light roux. Add milk, season to taste (I usually add a few red pepper flakes). While that's simmering, take a medium home-grown tomato, the "meatier" the better, and peel & seed it, then chop the meat finely and add it to the gravy and let it cook long enough to dissolve the tomato.

Clean the skillet, return drippings to skillet (or use a non-stick one this time), cook eggs as you like them. Over medium is my favorite: white done, yolk runny. Serve it all on a plate & enjoy!

Let me wade in here. There is nothing better for breakfast or a late supper than biscuits and gravyCook the flour and add a lot of black pepper.

Open can of Grand's biscuits, your choice of flavor, but I prefer the buttermilk or corn ones. Bake in oven per instructions on can. 375 for 13 minutes in my preheated oven. Your's will differ slightly on time.

Fry up 5 or 6 strips of bacon to desired crispiness. Remove bacon from drippings to paper towels. Pour off drippings to side bowl and reserve. Make 4 sausage patties from 1 lb roll of country sausage. Add patties to the pan and chop up the remainder of the roll in the pan. Fry until done. Remove patties to paper towels with the bacon and the loose cooked sausage to seperate paper towels. Retain the sausage drippings and add back about half the bacon drippings. Add seasoned flour (salt, pepper, garlic powder) to the fat and stir until browned. Add whole milk and stir until desired constinency of gravy is reached. (fairly thick) Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. Add back the "scrambled" sausage and stir well.

Remove biscuits from oven when timer goes off.

Serve biscuits on a warm plate and gravy in a warm bowl. Bacon and sausage patties on a warm plate as well. Jam, jellies and honey for those that don't want gravy (silly people). Eat 2 biscuits with gravy and 1 with sausage patty and peach jam

The rest of the bacon fat can be used for seasoning other food or for frying eggs.

Well I know what I'm doing this morning when I get off work.

MikeS.

My fav local diner makes biscuits and gravy only on the weekends but I get mine special....sausage gravy over whole wheat toast.mmmmm

don't forget the hot sauce....my choice being 'Franks Louisiana' or Crystals extra hot......man,what a dish bisquits and gravy are!!!!

I too love bisquits and gravy. But I also make bacon or salt pork gravy served on toast. I usually do this when I don't want to bother my wife to make biscuits or don't have any sausage on hand.

Just fry up some bacon or salt pork until crisp, preferable in cast iron. Remove the pork and add flour to the fat to make a roux, add milk and whisk until thick. Add a lot of fresh ground black pepper and salt to taste. You can break up the pork and add it back to the gravy or just layer it on the toast and pour the gravy over all. This is also great on home fries or hash browns.

I can understand using Pioneer country gravy mix as a basis for sausage gravy, because it's both perfect for it and a staple of diners throughout the lower half of the country.

But seriously, you guys. Tinned biscuits for biscuits and gravy? That's like making fudge with Nesquik.

If you are in a hurry,Franco-American has just come out with a Contry-
Style canned Sausage Gravy thats pretty good.(Don't use Libbys)
Also Sam's bakery dept. has two dozen packages of southern biscuits that are good.
I freeze them and bake as needed.
As for grits,Fry smme diced ham and mixthe ham and some cheese to the hot grits(GOOD)

Whatever you do....DON'T go to Cracker Barrel for biscuits and gravy - I did this this morning since B&G is virtually impossible to find in New England except at Cracker Barrel. What a disappointment!!!

Thin, lukewarm, flavorless "gravy", barely warm, mediocre biscuits (McDonalds does them better), grits that HAD to be microwaved. Bleeeccchhh!!!


End of Rant

Lucky....while canned biscuits aren't as good as our grandmammas made, they are a good substitue for a working weeknight supper. It's the gravy that's important!

I don't really like the canned one much, but those ones that come in the frozen food section in a bag (picture white hockey pucks) are really good and an easy deal if you are in a hurry.

Also, while we are on the storebought bread subject, have any of you ever tried any of the "Sister Schubert's" line of yeast rolls? We can get 'em everywhere here on the Gulf, I am not so sure about our "northern friends", but I know alot of little old ladies who can bake with their eyes closed who buy those things instead of messing up their kitchen and they really are good. They are made in Mobile, Alabama (right across the highway from where the Mobile Bears play in their swell little ballpark, if you were dying to know) and they use real ingredients. I highly reccomend them. They have some that are flavored with orange juice (trust me) that are out of this world. Just add rare roast beef and a little pepper jelly and you are dining on some fine victuals.

