1. Breakfast Gravy and Chicken Fried Anything = Cream Gravy = Milk and Flour base
2. Meat Gravy (i.e. Turkey, Chicken, Beef, etc = Brown Gravy = Water or Broth and Flour base
3. Mashed Potatoes = BROWN GRAVY I am seriously affronted by cream gravy on mashed potatoes

The other important method of gravy is how you incorporate your fat, flour, and liquid components.  For cream gravies, I usually use a roux method – or browning your flour in the fat before incorporating the liquid.  For meat gravies, I usually combine my flour and liquid first then add to the fat.  That’s the way I was taught to make gravy, so why mess with what works?  In retrospect, my mother often used Wondra flour – which is more easily dissolved in in cold or hot liquids than regular all-purpose flour, so perhaps that’s why we combined it first?  I stopped using Wondra in college because a nutrition teacher swore Wondra flour was the most grave sin a person could commit when making gravy.  She was a bit extreme, but my parents paid good money for that class so by golly I was going to learn from it ; )  That said, Mom – don’t change your method, you weren’t officially present in that class so you can just keep on sinning and pretend you’ve never heard such a thing in your life.  Your gravy is excellent, don’t mess with perfection!

Anyhow, the important thing is to start with low heat when incorporating, whisk like crazy until you feel like your arm will fall off, and never panic.  If it looks to thin, it won’t thicken until it starts to boil.  If it looks to thick, you can always add more liquid.  And salt can cure a multitude of sins.  For that matter, I don’t see why you couldn’t treat it like pudding and throw it in the blender in a pinch if you couldn’t correct the lumps.

Sausage Gravy Recipe

1 package breakfast sausage

1/4 c. all purpose flour

1 and 1/4 c. milk, I use 1%

kosher salt

fresh ground pepper

Brown your sausage in a heavy bottomed skillet on medium heat.  Remove sausage to a plate.  Add flour to the remaining fat and brown, scraping up any brown bits from the sausage.  You want it to resemble a paste.  Keep browning, if it looks too crumbly, add a teensy bit of bacon grease to the mixture.  (Always keep a coffee cup of bacon grease in your fridge for cooking and seasoning!)  If it looks to wet, add just a little bit of flour to adjust.  This picture is what you want yours to look like – but it’s a double recipe, so you’ll have less paste!

When you can smear the mixture across the bottom of your pan with a gentle nudge from your spatula, you’re ready to add your milk.  Turn heat to low, If you’re right-handed, hold the milk in your left hand and your whisk in your right.  Pour the milk in a slow stream, while whisking furiously with your right hand.  Keep going until all your milk is added, then keep right on whisking.  After about 3 minutes turn your heat to medium, still whisking.  After about 3 more minutes, turn your heat to high, whisking all the while.  When it begins to boil, gauge your thickness and whisk in additional milk if needed.  If after it boils it’s still too thin, mix 1 tablespoon of flour with 1/4 cup of milk in a cup, then whisk that into your gravy.  Return to a boil.  Season generously with salt and pepper to taste, then serve.  Enjoy!

Don’t forget to book your holiday cooking class by emailing lane@dinnerandconversation.com spaces are filling up quickly!

Weekly Menu Week of October 19th

Order by email to lane@dinnerandconversation.com or cook along side me at home with recipes from dinnerandconversation.com

Chicken Marsala over angel hair pasta $24

Flank Steak with Herb Sauce served with Basmati white rice $22

Roasted Turkey Breast served with Mashed Potatoes and Gravy $18

Roasted Shrimp with Lemon Basil Orzo $28

Asparagus Wrapped in Prosciutto $10

Fresh Lemon Cupcakes $2 each

Fresh Blackberry Cupcakes $2 each

Lemon Artichoke Pesto $8

I’ve made this with half and half and I’ve made it with cream.  It works both ways, but the cream is way better.  Anything resembling a quiche exists as the antithesis of diet food.  This tastes delicious and while you definitely shouldn’t eat it every day, pull it out every now and again and savor the taste.  It delivers a wonderful spicy, savory flavor that is surprising, then delightful.  Also can be made using a store bought frozen pie crust for ease!  Can be served for brunch, appetizers, or as a side dish at dinner.

