This is not a “Grandma’s Notebook” recipe, so it doesn’t count against the goal I have for myself (2 down, 3 to go, by the way). And since I straight up used the Serious Eats recipes for this entire breakfast, I’m not going to retype them for you. Let’s just say that this is a post in memory of all the mornings that were spent at my grandparents’ house over the years.
It didn’t matter how many nights we spent at Grandma’s. At least one of the mornings we spent there would be the Biscuits and Gravy morning. Which meant Grandma had gotten up and started the sausage gravy, and put some biscuits in the oven, then kept all of it warm while her household would wake up in stages. We’d each wander in at our own speed, some having already dressed for the day, others bleary eyed and still in pajamas. Depending on the time, our grandfather might be awake, but there was never a time, not one, that Grandma wasn’t already up and dressed, with breakfast ready for us, while she either worked on another recipe for later in the day, or while she sat at the terribly small kitchen table with a magazine or book.
I never knew what her recipe was. I never asked. It wasn’t until much later, either right before or right after her death that I got truly curious – had anyone in my immediate family gotten her recipe for the beloved breakfast? I hit pay dirt with my youngest sibling. It seems that when he was staying with them, she told him her secret…
It was a mix!
Ever the short cut artist, Grandma had a mix for peppered gravy – she’d brown some sausage, prepare the mix as directed, and throw some Pillsbury biscuits (never the same version twice) in the oven, and she was set to go.
Awesome.
He remembered the mix, and with a little help from Amazon, I had myself a massive container of it on the way!
It took the five years after her death for me to even consider making biscuits and gravy. And by that point, the mix had gone past its “best buy” date. But I still had a hankering to make them. And so, I headed over to Serious Eats to see if I could find something that could compare.
Kenji’s Buttermilk Biscuits do the trick, though beware – I needed to change the last rolling step from 12″ square to 9″ square so that the biscuits weren’t flat disks. Don’t be worried about the picture, either – it’s showing cheddar and scallion biscuits.
Sausage Gravy by Joshua Bousel is just about as close as you can get to what Grandma used to make. His recipe doesn’t specify a flavor of breakfast sausage, but has you add sage or pepper flakes if you want. Instead, I went the route of using Sage flavored breakfast sausage the first time I made the recipe, then plain the second. The Sage version worked wonders, so we’ll be doing that in the future.
While both of these recipes are tasty, and I’m happy that I’ve found something that both MM and I enjoy, they don’t come close to the feeling of waking up at Grandma’s house, and smelling the biscuits and gravy in the kitchen, or seeing her smiling face at the kitchen table.
Miss you, Grandma.