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Comfort Food Saturday Guest Post: Biscuits and Gravy

My dear friend Daniel has started a blog.  It's not just any old blog...it's a FOOD blog.  I met Daniel during my first year of grad school, and he graduated with Marcus.  He also moved to NYC around the same time we did, and we were practically neighbors there.  Many wonderful days and nights were spent in both our kitchens.  Some time, I'll have to get him to tell you the story of the 4th of July when Jen and Daniel refused to buy a watermelon. Daniel is one of the best storytellers and cooks I know.  Please be sure to check out his site Hungry Homo, where behind every recipe, there's a great story.

Now what Southern cook would be worth their salt (apologies to Jen) without their very own Biscuits and Sawmill Gravy Recipe? Now that I live in the Big Apple, I tend to get a little homesick and when that happens there is nothing like a Southern Dish to take me back home. One favorite of mine to make is my Mama Jean's Biscuits and Sawmill Gravy. I believe that the greatest thing about food is the story that comes behind it. You can go anywhere and get a biscuit, but you can't go anywhere and get my Mama Jean's Biscuits and Sawmill gravy. Well, except your own kitchen. Let me tell you a little bit about Mama Jean:
As a child growing up, some of my most formative experiences have happened in the kitchens of my grandparents. My Mama Jean (paternal grandmother) grew up in the country in Carrolton, Alabama. She came from a humble family pretty much not having a lot of anything that money could buy, but always in an abundance when it came to family and support and love.

She shared stories of taking baths in wash basins, using out houses, and killing chickens from the yard for food. As a young child, it seemed like I was hearing about a faraway land and culture. Standing wide-eyed in her kitchen she would tell me about hanging chickens upside down on a clothesline to get the blood out, and eating squirrels.

Once, Daddy and I had to rid the old house in the country of squirrels in the ceiling. We used a shotgun to scare them out, then I shot them with a 22 rifle, and put the squirrel carcasses into the hunting vest I was wearing. After the hunt, we went back to the house, me wearing a vest of squirrels. Mama Jean took them and cooked them. She told me never kill anything just for the sake of killing it. And we then ate squirrel.

Less than a year later, I was at her house playing with my new BB Gun. I had climbed her magnolia tree, and was keeping lookout. In a middle of the imaginary war I was fighting, I accidentally shot and killed a crow. Mama Jean was watching from the window. Petrified, I tried as fast as I could to dig a hole to put that crow in. It didn’t work. Mama Jean flew out of the house told me to get out of the tree and bring that bird inside. She then taught me how to clean and cook it. I literally ate crow. I never again shot anything living with my BB gun.

One of my greatest memories is when Mama Jean taught me how to make biscuits and sawmill gravy. Every time I make this, I’m right back there standing on top of a chair staring wide-eyed into Mama Jean’s perfectly seasoned cast iron skillet.

Now first, you have to make the biscuits. Everybody does them different, and that's okay. There are a lot of roads to get there, but at least you get there--ya know?? Now, in a pinch, you can use Bisquick. The directions are right there on the back of the box, and I know on more than one occasion that my Mama Jean used it. And my Granny J. And even me, the hungry homo. Now here is my biscuit recipe:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons butter, cubed
3/4 cup milk

Preheat your oven to 425. Mix all your dry ingredients. Drop in the butter cubes and work it together using your fingers. When you have something that looks like cornmeal, make a well in the center of the dough and put the milk in it. Knead the dough and continue adding the milk till it’s all in. Roll it out onto a floured countertop, and cut the biscuits using a biscuit cutter. Or you could do like Mama Jean and cut them with a water glass. (I used a biscuit cutter). Pop those in the oven, and in about 10-12 minutes, you will have fresh biscuits! When your biscuits are in the oven, grab your cast iron skillet, and start your gravy.

Don't be afraid if you aren't a "gravy person" (Jen) cause I'm not. This is the easiest gravy you will ever make.Now the secret to this gravy is the ingredients.

16 oz pork sausage (Jimmy Dean if you can find it--in the tube)

4 slices of bacon sliced into 1 inch pieces

1T flour

1 pint heavy cream

salt and pepper to taste

In a large skillet (preferably cast iron) brown your sausage and bacon together. After finished browning, pour out all but a tablespoon or two of the grease. Add 1T flour to this and start stirring. The flour is gonna suck up all that fat left in the pan. Stir this around for a couple of minutes. This roux should not brown (this is a white gravy). Pour in the pint of heavy cream and start stirring. Add your salt and pepper at this point. Keep stirring. You are gonna stir this for 5-7 minutes without stopping. The gravy will thicken. Taste it and correct your seasoning--and you are done!