Tomato Tart serves 8-10

adapted from Williams Sonoma Entertaining Cookbook

1/4 c. chilled butter

1/4 c. chilled Spectrum Palm Oil Shortening

1 and 1/2  c. flour

1/2 tsp kosher salt

3 and 1/2 tbsp ice water

2 tbsp Dijon mustard

3 tbsp fresh mint, minced

1/4 lb. Gruyere, sliced into thin slices

4 tomatoes on the vine

1 c. heavy cream

2 eggs

1/2 tsp kosher salt

12 turns fresh ground pepper

In a food processor, combine flour and salt.  Add butter and shortening cut into little pieces.  Use the pulse button to cut butter and shortening into flour until you see no more large pieces.  Through the top, pour the water 1 tablespoon at a time and continue to pulse until dough is just moist.  Move to a floured surface and form a ball.  Roll out with a floured rolling pin into a circle.  Press into the bottom of a glass pie pan, evening out and smoothing the edge.  Freeze overnight.

Core and cut tomatoes into slices.  Using a paring knife, trim the seeds and jelly from the slices, then move to a colander to drain.  Salt tomatoes slices, then let sit for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350.  Remove the now frozen pie crust, and use a spatula to cover the bottom with the Dijon.  Sprinkle with mint, then top with the Gruyere slices.  Arrange tomatoes on top of the Gruyere.  Combine cream and eggs, whisk to beat.  Season cream and egg mixture with the salt and pepper, then pour over the tomatoes.  Bake in oven for about an hour, until filling has risen and firmed and has a golden brown color.

If you find yourself sitting around coveting a fabulous stand mixer, biscuits and cakes and frostings dancing through your head, DoughMessTic has a contest running through midnight this Tuesday where you can win one!  Hope over there, make a comment in the comment section noting you were sent there by dinnerandconversation.  If the random number generator picks your comment number, you can with a Stand Mixer in a color of your very own choosing!  While you’re at it, you can become a fan of DoughMessTic on Facebook and my site!  Just search for doughmesstic or dinnerandconversation.com in your facebook, then click Become a Fan of!

The very very very best way to make Southern Style Biscuits requires White Lily Flour.  Really.  All other flours yield a biscuit though delicious, lacking a delicacy and levity unparalleled.  If you’re in Dallas, you can pick up your White Lily Flour at Central Market.  And if you’re lucky enough  to be in Austin, you can pick it up at almost any HEB.  Otherwise I hope you live in the southeast or you’ll be paying exorbitantly to ship 5 lb. bags of flour from either the site above or another you google.  Quality ingredients are worth the shipping.  Just ask me about my shipments of Heinz Genuine Dill Pickles.  At the end of the day, my pickles cost over $10 a jar.  That’s almost enough to make me hide them from my children.  But who am I kidding, I can’t blame them for their highly refined palates ; )  And at least I’m no longer buying them from the Piggly Wiggly, who gracefully managed to pack them so that at least 1/3 of my shipment broke every time.  Sigh.

Southern Style Biscuits Stand Mixer Recipe (makes about 14 biscuits)

Well, it’s been a rough week for me, so for some reason, my reaction has been to bake.  Baking is not something I’m particularly good at, so I’m not sure what prompted this adventure.  Possibly it’s that I *can’t* do it in my sleep and it requires a level of concentration distracting me from other thoughts.  That said, the biscuit process probably took me about three hours start to finish, which is absurd.  The recipe doesn’t take that long, I just kept getting distracted by life or phone calls or a small child or a grown husband.  And there was the problem of I missing several key ingredients.  Well, I never have buttermilk on hand as I just don’t see the point in buying it when you can make your own very simply using ingredients I always have on hand.  Plus, what in heavens name, am I going to do with the remainder of the buttermilk after I’ve used the portion the recipe requires.  Aside from throw it out after it expires, Ahem.  Not so great for my food waste reduction goal.

The cream of tartar was another problem.  Cream of tartar in baking is a leavening agent.  I know how to sub for baking powder using baking soda and cream of tartar, but I wasn’t sure how to get backwards.  It was more complicated than I imagined, and I probably should have just asked Robert Shimmin, but I was trying, stubbornly, to pull this off on my own.  The biscuits turned out well, though if I’d gone with the original recipe, who knows, they may have been better.  I’m going to try them again with the cream of tartar and report back on my results.

