Life Changes and Sunday Breakfast: Buttermilk Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

It's been a while and I wasn't sure I'd be back to this, quite frankly.  I have instituted a major change in my life, and hopefully this blog will allow me to share some of the triumphs and challenges that come along with it.  Since my last post I had a gastric weight loss procedure called a Sleeve Gastrectomy.  This is a surgical procedure that reduced the capacity of my stomach to around 8oz.  It has been six months since my surgery and I am down around 150 pounds from my peak weight of ENORMOUS.  It hasn't been easy, but we are taught to use the surgery as a tool, not an answer in itself.  The procedure I had differs from the full gastric bypass in that the intestines are not re-routed, and it cannot be un-done.  around 7/8 of my stomach has been removed, and what is left is a narrow "sleeve".  One of the benefits of this procedure is that the portion of the stomach that was removed is the portion that produces the hormone that makes you feel hungry.  The other benefit is I can really eat WHAT I want, just not very much of it at a time.  What this procedure does NOT do however is prevent "grazing" behavior, which was always my biggest issue. THAT part's on me.  Anyway, more about this in later entries!!  Let's get to breakfast!!                                              

This one's an easy crowd pleaser... at least in our family.  Freshly made buttermilk biscuits with sausage gravy.  Frequently on a Sunday when Erika's boys are with us, I will make pancakes, and when feeling ambitious, I'll make waffles, but both of those operations, while easy, are time consuming in that you have to man the griddle or waffle iron for the entirety of breakfast, then eat when everyone else is finished, or make everybody wait for soggy pancakes or waffles!  This one has all the work up front, and it's really not too much work at all!  The biscuit recipe is a minor variation of a recipe for southern biscuits from Food Network's Alton Brown.  The variation is to use all butter instead of 1/2 butter and 1/2 shortening.

For the buttermilk biscuits, you will need the following:
2 cups all purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons butter
1 cup chilled buttermilk

First cut the 4 tablespoons butter into little pieces, as quickly as possible, to minimize any softening.

and then, put them in the freezer to get cold again, while you execute the next step.

Cold butter makes flaky biscuits because, well, SCIENCE! However, the handling while cutting it into small pieces heats the butter up, so I have settled on this method, which has been working pretty well for me. 

Sift the flour for maximum fluffiness into a large mixing bowl, and mix in the rest of the dry ingredients...

Now add the cold butter and get to work QUICKLY... using a pastry cutter and your hands mix the butter into the dry ingredients till it resembles rough cornmeal...

... like so...

 Make a well in the center...

and add the chilled buttermilk.

stir with a large spoon until the dough forms up...

and turn the dough out onto a floured surface.  sprinkle a bit more flour on top and using your hands, flatten the dough, and proceed to fold it over onto itself 5 or 6 times, ending up with a 1" to 2" thick slab.

Use a small biscuit cutter and place the biscuits on a greased baking sheet, or use parchment like I do.  It is important NOT to re-work the remaining dough... the biscuits will get tough.  just use the scraps as they are (or fit a few together in the cutter and lightly press them together like the second from bottom right

Bake at 450 degrees until they look like this... around 15-20 minutes or so... pay attention, you will be busy for most of that time making the sausage gravy, if that's how you roll... and that's how I roll.

 While they are baking brown one pound of sausage, either fresh or the kind in a tube like I did.  I used Bob Evans (or Jimmy Dean, I can't really remember) Sage is my favorite flavor sausage for this.

 I use my handy Pampered Chef sausage breaker upper thing...

When the sausage is cooked, sprinkle 2/3 cup flour on top

and stir it up mon!

Add your milk, I used two cups skim and one cup buttermilk (for tartness, and to compensate for the thinness of the skim)..

...and simmer till it's thick and bubbly.  If it gets too thick for your sensibilities, add more milk.

Add salt and pepper to taste...

and serve over a biscuit like so, or if like my creative stepson Owen, break up the biscuit into little pieces.  

I also like to add an egg fried over-medium, but I didn't here.

Since my gastric procedure, my big breakfast is what you see here... again, maybe with one egg if I haven't had any coffee yet.

The best thing about cooking a breakfast like this when the boys are here, is that Ethan, our 16 year old, has a 16 year old's bottomless pit of a stomach, and will eat enough of the biscuits and gravy that I don't have to worry about being tempted to go back for more biscuits and gravy later, because There won't BE any biscuits and gravy later!

See you next time!!