Your biscuits should be just about ready to come out of the oven. When they do, cut them in half and put on a plate. Pour some of this gravy over it, grab a fork, and enjoy. Now I can not be responsible if after you eat this, you just walk right over to your significant other and slap 'em right acrost the face. This is THAT good. Come on over to my blog and tell me how you liked the recipe. I'd love to hear you share your story. There's nothing like getting your family (in whatever capacity you qualify it) around that table eating, talking, laughing, and enjoying each other. It's what we like to call "fellowshippin'".

 

   

Leave a comment here or hop on over to Hungry Homo and let Daniel know how much you enjoyed this recipe and story! He's participating in NaBloPoMo, so there will be a new recipe each and every day this month.

Shameless Plug

If you're new here, you may not know that I also write for a site called Foodie Mama.  It's a nifty little site where folks like you and me share recipes, tips and stories revolving around food.  The editorial team is fantastic, always offering tasty articles, great advice and heartwarming stories.  While there are certainly many areas of the site which target parents, such as the Feeding By Age section (I'm the Feeding Toddlers Editor), it's really user-friendly for anyone.  Even if you don't consider yourself a cook, you should check it out. (See Quick and Easy Meals!)  There's a pregnancy diet, too, if you've got a bun in the oven.  See?  Something for everyone!

Check it out and let me know if you find something you like!

22

TWENTY-TWO.  Months, that is.  That's two months away from two years old.  How in the world did that tiny little baby go from this:

to this:

 in 22 months? 

Here's what's up with Deano The Bambino this month:

*He still has an affinity for the word GO, but has started adding about a word a day to his vocabulary.  Recent additions include bongo, apple ("bappa"), and leaf.

*He likes to smile with teeth now.  He'll look at you (or a stranger in the store) and flash that toothy grin.  It's beyond cute.

*He tries to escape from diaper changes all the time.  The other day, he managed to get away from me, run over to the throw rug, squat down and pee. Classy.

*We've hit a bout of "terrible 2's" a little early.  On more than one occasion, Mr. Dean has thrown himself onto the ground, flailing about and squealing because he didn't get his way.  Our favorite episode was the night Marcus said "Ok, bath time!"  These words usually inspire Dean to run up the stairs, stripping as he goes.  This particular evening, he fell out and screamed.  Marcus went halfway up the stairs, where I met him, and we tried to coax Dean to come up to the bathroom.  Finally, we went all the way upstairs so we could giggle.  Dean realized we were gone, stopped crying, climbed the stairs, found us, then commenced with the temper tantrum.

*He loooooves to give kisses.  He'll pucker his little lips and go "mmmmmmmmmmwah!" and give the sweetest smooches ever.

*He still loves to play with the leaves in the yard. We have had a great time this fall running in the leaves and throwing them at each other.

*Every time we go outside, whether we're getting into or out of the car, walking to the mailbox or going out to play, he HAS to pick himself a banana pepper from the garden.  He LOVES them.  I had to cut him off on Halloween, because every time we opened the door, he' go pick himself a pepper.  I was terrified to think of what the diaper of a toddler who had ingested 4 banana peppers would look like (or smell like, for that matter)

*FINALLY likes stickers!  Before, he would fuh-reak out every time we put a sticker on his hand or shirt, take it off, stick it on me, then freak out again because it was on me.  I was starting to think they had given us the wrong baby (seeing as he doesn't like chocolate either. Whassup with THAT?), because my goodness gracious I love me some stickers.  But he's coming around.

*He has started to sing along.  It is pre-shus!

*There are hardly ever tears anymore when Marcus drops him off at school.  This makes me happy, as I know he's getting excellent care and having a blast.  He also brings home awesome crafts for our fridge.

If the next two years are as good as the first two have been, I'd say we're some very lucky people.

 

Wordless Wednesday: Batman sorts his loot

No one will be wrapping anyone in toilet paper

This weekend, I have the honor of hosting a baby shower for my friend Meredith.  It's going to be down south in her hometown and I have two lovely co-hostesses helping me pull it all together.  Meredith's first son is due 3 days before my Dean's second birthday.

