Biscuits and Gravy

The pictures in this post are kind of blurry--I didn't realize my lens had butter on it. 

I love making breakfast on Saturdays. Waking up late, drinking coffee or bloody marys (maries?) on the couch, watching Inglorious Bastards yet again, and of course making something for breakfast from whatever happens to be in the fridge.
So what did I have today? Buttermilk, which I always seem to have lately. One leftover smoked chorizo...idea! Biscuits and gravy!
First, I made buttermilk biscuits.

Buttermilk Biscuits 

• 1 cup melted butter 
• 3 cups flour
• 1 cup buttermilk 
• 2 tsp salt
• 4 tsp white sugar 
• 1 TB baking powder 
• 1 tsp black powder

Pre-heat oven to 400. Grease a cookie sheet. Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Round into balls and place on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 400 for 25-30 min, or until golden brown. 

Before 

After! 

While the biscuits are baking, make the gravy. I made a bacon-and-chorizo gravy, but you can use any meat you'd like. 

Bacon and Chorizo Gravy 

• 4 strips bacon, chopped
• 1 chorizo sausage (or any kind of sausage), chopped 
• 1 yellow onion, chopped 
• 1/3 cup flour 
• 2 cups milk (add more if needed to thin)
• pinch salt 
• pinch black pepper 
• dash of hot sauce 

What to do 

Crisp the bacon and sausage in a skillet. Cook until a lot of the fat has rendered out. Add the onion and cook, stirring frequently. until golden-colored (about 10 minutes). Then, add the flour. Cook in the fat for about five minutes. It should develop a sweet, nutty smell. Turn the burner off and pour in the milk. Stir around to get the bits off the bottom. Season with salt, pepper, and hot sauce. 

Pour gravy over biscuits! I like to dribble some hot sauce over mine. 

Have this for breakfast, and you've eaten heartily enough to, say fight the Protestants. Walk from Galway to Kilkenney. Chase down a  wayward cow. Something like that. 

We, however, just sat around the house thinking of names for our new tadpoles. All four are now known as Wiggles. 

Enjoy! 

Buttermilk Corn Waffles

Today was the perfect lazy Saturday. We slept till 10:30, watched Blood Diamond and drank coffee. We didn't have much in the way of breakfast food in the house. But we DID have cornmeal, flour, and a carton of buttermilk left over from when I made biscuits. Buttermilk corn waffles! I had made these before for a chicken-and-waffles party: they're great, way better than regular no-corn waffles.

All this stuff was already in the house!

Adam has only once in his life requested an item of cooking equipment: an industrial waffle iron. It's huge and heavy. You usually only see these in the dining hall at college or camp. But we have one in our house. 

Buttermilk Corn Waffles 

Ingredients: 

1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cup cornmeal
2 TB sugar
1 TB baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 3/4 cups buttermilk

3 TB water 
2 TB vegetable oil (light olive or canola) 
2 large eggs

What to do: 

1. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl.  

2. Pour into a greased waffle iron and cook. 

3. Top with whatever you want and enjoy! 

Don't overfill the waffle iron or it will poop out the sides like this.

Yum. 

Chorizo Hash

Good morning, degenerates

Last night was the first Friday after spring break, so of course all of us teachers were fiending for a happy hour with No School Talk groundrules. Beers multiplied,  then we met Adam's coworkers for their happy hour: elebratory Not Guilty shots, more beers, a drag show, a cab where I managed NOT to give the cabbie unsolicited advice about charter schools (this annoys cab mates, I've been told a billion times).
So we woke up hungover. All we wanted to was sit on the couch and play with the dogs' ears and watch TV.
Obviously we ALSO wanted a greasy breakfast. So I made chorizo hash because I had the stuff for it in the fridge.

Sausage!

I had some leftover chorizos from Olivers--the best meat market in Denver.
I chopped everything into little bits:

Then fried it all until crispy:

Then made two runny eggs to go on top:

Then we shared this spicy, smoky, salty, greasy plate of evil goodness while watching Happy Endings in our pjs.

Laziness is my favorite.