Texas Fall/Winter thread!

[jinman]

Ron, I just pop a can of jumbo buttermilk biscuits and put them in the toaster oven while I cook sausage patties. I chop up two sausage patties to go into my gravy and add flour to the grease and chopped sausage. Sometimes I have to add a bit of olive oil because sausage does not shed a lot of fat like bacon. I cook my flour/sausage/oil mix until the flour is very brown and then add my milk. I cook the gravy until the bubbles start to snap and I can see a definite trail behind my stirring spatula. I take the gravy up in a bowl in perfect time for the biscuits to be done.

I like your idea of making the biscuits from scratch for lunch or dinner. Making the gravy is about as much scratch cooking as I want to do in the morning. Your recipe looks great though. I'll save it for a tasty treat sometime.

 

[Bird]

I dont' guess my mother ever used ready made biscuits. She'd mix a little flour, a little baking powder, a little shortening, milk, etc. even if she was just going to make 3 biscuits for breakfast for herself and my dad. Back in the mid-70s, I got a recipe we liked and I'd make up a big cookie sheet of biscuits, then freeze them (before baking), so I could just get out as many as we wanted at one time. Then we started using the canned biscuits, and now, we buy a bag of frozen biscuits at the grocery store so we can take out just as many as we want at a time again.

 

[jinman]

I dont' guess my mother ever used ready made biscuits.

My mother would also whip up a batch of biscuits, but along about the early '60s she discovered canned biscuits. With her bad legs, it was a convenience to not have to mess with making them. It became special occasions only for her to make biscuits. I DO LOVE the Pillsbury frozen biscuits in the bag. They are as close to home made as anything I've found except some Sam's stores sell a flat with fresh made biscuits. Those are also terrific.

My mother used to make all her cornbread from scratch. Today's boxed cornbreads taste like cake by comparison. Her's was pretty course because she didn't use much flour in the mix or sugar. She used cake mixes, but I don't think she ever made cornbread she did not mix from scratch.

 

[mikim]

I make a cornbread that I use popcorn and red wheat that I mill myself. It's a whole wheat popcorn corn bread. Really good -- different.

Ron - I saved that recipe -- gonna try that soon. Got a loaf of whole wheat bread cookin' right now....in the cheaters machine---

 

[Bird]

Jim, it sounds as if your mother made cornbread much as mine did; never put any sugar in it. I remember the first time I made cornbread, after I left home, and I found a recipe that included a tablespoonful of sugar and a much larger ratio of flour. It was good; just like cake.:laughing: But now I just use a little box of Jiffy cornbread muffin mix; just add one egg and some milk.

 

[pacerron]

I make a cornbread that I use popcorn and red wheat that I mill myself. It's a whole wheat popcorn corn bread. Really good -- different.

Ron - I saved that recipe -- gonna try that soon. Got a loaf of whole wheat bread cookin' right now....in the cheaters machine---

Mike,
Those are mighty big Texas size, mighty good biscuits.:licking:

Since there are only 2 of us my wife cuts the recipe we posted earlier, she now tells me, in half.
She then uses a 1/3 cup amount to size them and gets 5 biscuits in an 8" round cake pan so they touch each other and the edge of the pan when baked.
Bakes them for 17 minutes before sticking with a toothpick, but in our oven they are done perfect in 17 minutes.

She fries the sausage before starting the biscuit mixing and lets it set. Then mixes the biscuits, puts in the oven and finishes the gravy while the biscuits are baking. Everything comes out done right on time.
We still end up eating 1 and 1/2 each smothered in gravy. The next morning she warms the 2 left over in the microwave and we
have fried egg sandwiches with them. They warm up just like fresh baked.

We use a cheater machine for bread too. Haven't purchased store bought bread for years, except for turkey stuffing at Thanksgiving.
We both like to eat, but its got to be good food; not a bunch of grocery store chemicals that just look like and say they are food.
Ron

 

[Bird]

The next morning she warms the 2 left over in the microwave and we
have fried egg sandwiches with them. They warm up just like fresh baked.

Many years ago (about 1968), I had a moonlighting job at night at the Marriott Motel in Dallas. The Marriott had a 24 hour restaurant, but the day chef always left a big pan of cold hard biscuits for the night shift to use. Just stick them in the "radar range" a few seconds and they were just as fresh in appearance and taste as if they'd just been fresh baked. And that was the first time in my life that I saw a microwave oven.

 

[pacerron]

First Day of Fall 2013
Some of us old guys when we are out alone sweating on our tractors for hours or even just sitting thinking about our past, once in a while, wonder if this could be our last harvest. I'm happy to say we are seeing another one in progress.:cool2:
Some pictures I took around here of neighbor's fields this afternoon....
Sorghum lookin good.
Some corn silage already done.
Hay in plastic.
Soybeans turning brown.
Seed corn drying.

Ron

 

[pacerron]

Many years ago (about 1968), I had a moonlighting job at night at the Marriott Motel in Dallas. The Marriott had a 24 hour restaurant, but the day chef always left a big pan of cold hard biscuits for the night shift to use. Just stick them in the "radar range" a few seconds and they were just as fresh in appearance and taste as if they'd just been fresh baked. And that was the first time in my life that I saw a microwave oven.

First one we had was about 1974. Hauled it from place to place. Finally sold it with a house in 1993. It was still working but one of the rotary timers didn't shut off so you had to stand there with it. Weighed a ton, lots of chrome.
Picture from internet..
Ron

 

[two_bit_score]

We were in Port A over the weekend and Corpus around Flour Bluff got 7-8" of rain. They got more on the mainland than the Island got.