Meredith and I have been friends for about 10 years now and we've been through a lot together.  I'm thrilled that she's entering the ranks of motherhood and even more excited that we'll both have boys.  We live too far away to see each other every weekend, but definitely close enough to make frequent trips, so I hope we'll do more of that once her little guy is here.

One big thing Meredith and I have in common is the fact that we both loathe baby showers in their traditional southern sense. Games were strictly forbidden at my baby shower. (It ended up being cancelled because all my guests got the flu, but whatever.) Meredith feels the same way.  We've all been to those showers where they play obnoxious games, right?  Here are my (least) favorites:

*Melted candy bars on a diaper.  GROSS.  You're supposed to put a candy bar on a diaper, microwave it (that can't possibly be good for the environment), then have guests guess which candy bar it is.  EW.

*Taste the baby food.  You make guests taste several jars and guess what they are.  Ridiculous.

*The "conception game."  I've seen this one actually hurt a mom-to-be's feelings pretty badly before.  Someone writes down everything the expectant parents say as they open their gifts, then read it back as the stuff that was said when the baby was conceived.  I had a painfully shy co-worker once who took 2 months of convincing for us to even be able to throw her a shower and one of my male co-worker's wives took her baby book and wrote down all these things, then read them back.  The couple was mortified.  The wife in question also took up two entire pages of their baby book writing down names that started with J, as the couple had confessed they would be naming their daughter a J name.  Ob. Noxious.

*And the worst game of all...wrap the pregnant lady in TP.  Meredith was TERRIFIED that someone was going to do this to her.  Everyone takes as much TP as they think it'll take to make it around the pregnant lady's belly once.  People tend to get mean with this one and take the whole roll.  Just what an 8 months pregnant lady needs--people making fat jokes.

So anyway, we're doing a Sip N See shower, where you can stop by any time between 2-4pm.  There will be no formal gift-opening, no chance of everyone being there at the same time and absolutely no games.  There WILL, however, be a to-die-for centerpiece, lovingly created by my co-hostess Shea, some beautiful (hopefully) cupcakes created by moi and a lot of laughs and smiles.  I was the matron of honor in Meredith's wedding, but since I lived in NYC at the time, I never got to throw her a bridal shower, so that makes the fact that I get to organize her baby shower even more special.

I promise to post lots of pictures after the weekend, none of which will feature grown-ups wearing pacifiers or Meredith killing anyone for wrapping her belly in TP.

You may have noticed that I've decided to do NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I wanted to wait until I was a couple of days in before I admitted to it in case I dropped the ball.  Be sure to check back (and comment!) often, as I'll be pulling up some awesome stories from my past. (See yesterday's post...)

The caf

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, my husband and I have lunch together, usually in the university cafeteria.  The food's not bad.I like fried chicken Fridays a lot and they have great Parmesan Peppercorn dressing on the salad bar.  I've never minded eating in a cafeteria, as there are usually several decent dishes to choose from.  When I was in college, however, I caught the cafeteria blues somewhere around the end of my freshman year.  You see, our cafeteria wasn't that great.  They offered a lot of fish (the smell alone would drive you out the door) and creamy things (I'm lactose intolerant), so I usually ate in the food court or at Chick-Fil-A.  Our food court offered things like pizza, baked potatoes, Mexican food and burgers, but they also had a spot called "Mom's Kitchen" which boasted home cooking.  In all honesty, Mom's Kitchen usually featured something they had done with yesterday's cafeteria leftovers. (Meaning NOT APPETIZING!)  My sophomore year, they opened the PHD cafe (Pro-Health Dining) upstairs in the student center, and I ate there on Thursdays because they served spinach lasagna.  Otherwise, it was usually Chick-Fil-A for me.

I rarely ate in the student center on Saturday evenings, mostly because I had pressing social engagements to get to.  I usually swung by Sonic or McDonald's or went out to eat with friends.

SIDEBAR: The only places to "go out" in Ruston, Louisiana at that time were Shoney's, Huddle House, Ryan's Steakhouse and Pizza Hut.  By about your third week in town, you were completely and totally sick of all of those options.