Lone Star...I'm just always surprised that people consider biscuits time-consuming enough that the canned biscuits are worth it. I did some biscuits and gravy last night as a result of this very thread, and the biscuits couldn't have taken five minutes from putting the flour in the bowl to putting the pan in the oven.

I do the bacon grease and sausage dealie.scrape put the meat and make a roux...thin the roux with a little coffee....add half and half and lots of pepper and some more salt.....dump the meat back in.......mmmmmmmmmmm
and always homemade biscuits
preferably raised

Some of us never had a momma or a grandma that made biscuits so we never learned. And although I love to cook I'm not much of a fan of baking. Cake mixes and brownies mixes are about my forte when it comes to baking. I actually like the Pillsbury Grand's biscuits anyways.

BTW, I use bacon because I find that most of the time the sausage doesn't generate enough grease.

MikeS.

quote:

Originally posted by Lucky Bishop

I did some biscuits and gravy last night as a result of this very thread, and the biscuits couldn't have taken five minutes from putting the flour in the bowl to putting the pan in the oven.

Recipe, s'il vous plait?

quote:

Originally posted by Lucky Bishop

I can understand using Pioneer country gravy mix as a basis for sausage gravy, because it's both perfect for it and a staple of diners throughout the lower half of the country.

But seriously, you guys. Tinned biscuits for biscuits and gravy? That's like making fudge with Nesquik.

Like MikeSh, my hubby uses Pillsbury Grands. Usually the corn, but sometimes buttermilk. As Lone Star says, it's the gravy that's important, and as long as the biscuits come hot out of the oven, I don't mind who's responsible for the dough. Besides, they're pretty darned good! Five minutes, though? Yeah, recipe??

See, hubby does all the cooking. (I know, I'm the luckiest woman on the planet.) But I bake. I regularly make quickbreads and scones. So I'd love a biscuits recipe. That way, I can contribute in a manner more sophisticated than twisting a cardboard can. ::rolls eyes::

quote:

Originally posted by Wistah

Whatever you do....DON'T go to Cracker Barrel for biscuits and gravy -

Oh, I did that once. "Ptaaaah", as hubby would say. v. dissapointing indeed.

P.S., MikeSh, my hubby does the same thing. (Making bacon as well and using that grease, too.) Keeps it warm in the oven till folks are ready to eat. I like my bacon all floppy; he likes it crispy. On occasion, he'll mix bacon back into the gravy. But I'm not a big fan of this, so he quit doing it.

quote:

Some of us never had a momma or a grandma that made biscuits so we never learned.

And some of us never had a momma or a grandma that made biscuits, either, so we taught ourselves!

Biscuit recipe: Preheat oven to 475. Sift together 2 cups flour (I usually use one cup of AP and one cup of cake flour), 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt. Cut in 3 tablespoons of cold butter AND 3 tablespoons of vegetable shortening until fat is incorporated and mixture looks like cornmeal. (I use a double-bladed pastry blender that's about 100 years old for this, but before I got that, I just used my hand mixer, which is even speedier.) Add 1 3/4 cups milk and stir just until dough comes together. Pat out dough to about 1/2-inch thickness (you don't need a rolling pin for this, just use your hands with a little flour on them), then use a sharp knife to cut the dough into six or eight pieces. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown.

You can go ahead and use biscuit cutters to make round biscuits if you want (don't use a glass or a tuna can, though, because they don't give a sharp cut and your biscuits won't rise), but if I'm just going to split them and dump gravy on them, I don't see why they need to look pretty.

My wife has a recipe for cream biscuits -- the only fat is in the heavy cream that's used in place of milk -- that's even speedier, but I don't know the proportions of that one. This recipe, however, is foolproof, and it seriously doesn't take five minutes to do.

quote:

Originally posted by Lucky Bishop

Lone Star...I'm just always surprised that people consider biscuits time-consuming enough that the canned biscuits are worth it. I did some biscuits and gravy last night as a result of this very thread, and the biscuits couldn't have taken five minutes from putting the flour in the bowl to putting the pan in the oven.

Well, you must not make as big a mess as I do.

