Biscuits and gravy – weekend warrior breakfast
I know you’re out there, we all are, either raking leaves, mowing grass, clearing out dryer ducts, washing windows or perhaps biking, running, climbing, or paddling. It’s a beautiful fall day in Wisconsin and no matter what it is we’re doing it’s almost guanteed that we’ll be overdoing something…after all there are only a few weekends left of good outdoor weather…unless of course you enjoy snow, slush, and ice. So before you head out to do battle pause for a moment and prepare this fabulous breakfast; it’s hearty, warming, filling, and it’ll stick with you for 6 to 8 hours.
Start by mixing up a batch of my biscuits, cut them out cylinder style and bake them up. While the biscuits bake you should brown a 1/2 pound of breakfast sausage. Remove the sausage from the pan by scooping it out with a spoon. Now add 4 tablespoons of flour to the pan and cook the flour with drippings and goobs from the sausage for 2 or three minutes. Because most pork isn’t very fatty these days you’ll have to stir more when you add the milk but the end product is much less fattening than you might think. Now add some milk and start stirring with a whisk, dislodging the brown bits from the bottom of the skillet and working out the lumps. As soon as it becomes too thick to be edible you should add more milk…but just add a 1/2 cup or so at a time, stirring constantly, until you get the consistency that you like. Season with tabasco, salt, and black pepper. Add the sausage to the gravy and let it cook on medium low for about 5 minutes. Place your biscuit in a shallow bowl and add the gravy.
Sure you won’t want to eat this every morning but on ady like today it is sure to give you the fuel to go, go, go. Have fun.
Rhubarb pie and the farmers’ market
It’s been a brisk week in Wisconsin. I’ve gone through these days trying to decide if a sweater was necessary or if it really was as warm as I hoped. Usually a sweater improved the situation. Because of the briskness I took the opportunity to fix a few of my cold weather favorites that I was craving. Most notable was my black bean soup. There isn’t any photos because, well, we ate it… and nope, we didn’t stop to take pictures. It was good though and it always reminds me of the first time I made it in San Francisco. My version is a riff on Deborah Madison’s recipe from her Green’s cookbook. I’ve made it so many times over the past 20 years and it always satisfies with its spicy beaniness.
I’ve made a few rhubarb pies while it’s still in season. Fortunately I saved some of the frozen strawberries from last year’s bounty so we could have our favorite strawberry rhubarb pie. I think I’ll pick up some more rhubarb at the farmers’ market tomorrow…we never tire of pie and this might be the last weekend for rhubarb.
I’ve been thinking about our farmer friends a lot this week. Gas went up another 10 cents and I’m noticing some price increases at the grocery store…although I must admit that the items I buy at the store are few, they are things like flour, olive oil, butter (if I don’t make my own), chocolate, coffee, and wine. The farmers who faithfully show up to the market each week so we can have eggs, yogurt, milk, cheese, veg, fruit, mushrooms, and meat have to be feeling the pinch. I know from experience that the profit margin for most farmers is pretty thin and I’ve never known a rich farmer…at least if you judge riches by money. I do know a lot of happy farmers.
All of this is just to say that if you’re going out tomorrow, stop by a farmers’ market. If you happen to live in Madison you really should consider going to the best farmers’ market, the Westside Community Market. Nope, they don’t pay me to say that…I just say it because it’s true. I even have a list of 10 reasons why the Westside Side Community Market rocks:
- You can walk in any direction you want. That’s right folks, no counter-clockwise march here…just flit about and enjoy.
- Nick Kirch and the crew from Blue Marble Dairy will be there and their dairy products are awesome. So fresh and delicious. I love their milk and cream.
- Eric Johnson from Jordandal Farm will have chickens this week…apparently many chickens…I’m seriously excited because that means it’s BBQ Bird time…woot.
- Madison Sourdough’s perfect pain au chocolat. Their sourdough loaf is my favorite for sandwiches. The baguettes…arguably the best outside of Paris.
- The mushroom man had such huge morels last week…will he have them again this week?
- Bruce Workman from Edelweiss Cremery will be there with his Emmenthaler cheese. I also have a soft spot for his Muenster cheese.
- Peter Potter and his crackers…add any of his flavorful flatties to that Muenster and you’ve got the perfect afternoon snack.
- Dreamfarm’s eggs. I don’t know about you but I love Diana’s eggs. Lately we’ve been getting lots of double yolks…always a sign of a lucky day.
- Dreamfarm’s goat cheeses. I think that that Diana’s rosebud cheese is my favorite.
- Maple Syrup guy will be there only 2 more weeks…time to stock up.
Oh, don’t forget the rhubarb! Here’s my recipe.