Anywho, one particular Saturday night, we didn't have reherasal, a work call in the theatre or a party to attend.  Faced with *gasp!* free time, my friend Kimberly and I decided to grab dinner in the caf, then head over to the Lady Techsters game.  I figured I'd end up getting a made-to-order pizza, since we had some time to kill, but I decided to stroll by Mom's Kitchen to see what scrumptious delicacy they were offering that evening.  I didn't think anything could be nastier than their version of beef stroganoff, which looked like they took 3 year old egg noodles and poured half and half over them, but I was mistaken.  There in the little silver serving bin, floating in about 4 inches of grease were the most charred pieces of meat I have ever seen.  They looked like hockey pucks.  I had to know what they were.  I asked the server "What IS that?" and she pointed to a makeshift sign (translation:  A napkin taped to the glass and scribbled on with a sharpie) that read:

FILLET MINYAN.

And then I went to Chick-Fil-A.

The Dentist is gonna love us

My husband has consumed approximately 27 Tootsie Roll Pops, 13 rolls of Smartees, countless pieces of Double Bubble and 4 packs of Pez in the past 24 hours.  My child tried to eat the wrapper off a lollipop, then after I unwrapped it for him, took 5 licks before grabbing it with both his hands, then placing his hands on the carpet.  I ate all the mini M & M's (and there weren't enough, I say!).  What I'm trying to say is we had a good Halloween.

 

Batman there had a wonderful time trick or treating with his friend Kate.  We went around downtown during business hours Friday afternoon, and he got to test out saying "trick or treat" a few times.  Last night, we went to a few houses in our neighborhood. Dean mostly liked knocking on the doors and seeing people's dogs, though he did say "thank you" several times.  We only had four trick or treaters come to our house.  Gee, glad I bought the deluxe bag of candy.   Oh, well. Now I'll have twizzlers til Christmas.

In other news, I created a recipe yesterday that I want to share. (I know! It's not even Saturday!)  I entered it in a contest being hosted by Publix, our favorite grocery store.  The only rules were that it had to be original and you had to use 3-4 apples in the recipe.  The result was quite tasty.

SPINACH SALAD WITH APPLES AND BACON

• 1-2 bags ready to eat baby spinach leaves
• 6-8 slices crisp, cooked bacon, crumbled
• 3 Gala apples, cored and sliced
• 1/3 cup walnuts
• shredded cheddar cheese to taste

Dressing:

• 1 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• black pepper to taste

Toss all salad ingredients together in a bowl.  Whisk together oil, vinegar and pepper and drizzle over salad.  Enjoy!
 

Comfort Food Saturday: Caramel Apple Dip

Our dear friend Alli first introduced us to this super easy, yet unbelievably delicious apple dip.  This stuff looks beautiful on a platter and will knock your socks off when you taste it.  Excellent for baby showers, parties and picnics, though my husband has asked to have it for lunch on more than one occasion.

ALLI'S CARAMEL APPLE DIP

• 8 oz. cream cheese
• 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
• 1 jar caramel ice cream sauce
• Chopped nuts (optional)
• Sliced Granny Smith Apples (or other apple of your choice)

Mix cream cheese and powdered sugar together.  Spread onto platter.  Pour caramel sauce over cheese mixture, spreading evenly.  Sprinkle chopped nuts on top if desired.  Slice apples and layer them around the outside of the platter. Dip apples into mixture and know what happiness is.

My Favorite Halloween

The best Halloween I've ever experienced was when I was 25 years old.  I was in my second year working at Cornell and I was renting a huge and spectacular old house with one of my best friends, Kitty.  You should know that Kitty's name is actually Jen.  She and I were the 2 staff stage managers at Cornell at the time.  Yes, it got confusing, what with both of us being named Jen and being right at the five-foot-tall mark.  We didn't even have the convenience of going by a middle name, as we were both blessed with MARIE.  Anywho, those who know her best call her Kitty.  And Kitty LOVES Halloween. Like, she lives for it.  The previous year, early in our friendship, we decided to dress up as each other, which was a big hit with our students and co-workers.  This particular year, however, we had a house.  Chez Jen, we called it.  It was situated in a fantastic neighborhood just blocks from campus.  We had 4 bedrooms, a beautiful fireplace, a game room and a sunporch.  Needless to say, we had room to decorate and decorate BIG.

Having a Halloween party was a no-brainer.  We knew we wanted to do something, but we didn't know how big we should go. WARNING:  When 2 short people named Jen with a knack for creative organization are set loose in a Friendly's restaurant to brainstorm, crazy things happen.

What started out as a simple costume party with slice-and-bake pumpkin cookies turned into an all-out Halloween extravagganza, complete with theatrical lighting.  Let me set the scene for you:

*Our house, like everything else in Ithaca, NY, was situated on a high hill. There were steps leading up to it, which we lined with luminary bags.  The bushes in our yard were draped with cobwebs. 

