Biscuits & Gravy

I know I've mentioned breakfast being our favorite meal around Casa de Sharp, and here's another breakfast recipe for you.  I made both recipes and then froze them for enjoyment at a later (lazier) date.  I froze the gravy in muffin pans and then transferred the little gravy muffins to a big zip-loc bag.  The biscuits are star-shaped because I don't have a biscuit cutter, but do have lots of fun cookie cutters.  The stars were just the right size, and I think they make pretty darn cute lil' biscuits.

Cute little stars served up with
some Boca breakfast sausages

Freezer Biscuits

Ingredients:

2 packages dry yeast

1/4 cup warm water

5 cups flour

1 tsp soda

1 tsp salt

1tbsp + 1 tsp baking powder

1/4 cup sugar

1 cup shortening

2 cups buttermilk

Instructions:

1) Dissolve yeast in warm water, set aside.  Sift flour, cut in shortening.  Add yeast and buttermilk to dry ingredients; mix well.  Knead quickly 20 to 30 times.  Cover and let rise in a warm place for 2 hours.

2) Punch down, roll 1/2" thick.  Cut with biscuit cutter.  Place on a cookie sheet, then freeze.  After frozen place in freezer bag until ready to serve.

3) To prepare:  Place unthawed on cookie sheet in cold oven.  Bake 400 degrees until brown, 25-30 minutes.

**My biscuits turned out a bit on the dense side, but everything I bake here in Denver turns out dense.  I will never be able to adjust for the elevation, so I've given up...but mostly because we're moving down in the world in a few months!  (good for many, many reasons, not just for my baking)  I also think the yeast I used was a little bit on the old side, AND of course, I refuse to use white flour.

The Boca Crumbles definitely made the
gravy less photogenic - I swear that's not cat food!

Country Gravy
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground black pepper
pinch of ground thyme
4 cups milk

Instructions:
Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat.  Whisk in the flour, salt, pepper and thyme until smooth.  Cook and stir over medium heat until browned, about 10 minutes.  Gradually stir in milk so that no lumps form, and continue cooking and stirring until thickened.  If they gravy becomes too thick, you may thin it with a little more milk.
** I added Boca crumbles to this batch of gravy while I was heating it, which made it look a bit like canned cat food and not very photogenic...but it was really tasty!!

enjoy!
 ~ j

Light & Fluffy Banana Pancakes

I said we like breakfast in my house, I wasn't kidding!  And I also mentioned that Ryan is typically our breakfast chef...also, not kidding.   ;)   Ryan made these pancakes this morning and they were great, very light and fluffy!  Taking a page from the cookbook of Julie, he found a recipe on allrecipes.com and added his own touches (including the bananas).  We topped with maple syrup (100% real, none of that maple "flavored" corn syrup crap here) and fresh blueberries.  But, after living in Maine for a summer a couple years ago, Ryan has become a total blueberry snob and they don't seem to be good enough unless they're straight off the bush.  So here's the recipe...

Ingredients:

Pancakes are hard to take good photos of,
the syrup sinks in too quickly!

3/4 cup milk

2 tbsp white vinegar

1 cup flour

2 tbsp white sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

dash of cinnamon

dash of nutmeg

1 egg

2 tablespoons butter, melted

2 ripe bananas, mashed

cooking spray

Instructions:

1)  Combine milk with vinegar in a medium bowl and set aside for 5 minutes to "sour.”

2)  Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in a large mixing bowl.  Whisk egg and butter into "soured" milk.  Stir in bananas just until evenly mixed.  Pour the flour mixture into the wet ingredients and whisk until lumps are almost gone (you’ll probably still have some banana lumps).

3)  Heat a large skillet over medium heat, and coat with cooking spray. Pour 1/4 cupfuls of batter onto the skillet, and cook until bubbles appear on the surface. Flip with a spatula, and cook until browned on the other side.

enjoy!

 ~ j

Potato & Spinach Frittata

Breakfast is probably the favorite meal in our house, and it's not just for morning (although I did make this particular recipe in the morning). In fact, we just had breakfast burritos for dinner that I made a few weeks ago and froze. Usually Ryan is the breakfast cook, but once in a while I get myself in cooking mode in the morning. I usually make random frittata or quiche-type dishes, and just throw whatever I can find into them. I kept track of what I was doing last time, and here’s what I came up with. Oh, and it was a hit, or I wouldn't be posting the recipe!

Ingredients:
2 tbsp olive oil
3 medium potatoes
½ red pepper, diced
1 cup torn fresh spinach
4 green onions, sliced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbsp fresh basil, finely chopped
salt & pepper to taste
6 eggs
1/3 cup milk
½ cup shredded mozzarella
1/3 cup feta cheese
parmesan cheese

Instructions:
1) Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F, lightly grease 9” casserole dish.
2) Heat olive oil in medium skillet over medium heat. Place potatoes in skillet, cover, and cook about 10 minutes (until tender, but firm). Mix in red pepper, spinach, onions, garlic and basil. Season with salt and pepper. Cook on low heat for 1-2 minutes.

3) In medium bowl, beat together eggs and milk. Mix in cheeses, and then potato mixture from skillet. Sprinkle parmesan cheese over the top and cook in oven for about 45 minutes, or until eggs are firm. Remove from oven and let stand for 5-10 minutes before serving.

enjoy!
~ j