Cy
Well-Known Member
I'm leaving Weds. for a week at the cabin. It's pretty comfortable down there. We have a small oven, at double hot plate and a microwave.
What we don't have is running water. The "facilities" don't come anywhere close to the high standard of my old Granny's outhouse.
But the other absolutely necessary thing we do have is a hot breakfast every morning: a couple pieces of sausage, a couple biscuits and a little sausage gravy to go on top. I'm afraid there might be many underprivelaged and abused souls out there who don't get their gravy when they get up to deer hunt. So I thought I'd share an easy way to do it, so you don't have the excuse "that's too hard" or "can't take all the stuff" or "we'd rather be in the woods hunting than eating gravy".
Those who are health nuts and those whose hearts aren't in Dixie can stop reading right here. I know there are those misguided folks who do not eat gravy. But some of us do, especially when we're up at 4:30AM to go deer hunting and it's 25 degrees outside. Leave us alone. You can have a spinach salad before you go hunting if you want, and I won't comment one bit.
Also, if you're not already a gravy maker, I can't help you. A post teaching gravy making is beyond me. This is just an easy process for camp. Grit your teeth and call your Granny and ask her to teach you.
Here's the deal (I just finished doing this):
Cook all your sausage, and keep pouring off the drippings between batches so it doesn't scorch. Put a couple paper towels in a Zip Loc and put your cooked sausage in there. Freeze. Ready for to go to camp and one minute in the microwave.
Make your roux just like you always do. I always cook a little bacon to add to the sausage grease, so there's plenty. The rule of thumb is one part hot grease, one part flour, medium heat, sprinkle the flour in a little at a time while you stir. Keep stirring, don't scorch. I like roux to be a little thinner than peanut butter and a little lighter in color. You do to suit. Make the roux you like. Then let it cool, put it in an old margarine tub and freeze with the sausage.
Don't be scared of it and don't worry too much about exact measures. Gravy making ain't science. It's a little bit of art and a little bit of hill farm magic. Just don't scorch it, for crying out loud. No gravy is one heck of a lot better than burned gravy.
I buy cheap frozen biscuits. I like homemade, but not for camp. Get the frozen. Yes, they will thaw in the cooler after several days. Doesn't hurt them a bit.
When I get up I turn the little oven on and let it warm up. After I take care of a little personal business I put the biscuits on. Then I take a little cheap saucepan and fill it half full of milk, put it on the hot plate and get it hot. If you let it start to simmer, you have to stir it to keep it from scorching. You want it hot, not boiling. Add a couple table spoons of that roux and stir until it starts to thicken. Everybody likes their gravy a little different. Once it starts to thicken you can tell if you need a little more roux, or a little more milk. Suit you own self.
I let the gravy bubble a couple minutes.
Nuke the sausage, take out the biscuits and throw down the gravy. This trip I have a small margarine tub half full of roux. It will last 4 days for 3 people.
Generally, nobody packs a lunch and nobody wants early supper. Southern sausage gravy is built to last.
(This all also works at home if you have folks coming and you don't want to be stuck making breakfast when you ought to be doing a Bloody Mary with the kin folks.)
What we don't have is running water. The "facilities" don't come anywhere close to the high standard of my old Granny's outhouse.
But the other absolutely necessary thing we do have is a hot breakfast every morning: a couple pieces of sausage, a couple biscuits and a little sausage gravy to go on top. I'm afraid there might be many underprivelaged and abused souls out there who don't get their gravy when they get up to deer hunt. So I thought I'd share an easy way to do it, so you don't have the excuse "that's too hard" or "can't take all the stuff" or "we'd rather be in the woods hunting than eating gravy".
Those who are health nuts and those whose hearts aren't in Dixie can stop reading right here. I know there are those misguided folks who do not eat gravy. But some of us do, especially when we're up at 4:30AM to go deer hunting and it's 25 degrees outside. Leave us alone. You can have a spinach salad before you go hunting if you want, and I won't comment one bit.
Also, if you're not already a gravy maker, I can't help you. A post teaching gravy making is beyond me. This is just an easy process for camp. Grit your teeth and call your Granny and ask her to teach you.
Here's the deal (I just finished doing this):
Cook all your sausage, and keep pouring off the drippings between batches so it doesn't scorch. Put a couple paper towels in a Zip Loc and put your cooked sausage in there. Freeze. Ready for to go to camp and one minute in the microwave.
Make your roux just like you always do. I always cook a little bacon to add to the sausage grease, so there's plenty. The rule of thumb is one part hot grease, one part flour, medium heat, sprinkle the flour in a little at a time while you stir. Keep stirring, don't scorch. I like roux to be a little thinner than peanut butter and a little lighter in color. You do to suit. Make the roux you like. Then let it cool, put it in an old margarine tub and freeze with the sausage.
Don't be scared of it and don't worry too much about exact measures. Gravy making ain't science. It's a little bit of art and a little bit of hill farm magic. Just don't scorch it, for crying out loud. No gravy is one heck of a lot better than burned gravy.
I buy cheap frozen biscuits. I like homemade, but not for camp. Get the frozen. Yes, they will thaw in the cooler after several days. Doesn't hurt them a bit.
When I get up I turn the little oven on and let it warm up. After I take care of a little personal business I put the biscuits on. Then I take a little cheap saucepan and fill it half full of milk, put it on the hot plate and get it hot. If you let it start to simmer, you have to stir it to keep it from scorching. You want it hot, not boiling. Add a couple table spoons of that roux and stir until it starts to thicken. Everybody likes their gravy a little different. Once it starts to thicken you can tell if you need a little more roux, or a little more milk. Suit you own self.
I let the gravy bubble a couple minutes.
Nuke the sausage, take out the biscuits and throw down the gravy. This trip I have a small margarine tub half full of roux. It will last 4 days for 3 people.
Generally, nobody packs a lunch and nobody wants early supper. Southern sausage gravy is built to last.
(This all also works at home if you have folks coming and you don't want to be stuck making breakfast when you ought to be doing a Bloody Mary with the kin folks.)