*We carved 2 pumpkins (ok, maybe 3) with intricate deatils and set them along the front porch.

*When you entered our house, we had a Halloween muic mix playing the likes of "Monster Mash," "Purple People Eater" and spooky sound effects. 

*On the ceiling of our living room was a huge spiderweb, thanks to our friend Ford and some borrowed theatrical lights and a gobo.  A GOBO (new theatre vocabulary word) is a metal plate that slips into a lighting instrument so that when it lights up, it throws a pattern. Kitty rigged up an enormous spider, made out of black garbage bags, in the corner. The dining room had a scary forest on the ceiling.

*Our snack table included cookies and cupcakes, a cauldron of green punch, complete with floating eyeball-shaped ice cubes and dry ice to make it smoke, a loaf of pumpkin bread in the shape of a skeleton and some other things I can't remember because that was like 7 years ago.

Now, as you can imagine, the neighborhood kids who came to trick-or-treat went insane when we opened the door.  One little girl went and got her friends and brought them over.  Parents were in awe.  We felt like rockstars. 

Kitty and I made the executive decision, based on a big sale at Disney.com, to have 2 costumes that year:  one for work, one for our party.  At work, we were Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.  Fitting through doorways was interesting, as the costumes were practically lined with hula hoops and our shoes were about 50 sizes to big for our tiny size 4 feet.  For our house party, we were witches.  We had crushed velvet dresses and big pointy hats.  We did some fun theatrical makeup and wore fishnets with a spider pattern.  Kitty also kept with her tradition of wearing her Dorothy costume to do her show that evening.

The rule at Chez Jen was this :  If you come to one of our theme parties (and there were many), you must dress up. If you fail to follow this rule, we reserve the right to dress you up ourselves.  Imagine our student Kevaughn's surprise when I took him upstairs and put him in a brown wig and one of my dresses and called him Jen Nelson. (Imagine MY surprise when he looked better in the dress than I ever did!)

Kevaughn as me and Tim as...well, we're still not completely sure WHAT he was, but his makeup's cool!

The party and the decorations were fantastic that year, but nothing compared to seeing how happy it made Kitty to be able to throw an all-out Halloween bash.  Working together to pull off this super-fun night is and always will be one of my favorite memories of our time at Chez Jen, right up there with the time we stayed in our pajamas for two days and pulled our dining room table into the living room so we could watch Coal Miner's Daughter while playing Crazy 8's.  But that?  Is another entry altogether.

Cabin Fever

Chez Lane has recently taken on the appearance of an infirmary.  Dean and I have been sick since last Thursday.  He seems to be all better, but I can't seem to shake this congestion and sore throat.  We sat on the couch all weekend.  Dean would nap for a bit, then wake up and go "Look at me! I feel refreshed!  Let me run around the room like a nutball!!!!!!!!!!"  Then about 20 minutes later he'd go "Whoa.  I overdid it.  Let me spike a fever again and pass out on my mom."  So that was exhausting.  There is juice in our fridge, there are boxes of Kleenex everywhere and the pile of laundry...well, let's just say it no longer fits within the confines of the basket.

I went back to work yesterday because my class has a midterm on Wednesday, so I needed to do a review.  Several of my students picked the WRONG day to mess with me.  This is one of those instances where I would love to be able to write about work, but I can't talk specifically about my students and some of the weird things they ask (and they are gems).  We should really start an anonymous blog where we can share things like this.

Anyone doing NaBloPoMo? (Or NaNaBloPop as Marcus calls it) I did it last year, made some great friends and added some wonderful sites to my blogroll.  I'm trying to decide if I've got the time or the drive to do it this  year.  If I do decide to do it, I may employ some of you as guest bloggers for a day or two.  I'm already cooking up a fantastic guest writer for an upcoming Comfort Food Saturday.

I need to get out of the house today. A trip to the grocery store is in order. We're out of Splenda and that is unacceptable.  Dean has a touch of cabin fever, too, having not really left the house since Thursday.  He brought me my purse a minute ago and said "I go!"  Unfortunately, it's raining, so our outing may be postponed for a bit longer.

What are your kids dressing up as for Halloween?  Dean will be Batman this year.  We're hoping everyone's feeling better so my parents can come for the weekend.  Everyone be sure to post pictures! Who doesn't love a cute kid in a costume?