The recipe is adapted from a post by Jen of userealbutter.com She writes a fabulous food blog that I love and admire.  Her original recipe is here.  Go by it – or go at it with my changes.  She has wonderful pictures for a play-by-play cooking experience.  The adjustments I made are the buttermilk – to 2 cups of 1% milk, I added two tablespoons white vinegar – you can also use lemon juice – and let it stand for a good 10 minutes.  Since I didn’t have the cream of tartar, I used 4 1/2 tsps baking powder and only 1 tsp baking soda instead of the original 2 tsps.  Also, I used a glass to cut out my biscuits since I don’t have a biscuit cutter, a neat trick I learned from my big sis!  I also wasn’t paying attention at the point when it said to start with 1 and 3/4 c. of the buttermilk and dumped it all in.  My dough wound up too wet for proper kneading, but I rescued it by sprinkling on lots of excess flour.  Forgive me Internet!  I’m not a true baker by nature!  My oven’s kind of persnickety,  so I started checking at 16 minutes and felt like my were finished in about 17 minutes.

Two other points of conversation for this recipe, the White Lily Flour mentioned in the original recipe is something I’ve sought after for YEARS but can never find.  Back in school in my Nutrition and Food Science days, this flour was purported as being the chief flour for baking.  It’s been 12 years and I can’t remember why now, but if you can find it, you should buy it!  The other great rec for non-bakers like me is a pizza stone.  Back in my working days, I had an employee who just loved to host Pampered Chef parties.  I always felt compelled to buy something and most of what I bought I disliked for one reason or another.  But the pizza stone is awesome.  It makes it nearly impossible to burn cookies or biscuits.  Nice even baking.  A++ and highly recommended! Looks like now they have a rectangle one I’d like even better.

Extra Flaky Style Southern Biscuits

4 1/2 cups  all-purpose flour
4 1/2 tsps baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsps salt
1/2 cup cold butter, cut into pieces
1 3/4 to 2 cups cold buttermilk
8 tbsps butter, really softened and cut into 1 tbsp pieces
1 tbsp butter, melted

Preheat oven to 450° . Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. In bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Cut cold butter or shortening into dry ingredients with a pastry blender. (Mixture will resemble coarse crumbs, with no large chunks of butter.) If butter gets very soft at this point, refrigerate mixture for 20 minutes. Add 1 and 3/4 cups buttermilk, stirring just to moisten all ingredients. Dough should be soft and moist; add remaining 1/4 cup as needed. Turn dough out onto lightly floured work surface and knead gently about 10 times, or just until dough holds together. Roll or pat dough into a 14-by-10-inch rectangle. With short side nearest you, spread top two-thirds of dough with 3 tablespoons soft butter, leaving bottom third, closest to you, unbuttered. Fold dough into thirds by pulling bottom third up over center and then pulling top third over middle. Turn dough so short side faces you. Roll into a 9-by-12-inch rectangle. In same manner, spread again with 3 tablespoons soft butter and fold letter style. Turn once more in the same manner. Roll into a 9-by-12-inch rectangle (I used the rolling pin again); spread with remaining 2 tablespoons soft butter and fold up. Work quickly and gently so as not to overwork dough. Roll dough into rectangle 3/4-inch thick on floured surface. Cut into rounds using the top edge of a drinking glass. Place on pan, 1 inch apart. Lightly brush tops with melted butter. Bake in center of hot oven about 17 minutes, until golden brown and firm.

I normally don’t cook breakfast since I have an inability to function before a more reasonable hour like 9 or 10 and after I’ve consumed an appropriate amount of coffee that hopefully someone else (you know who you are) has lovingly prepared for me.  If I’m eating breakfast, about 90% of the time, that means cheerios and milk.  Others in my family seem to desire more variety in the AM so occasionally when I am strong, I humor them.

Pancetta is from the same cut of pork that bacon is, but bacon is smoked in addition to being cured, thus leading to a slightly different flavor.  I’m sure it also comes down to personal preference, but I am very fond of the extremely thin cut slices of pancetta, whereas with bacon, I almost always choose the thick cuts.  To me, pancetta adds a crunch and depth to your flavor but doesn’t take over as the centerpiece of attention.  Bacon feels more like a main component, edging it’s way in to mask the flavors of other things entering your mouth at the same time.  Imagine a BLT, there I find the bacon to be like the replacement for turkey or other deli meats and the lettuce and tomato are garnishes and flavor enhancers.  On the flip side, if you made a PLT, it would be more like a lettuce and tomato show complemented by the pancetta.