Once again, Mayhaw, you are right. "Sister Schubert's" products - all of them - are so good as not to be believed; they put many a Southern cook, including me, to shame when it comes to roll making. I like all the "Sister Schubert'" varieties, but believe I like the plain old rolls best of all. I was not aware, tho, they were made in Mobile; and that part of town in which you say they are made is right in my old stomping grounds. Weren't they originated by some lady in one of the small towns south of Montgomery (seems like maybe Luverne or Brantley). Friends in Opp have told me about "Sister Schubert's" local start, and a young lady married to son of cousins here in Marvell was with commercial development department of one of the big Alabama banks and tells a most interesting tale of the original financing/big scale commercial development of "Sister Schubert's". If you've not tried "Sister Schubert's" products and they are available in your area, take Mayhaw's advice and give them a try. And those frozen biscuits Mayhaw describes are good too, particularly given that from scratch biscuit making is rapidly becoming a lost art in these parts.

Well -- it may not be traditional, but cornmeal mush (polenta for you flossier folk) left over night in a pan turned out and cut into slices and fried hard in the sausage dripping is great with a very peppery sausage gravy. I prefer a homemade sausage from my local farmer market (been seeing Mrs. Smith for over 30 years now -- she is in her 80's) which is cold smoked. Over the mush cakes and with greens on the side -- powerfully good eating.

I just read and posted in the "bisquits, sans gravy" thread, so, I thought I'd put my 2-cents worth on the gravy front.

I use cheap greasy sausage and fry it up to get a load of grease toi work with, but I also use a lean country breakfast sausage and fry that up to crumble into the gravy and have a few slices on the side to have with the meal.
Work flour into the grease while still on the stove and under some heat. A little at a time stirring a lot, add hot water a little at a time.
The woman who taught me from Valdosta Georgia says to use canned evaporated milk and stir slowly into this grease, flour and water mixture, all while still under some heat on the stove.
Stir until desired thickness, spice to taste and add crumbs of "the good" sausage. I use some rubbed sage, white and black pepper and a little salt.
Man o' Man, served with some eggs and sausage patties over home made bisquits makes my arteries shudder. But as Andy of Mayberry once said, "Aunt Bea, this is Gooooooooooooood!"

quote:

Originally posted by Wistah


P.S., MikeSh, my hubby does the same thing. (Making bacon as well and using that grease, too.) Keeps it warm in the oven till folks are ready to eat. I like my bacon all floppy; he likes it crispy.

I like my bacon pretty floppy and my wife wants hers crisp. Just opposites here. I too do 99% of the cooking. My mom was a great cook and taught me well. Although she didn't do homemade biscuits. Thats why Pillsbury does mine :)

MikeS.

When people talk about comfort food, this is where it's at: biscuits and gravy. My grandmother made great biscuits from scratch - no recipe, no measuring, mixed them up with her hands on the counter top. My grandfather fried the sausage and made the gravy. They both knew that was what I wanted for breakfast whenever I visited them and they didn't disapoint me!

As a Southerner, I have learned to make some pretty good biscuits from scratch. But I have to say I was pleasantly surprised when I tried the White Lily biscuit mix this past week. Those biscuits were really good - just the mix and buttermilk (you can use regular milk or water), one bowl, one fork to mix. I made them large and put some local country ham in between them. Ohhhhh.....I'd forgotten how good a country ham biscuit can taste. White Lily is in Tennessee, if I'm not mistaken. Try their products if you get a chance. I always buy their self-rising flour and want to try their cornmeal as I have heard it is excellent also. [no affiliation, just a consumer!]

quote:

Originally posted by tcrouzer White Lily biscuit mix

WL's office is in Knoxville, but they're apparently owned by a Texas company now. Here's what they say makes the difference, quoted from their web site:
"White Lily is made today just as it was over 100 years ago, using only pure, soft winter wheat. Then, in production, White Lily receives extra grinding, sifting and purifying. These additional milling steps produce a flour that is known to be finer, lighter and superior for baking."

And "Amen!" to the "Southern comfort food." Our grandmothers may have been sisters.

Sunday morning we made sausage gravy and biscuits for brunch. I use Jimmy Dean, one roll of regular, one roll of hot, and evaporated milk.

One of my sons buddies who had slept over had never had biscuits and gravy before! He ate 2 plate fulls.

I just tried some of the Pillsbury frozen biscuits, very good IMHO.

MikeS.

For years, my way to judge a place's food overall has been to go there for biscuits and gravy. My favorite is at the Saugus Cafe----light biscuits with plenty of sausage in the gravy. I've never tried them at home--------to me it'sa good excuse to go out for breakfast. I've also had some good ones at Joe's in Redondo Beach. And it stands to reason (for me at least)-----if they make good biscuits and gravy then they'll usually have a good chicken fried steak.

