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Cooler temperatures call for sausage gravy

Debra Hadley | Record Photo

A hot breakfast makes for good eating.

BREAKFAST SIDES

All these things are good with eggs, biscuits and any breakfast meat.
• Sauteed onion
• Sauteed peppers (with or without onions)
• Sliced tomato
• Cheese slices or cubes
• Hash brown potatoes
• Home fries
• Grits
• Fried apples
• Fruit compotes
• Honey butter (softened butter, stirred into honey)
• Molasses butter (softened butter, stirred into molasses)

By Debra Hadley | Hickory Daily Record

Published: September 24, 2008

It has become cool enough in the mornings to contemplate making gravy for breakfast.

It's about time. The autumnal equinox was earlier this week, so we are officially in the fall season.

Those calendar and seasonal folks who set this up hundreds of years ago knew what they were doing.

I always think in early September that we are never going to get relief from the heat. Then sometime around the middle of the month, the cool weather slides in.

I woke up on a recent Saturday wishing I had an extra blanket on the bed. That chill put me in the mood for biscuits and sausage gravy. That morning we did eat it, but it required not one, but two, trips to the store. My husband had already set out to buy eggs when this notion came to me. He didn't take his cell phone, so it sat fruitlessly on the table and made a little humming noise after I dialed it. When he got home, he put out the eggs and went back to the store.

That is evidence enough that he is a big fan of sausage gravy. But what's not to like about homemade sausage gravy? When I make it, I am not stingy with the sausage. Even though I know it isn't health food, I like lots of chunks of sausage in my gravy. That is my No. 1 complaint about sausage gravy from restaurants. It should really be called cream gravy with token bits of sausage floating in it, but then no one would order it.

I like sausage gravy with biscuits, yellow corn grits and a fried egg with a runny yellow. Put some fried apples on the side, and that is a breakfast without peer. It so happens I had two bags of apples from a recent excursion to the orchards, so I was set.

It took about 45 minutes to put this breakfast together, but it was worth it. The most efficient plan is to make the biscuits and put them in the oven and then make the apples and gravy. The gravy and apples can sit on the stove on low heat while the eggs are fried.

Heavens, just describing it is making me wonder how much of that gravy is left in the fridge. If it's enough, I'll pack it for my lunch and be the envy of the English office table.