Perhaps it makes me a food snob, but I am a big fan of pancetta.  And also of bacon.  Just at different times and in different places.  To forgo it would be like limiting myself to red onions for life and never allowing myself the yellows, the whites, the greens, the shallots and so on.

Breakfast Tacos

3 oz pancetta, diced

7 eggs, beaten

5 tortillas

1/4 of a white onion, diced

sprinkling of cheddar/jack cheese

kosher salt

fresh ground pepper

Hell on the Red Salsa

In a skillet, cook pancetta on medium heat until crispy, stirring to ensure even cooking.  Remove pancetta to a plate and reserve.  In the fat rendered from the pancetta, cook the onion, also on medium until soft.  In a non-stick skillet, combine the eggs with a large pinch of salt and 8 turns of pepper.  Cook on medium heat, scrambling with a spatula.  Warm tortillas wrapped in foil in a 250 degree oven for 10-15 minutes.  Top one tortilla with eggs, and a sprinkling of onions, pancetta, and cheese.  Serve with plenty of salsa for dipping.

So you know you spend too much time in the grocery store when…

Last week I got busted by the Kenneth type grocery sacker doing a little dance to the bad elevator mix in the laundry detergent aisle. Our neighborhood grocery is two stories, so while I was alone in the aisle, “Kenneth” was looking from above on the mezzanine level. When some one called out, “Hey, I like this song too!” I was mildly embarrassed, but chalked it up to the over exuberance any mother feels on a preschool day.

Today we divided and conquered after nap time. I took the baby, my 2.5 year old bundle of joy little boy, who’d been exhibiting Excorsist worthy post-nap behavior. We did well on the quick drive over, and my spirits were lifted when I pulled him out of his carseat. On our way in the grocery, spring-like, atrium inspired music met my ears, and I began to bounce involuntarily with the beat.

TO MY FLIPPING DISMAY, I suddenly realized – holy hell, this is a Paris Hilton song. Yep, same song in exhibit A and B, Paris freaking Hilton. On a mix loop version. Jeez. I wish I could safely use stronger expletives. I am now the least cool person on the block. scratch that in the city. scratch that in the universe. WOW.

Anyway, when grocery planning this morning, my stomach began to crave food. Good food. And I realized, though I am not a morning person, hey! It’s noon! The stove can be my friend. So I whipped up some omelets including last weeks ham leftovers. And chives from my aerogarden (though bestowing us many fresh herbs, mine doesn’t look quite that balanced). I *might* decide to like breakfast food if it could consistently be made at noon. Heck, we nearly ran out of coffee today and the end result was not pretty, unless you like things thrown at your head.

Egg White Omelet

5 egg whites

olive oil

3 tbsp finely chopped ham

1.5 tbsp chopped sauteed white onion

2 tbsp finely shredded cheddar

1/2 tsp fresh chopped chives

1 pinch Murray River Salt – if you follow the link scroll below, I used to put my thoughts at the end of the recipe

Whisk egg whites with a fork. In a skillet over medium heat, heat 1 tbsp olive oil. Pour egg whites into skillet. Cook for 3-4 minutes until bottom looks firm, yet surface still looks like raw egg whites. Add ham, sauteed onion, and cheddar to one half of eggs, cook for another 2 minutes. Use spatula to loosen non-topped egg side from skillet. Balance and watch. When there is too much oil, you can see the egg bubbling and oil around all the edges. When there’s NOT enough oil, your egg sticks to the skillet and your spatula has troubles sliding underneath. When it’s just right, you see no oil, but the egg is not sticking. Err on the side of too little. When you have to little oil, gently add oil to the edges of egg slowly, then gently squish your spatula underneath to spread the oil. That will gently ease the oil underneath. Gently fold over half onto toppings, wait 30 seconds. Slide the fold side edge to the edge of skillet, use a *fish spatula to scoop omelet onto plate. Top with fresh chives.

*when I went to make the link on this tool, what I have is no longer manufactured. What I’m referencing is a wider than long spatula. I will photograph mine and look for a new site to update purchase options, but I guess mine no longer exists. bummer.