I agree MikeSh the Pillsbury frozen biscuits are great. My better hlf was ONLY able to make biscuits from scratch when she was preggers....25 years ago. Not going to do that JUST for a scratch biscuit. LOL

This is my first post to this forum, and i just wanted to speak up and say that with my biscuts and gravy nothing goes better than a touch of maple syrup on the side, to add a little sweetness to its sometimes salty nature. I have to agree with others that it has to be homemade biscuits not store bought. and i use deer sausage when i can, or fresh pork sausage straight from the butchers or my fathers farm.

Sounds good !! Welcome to RoadFood !! there are lots of neat people hanging out here !!

I come from a family traditon (and a family restaurant business) where pre prepared foods were not acceptable. I guess that explains why I've always been a scratch cook. No mixes, no par boiled rice, no short cuts here. But, I'm making one exception these days.

A few years ago, I had Pillsbury frozen biscuits at a friend's house in Georgia and thought them halfway decent. I’ve since bought them a few times (but at WalMart where they are packaged in the WM label and cost much less) as they do nicely when I’m too lazy make biscuits from scratch.

It's been fun being a purist all these years, but given a choice of no biscuits, or an occasional batch of Pillsbury biscuits, I'd rather have some biscuits. I'm much more inclined to make a nice cream gravy if biscuits are part of the meal.

I cannot whip out good biscuits in just a few minutes as my late mom and aunts could do. It's a big production for me and a mess. So, I find a balance. I have biscuits now whenever I want them, and I have great biscuits when I'm in the mood to make them from scratch. To date, I tend to still make my own biscuits.

I swear by Pillsbury frozen biscuits. We bake 5 biscuits for breakfast - two for GF and three for me. Making them from scratch would mean too many leftovers.

quote:

Originally posted by Sushi_Girl

This is my first post to this forum, and i just wanted to speak up and say that with my biscuts and gravy nothing goes better than a touch of maple syrup on the side, to add a little sweetness to its sometimes salty nature. I have to agree with others that it has to be homemade biscuits not store bought. and i use deer sausage when i can, or fresh pork sausage straight from the butchers or my fathers farm.

Welcome! My husband sometimes uses Jimmy Dean maple sausage. Has the same nice effect.

I have, since our conversations on this thread, begun to make homemade biscuits now. I use self-rising flour, and it's really pretty easy. Recipe's right on the bag!

quote:

B&G is virtually impossible to find in New England

Actually the IHOP's in New England have pretty good biscuits and gravy. I believe Denny's does too.

The first and last time I had biscuit and gravy was a lot of years ago at the famous "Skyway Jack's " in St Pete. I'll eat and enjoy just about anything but that taught me to put at least that one item on my no-no list.
That restaurant is still going strong in downtown St Pete and is a great place for breakfast.

I love biscuits and gravy for breakfast. I used to stay at a hotel in Akron, OH, even though I worked in Cleveland, simply because they served good b & g for breakfast.
Outside of names already mentioned earlier, Denny's, Shoney's, Cracker Barrel, I don't believe I've found a restaurant in Knoxville that serves b & g. Know of any please let me know.

carl reitz

Carlton, I do not classify this as a restaurant but in my opinion, Hardee's does the best bisquit and gravy around.

That is about all they do good except they also have a killer bisquit.

Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

quote:

Originally posted by Sundancer7

That is about all they do good except they also have a killer bisquit.

Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

No gravy, but Popeye's Chicken has about the best biscuits I've run across.

I guess that I am strange but I don't like sausage in my gravy.
I love chipped beef gravy-we make ours in the brown pan gravy-not as creamed chipped beef.
I also like gravy made from fat back (salt pork).
I like the frozen biscuits from Walmart-but if I am in a hurry, I do use canned biscuits. I even will eat gravy with toast.

I get confused when I hear about how great Popeye's biscuits are.

Around here, they are only about as thick as a quarter is wide, and yet are heavy, soaked and discolored to an odd yellow in some sort of imitation butter/buttery shortening. Despite all that, they also have no body once the other shell is cracked, and are very crumbly.

Then, I see pics like this



and this looks like a much, much better biscuit...and wonder why they aren't better (more like the pic) in Cincinnati

On my Las Vegas trip a few weeks ago, one of the culinary highlights was actually at a casino. So good, in fact, I stopped not only on the way up but also the way back too. The Primm Valley Resort and Casino, in Primm, Nevada------right at the CA border----was the unlikely location for one of the most awesome plates of biscuits and gravy that I have ever had. Four biscuits with a good white sausage gravy. Yum! And most amazing------on a huge plate and only $2.25. Talk about cheap eats! There was only one thing that could have made it better. On the way back, I had a nice thick slice of ham with it. Making me hungry again!

