Biscuits and gravy are a hot commodity in our house and frequently requested for special occasions. These biscuits are to die for and my kids like to have gravy on top for “breakfast” and a second biscuit with jam on top for “breakfast dessert”. Ha! These pair well with eggs and fruit too.
Biscuits: Makes 12
(Our family doubles or triples the recipe)
Ingredients
3 cups unbleached flour
2 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp sea salt
1 ½ sticks cold butter
1 ¼ cups buttermilk
Method
1. Preheat oven to 425
2. Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl
3. Use a pastry cutter or knife to cut the butter into the flour until the butter pieces are about the size of peas
4. Add buttermilk and mix until just combined
5. Drop 2-3 inch balls of dough onto a greased cookie sheet or line it with parchment paper for easy cleanup. They look more rustic this way compared to rolling them out and using biscuit cutters but who really cares right? You’re covering them with gravy anyways!
6. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown
7. Split them in half and serve with gravy on top (recipe below)
Sausage Gravy
Ingredients
1 lb Blustery Bovine bulk country sausage
¼ cup unbleached flour
2 cups whole milk
Salt and pepper to taste Red pepper flakes (optional, we like it a bit spicy)
Method
1. When you put your biscuits into the oven start browning your sausage in a pan over medium heat, takes about 5 minutes.
2. If you are using our pork it should have a perfect amount of fat in the pan, no need to remove any. Sprinkle flour over the sausage and stir frequently, cooking for another 2 minutes.
3. Now pour in the milk and keep stirring, it will get thick.
4. Taste it and add salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to your liking. Making it heavy on the pepper is usually popular. Enjoy with your fluffy, buttery biscuits!
Ranch ER: C-Section Edition
In other news, Luke and I had to perform an emergency c-section on one of our cows! We tried to get a vet out but no one could come so we could either let our cow die or give the c-section a try. Now it was already 9pm by now and luckily all the kids were asleep so we could focus on this poor mama cow. We spent a lot of time trying to pull the calf and adjust the position of her but this first time heifer just had a really small pelvis opening and a large calf and we were just not going to get that calf out. So Luke has seen a c-section done a few times at UNR and is a fast learner so he somehow just remembered everything to do for it.
We injected a local anesthetic in a big oval on the side of her belly and he sterilized all the instruments and then he started cutting through each layer. I keep waiting for mama cow to get upset about it because I literally felt like we had no idea what we were doing but she just continued to stand there the whole time nice and calm. Then we pull out the calf and she looks huge! The calf immediately starts breathing and I rub her down with an old towel. So then came the hard part, stitching her all back together. My job was to hold all the intestines in, ha!
Getting the uterus stitched was the hardest part because everything is so slippery and every time she breathes everything moves. But Luke got in there with his fancy (by fancy I just mean correct) stitching. Then he did the muscle layer and then the outer hide/skin. Cow hide is THICK! We gave her an antibiotic shot so she wouldn’t get an infection and got her and her calf all settled and comfy. We fell into bed a little before 2am and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so tired in my life. When we got up in the morning we tentatively and grimacingly looked out the kitchen window...only to find her standing and drinking out of her water trough! It’s now been a month and she’s doing great and her calf is nursing well and we’re just so happy it all worked out! Here’s a picture of mama and baby at one week old.
