A breakfast experiment: Sausage biscuit pigs in a blanket (with sausage gravy)

I told you all I had a breakfast experiment to perform, and it went swimmingly. One day I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be cool if you could make a breakfast sausage hot dog so I don’t look like such an idiot for buying a hot dog at QuikTrip at 9 a.m.?” And then I thought to myself, “You could do that!”

And the challenge was born.

So here goes.

First, brown some sausage links over medium heat in a pan. I had 14 of them. I made six pigs in a blanket, ate one link and used the rest for the gravy.

I took the sausage I wanted to use for the gravy out of the casings and threw it back into the pan. Once the links were finished cooking through, I wrapped them in biscuit dough that I had flattened out. You could make your own homemade biscuits here, but I’m lazy so I used one of the cans of biscuit dough.

Put those in the oven at 400 degrees to bake for about 10 minutes or until golden brown. This was a tube of eight biscuits that I just kind of mushed together to wrap around the sausage links.

Meanwhile, you’ve got gravy to make! Canned gravy is unacceptable when you’ve got sausage and milk.

So we’ve got that crumbled sausage still going in the pan, remember? Add some butter to it (you don’t have to do this if your sausage is fatty enough but the stuf I bought wasn’t.) Let the butter melt.

Stir it in there real nice and then add some flour. I don’t know how much, I just eyeball it (most annoying response to get from someone ever). It depends how thick you like your gravy, but just make sure all the fat is soaked up and the sausage is coated.

This was not enough flour. Cook the mixture until the flour browns a bit, otherwise your gravy will just taste like flour. Add milk to cover the ingredients then add salt and pepper to taste. Turn the heat down to low or medium low and simmer, stirring occasionally.
Now, they key to gravy is patience. If you want it to thicken, give it time to thicken. Once it’s got a nice thick base, take it off the heat for a couple of minutes before serving and it will thicken up even more.

Whoops, almost forgot about our little piggies.

Mmmm, golden brown deliciousness.

I served them up with the gravy on top and some scrambled eggs for a hearty, delicious breakfast. Just as a side note, these are DELISH with syrup on them too.

Tags: Baking, Breakfast, Easy, Eggs, gravy, milk, pigs in a blanket, sausage

Cheese ball

I’ve never made a cheese ball before. I’ve never had a cheese ball before. But I had people to feed at a party last weekend and a cheese ball was just in the cards.

It was so simple. The Worchestershire gives this a nice light smoky flavor.

Ingredients

• 1- 8 ounce package cream cheese, softened
• 2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
• 2 green onions, chopped
• 1- 2 ounce jar diced pimento, drained
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

Directions

1. In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy
2. Beat in cheddar cheese, onions, pimientos, butter and Worcestershire sauce
3. Press into a small bowl; smooth top. This will give it a smooth, round shape
4. Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour
5. Remove from the refrigerator 15 minutes before you turn over bowl to remove
6. Serve with crackers

Don’t be impatient like me and assume it won’t come out of the bowl. It’ll fall out of the bowl, just give it the 15 minutes the directions says, then flip the bowl upside down and walk away. If you stand there it won’t work. Trust me. Just walk away and let the cheese do its thing.

Here’s a picture of some of the spread at my party. I didn’t get a close up of the cheese ball before people started munching on it but it’s in the serving tray at the right.

Tags: cheese, cream cheese, dip, Easy, onion, pimento

Dried beef dip

This dried beef dip is always a winner. I prepared it for the same party I prepared this punch for.

It’s simple, requires only four ingredients, and is always gone by the end of the night. I had about 20 people nibbling on various foods over the course of the night and this dip was demolished.

Without further adieu, here is my mom’s dried beef dip recipe (I hope she’s not mad at me for this):

Ingredients

• 1 – 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 1 – 6 oz. sour cream
• 4 – 6 green onions chopped (green tops too)
• 1 small package dried beef chopped

Mix all ingredients well and chill for 1 to 2 hours before serving. Serve with crackers, corn chips or fresh vegetables.

Tags: beef, cream cheese, dip, Easy, holiday, onion