Ed, was the place you ate at Primm on the east or west side of I-15? Anytime I'm in Las Vegas, I can hardly wait to get out, so I always head down I-15 before I eat. We were not pleased with our breakfast this June, so thanks for the tip.

Over 30 years ago my friend Anne taught me how to make biscuits and gravy. She used the refrigerated ones, but I have long since taught myself how to make biscuits from scratch. The first time I was home after Anne taught me, I made biscuits and gravy for my dad and my brother. "Dad, have you ever had this before?" he asked. "This is a dish that poor people make to fill their bellies that's cheap," Dad sniffed. I said, "Dad--I'm poor!" Dad then seemed to remember he had contributed exactly nothing toward my college education up to that point, and shut up, sat down and ate his breakfast.

There's somethign wonderful about most, if not all, the dishes that Americans have created due to limited funds. Too bad for those who think they're too good for such things. Don't let's tell them what they're missing. Like Glinda the Good Witch says, "You had to learn that for yourself."

Michael'
Going towards Las Vegas it's on the right.........and then right into the parking lot.

I love biscuits & gravy, but I prefer chicken or pork loin to sausage.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick F.

quote:

Originally posted by Sundancer7

That is about all they do good except they also have a killer bisquit.

Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

No gravy, but Popeye's Chicken has about the best biscuits I've run across.

Then you must not have run across "Bojangles". I'll take theirs (and their gravy)over Hardee's, Popeye's or just about any others (except those little lard biscuits baked in a cast iron skillet at Loveless in Nashville).

quote:

Originally posted by Hillbilly

quote:

Originally posted by Rick F.

No gravy, but Popeye's Chicken has about the best biscuits I've run across.

quote:

Then you must not have run across "Bojangles". I'll take theirs (and their gravy)over Hardee's, Popeye's or just about any others (except those little lard biscuits baked in a cast iron skillet at Loveless in Nashville).

I've seen their signs, though not lately. I'll look again, & thx for the tip.

quote:

Originally posted by Lone Star

I make biscuits and gravy occasionally for supper instead of breakfast. I make it with 1 roll of Jimmy Dean regular and 1 roll of hot, and use PET milk in the gravy.

Just the way my MIL makes it....(eeekkkk!) but it is soooo good!

I just signed up and am doing some catching up. when I ran across Jimmy Dean sausage, I knew I had found a fellow Texan. THEN I looked over and saw the moniker! LOL --yummm, biscuits, gravy and Jimmy Dean sausage --only I like the spicy sausage.

I had some good gravy and biscuits, eggs, cantalope, sausage, juice and coffee this morning for $1.25....and where else could i get smiles from happy children, hugs from some, and to be the queen bee in the cafeteria during breakfast duty except at the school where I teach....parents actually come in to eat on Tuesdays since we have such good gravy and biscuits.

The most disappointing thing about biscuits and sausage gravy, as far as I'm concerned, is the fact that Jewel Evans' own sausage gravy and biscuits are so much better than the stuff served in the restaurants her husband Bob founded. She uses the same sausage, and her biscuit recipe is the same one they used when Bob opened his first place in Gallipolis, Ohio.

Goodness! After reading here I have to go to store to get some eggs and fix breakfast for dinner. Got to have some good sausage gravy over toast or biscuits! I use evaporated milk w/water after making the roux out of toasty bits in cast iron skillet. My favorite aunt in eastern ky taught me how to make gravy 20 yrs ago and it's always sooo good! Like to stir in a little grape jelly into the gravy.

I can't eat that pasty gravy at Crackerbarrel either! But I do like going in when it's cold outside and they've got a roaring fire going. That wood burning fire takes me home to the mountains everytime! Judy

I dearly love breakfast for dinner. runny eggs, fresh tomatoes, ham steaks, hash browns, biscuits and gravy. cold nights and feel good food.

and I'm thinking I'm lucky we don't have cracker barrels in these parts!

quote:

Originally posted by downtown

I dearly love breakfast for dinner. runny eggs, fresh tomatoes, ham steaks, hash browns, biscuits and gravy. cold nights and feel good food.

For sausage gravy I use Wamplers Pork sausage. I went to school with a bunch of the Wampler kids and they still make the best.

My favourite is pork tenderloin gravy. Slice up you tenderloin (not loin) into 1/4 inch slices, lightly bread them and fry in an iron skillet with about 1/8cup of oil. Let them sit on each side for at least 4 minutes on medium high heat so that they will leave debris in the pan. Hmmmmmmmmm debris!
Add 1/4cup of plain flower and stir that bad boy! Scrape up the debris off the pan and brown the flour really good.
Mix up one can of evap milk and a cup of water and pour half into the roux, stirring and scraping furiously. After you have it smooth, add the last half of the cream and let it come to a slow boil. Boil for a minute and then turn off the heat.

Biscuits:
2cups White Lilly unbleached self rising flour.
1qt. Buttermilk
1/4 cup Crisco
1/2 stick butter pre melted
9inch iron skillet.
Pre heat oven to 400*
Using a potato masher, mash up the flour and Crisco until you have rice sized granules.

Start with 3/4 cups of Buttermilk and pour into the flour mixture. Stir and keep adding buttermilk until you have a semi loose mixture that will just hold its shape when you pick it up. (The more buttermilk the more moist the biscuit and vice versa)

Pour a cup of flower on some wax paper.

Now pour half of your butter on the bottom of the iron skillet.

Using your fingers pick up a wad of dough the size of a handball. Drop it on the flour that is in the wax paper and roll it quickly till its covered in flour. DONT OVER HANDLE THE DOUGH! THE LESS YOU TOUCH IT THE LIGHTER IT WILL BE WHEN IT IS BAKED.

Plop the doughball into the iron skillet working your way first around the edges ending up in the middle.

Put the skillet in the oven and set timer for 15minutes. After 15min. is up, pull the skillet out to the edge of the oven and pour the remaining butter over the tops of the biscuits and put them back in oven. Check every 5 minutes until the biscuits are all a light brown on top.

Remove from oven, run a spatula around the bottom and sides of the biscuits and turn them upside down onto a plate. (this keeps the crusty buttery bottoms uh......... crusty and buttery.)

Beware, you will have to set your coffee cup on top of these biscuits to keep them from floating away.

Variation: instead of handball sized doughballs use big marble size balls and roll them first in butter, then brown sugar mixed with cinnamon and lastly, crushed toasted pecans. Then put them in a skillet that has been completely buttered, bottom, walls and all. Bake at same temperature and you have some easy delicious sticky buns.

Variation: make the doughballs as in the first recipe except instead of rolling in flour, roll in very finely shredded sharp cheddar cheese and melted butter.

With biscuits this quick and easy to prepare and to clean up, there is no reason for anyone to have to use whompum biscuits.

When we have our Christmas get togethers each year in Gatlinburg, my family of about 35 people demand I make biscuits. I have to bring three huge full sheet pans with sides and I use 10 pounds of flour each breakfast. Along with 8 rolls of Wamplers Sausage. My son is now making the gravy.

Also, to serve with the biscuits and gravy, biscuits and menonnite sorghum syrup, we have homemade muscadine jelly to slather on them. To go with the biscuits and gravy we have homemade chow chow, homemade spicy catsup.

After that meal all of us with all original joints go up to the top of the mountain at Newfound Gap and go sledding the rest of the day..... And that breakfast sticks to your ribs as Grandma used to say.

I think that I like breakfast for supper ( we don't call it dinner in NC) better than I do in the morning. In the morning, it is easier to eat oatmeal, cereal or a breakfast bar

quote:

Originally posted by downtown

I dearly love breakfast for dinner. runny eggs, fresh tomatoes, ham steaks, hash browns, biscuits and gravy. cold nights and feel good food.

and I'm thinking I'm lucky we don't have cracker barrels in these parts!

The wife loves breakfast food for supper - eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, pancakes, whatever.

Got to admit she's steering me in that direction as well :-)

One other confession: I actually do like the biscuits and gravy at Bob Evans. So sue me :-)

Pogo, the biscuit recipes sound wonderful....1 quart of buttermilk and 2 cups of flour?

speachpeach,

You wont use the entire quart of buttermilk. After the first 3/4 cups of buttermilk you just add what you think you need to get the consistency you want. For some reason that seems to change from day to day. Humidity?
Remember, this is a drop biscuit recipe, not rolled out, so it needs to be a lot more moist than your normal biscuit recipe. Do you remember the "Nickelodean Green Slime" that kids play with? Well, it should be just a little stiffer than that before you roll it in the flour.
I know, green slime isn't the most appetizing thing to compare it to but I cant think of any other way to describe it.