Disclaimer: DON'T EAT THIS!!! This is the original "poor people" food, and believe me, our family ate a lot of it when we didn't have much money. I just thought I'd put it on my blog so that people could see a real old-fashioned recipe. I was taught to make it by our friend, Tommy W., and I used to rationalize, "Well, he ate this all of his life and he isn't dead, yet." Wouldn't you know, he ended up having to have his arteries cleaned out! We didn't eat it much after that. I have to confess, though, that I had a moment of weakness (how can I throw away all that wonderful bacon fat?!) and we had it for supper the other evening (we'll probably drop dead). All that said (and don't say you haven't been warned!) here is the recipe for Old-Fashioned Bacon Gravy with Biscuits, and Accompaniments:
GRAVY:
1/2 cup of bacon fat
1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
2 cups cold milk
2 cups cold water
1 tsp. salt
A few grindings of black pepper.
Melt the bacon fat over high heat. Add the flour and stir with a wisk, until flour is lightly browned. Add the cold milk (for lump-free gravy, cold liquids stirred into your flour is the key) and wisk until smooth. Add the cold water and continue to wisk until smooth again. Add the salt and pepper and cook for about 10 minutes, until the flour taste is gone (simmering the gravy for a while is the key to gravy that does not taste like flour). Keep adding water and wisking and cooking until gravy is the desired thickness. You don't want the gravy to be too thick. Serve over split hot biscuits. Accompany with "Talk o' Texas" brand pickled okra (mild or hot), deviled eggs, and iced tea! Some canned fruit makes a nice dessert.
BISCUITS: (oven 450-degrees F., bake for 12 to15 minutes)
Mix together:
2 cups of all-purpose flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
Cut in 1/4 cup of shortening
Stir in 1/2 to 3/4 cups of milk or butter-milk
(or stir 1 tbsp. white vinegar into regular milk as a substitute for buttermilk)
Beat a few times with a spoon until mixed together.
Press or roll out on a floured counter-top.
Fold over a couple of times to make flaky biscuits.
Cut out with a glass or a cookie-cutter.
Place on lightly-greased cookie sheet, sides not touching
Brush with milk
Bake at 450-degrees F., for 15 to 15 minutes.
DEVILED EGGS:
Hard cook as many eggs as you will need.
(I will reveal this terrible truth about myself: I have stooped to buying ready-cooked hard-boiled eggs at the supermarket. When I make them at home, they never peel right. All the tricks about using week-old eggs, boiling them with salt and/or vinegar, and cooling them in cold water never work for me. Any suggestions?)
When cool, peel under cold, running water. (Good luck. Or, buy ready-cooked ones at the supermarket!)
Slice in half on lengths of paper towel.
Scoop out yolks into a large bowl.
Mash yolks with a fork or (this works great!) a pastry cutter.
Mix together equal amounts of mayonnaise (or MiracleWhip salad dressing), mustard (any kind), and pickle relish, enough to equal the amount of mashed egg yolk. You will have to play with this to get the amount and thickness right. Don't let it be runny.
Fill the egg whites with the mixture.
Sprinkle with paprika, if desired. Top with a green olive slice or any garnish you desire.
ICED TEA:
In a 1-gallon Tupperware or other heat-proof pitcher, stir together 1 cup of sugar and about 3 cups of boiling water until sugar is dissolved. Throw in 8 tea bags (any kind), with the strings and labels removed. Watch for loose staples. Let this steam for a while (just a few minutes, although I have forgotten about it and left it to sit for hours, without any negative results). Remove tea bags and add enough cold water to make 1 gallon. Serve over ice cubes, with lemon slices or mint sprigs, if desired.
My album for the biscuits and gravy is here: http://photo.xanga.com/mrsgrovine/albums/eb4fb32c340a32
Comments (15)
My husband loved sausage gravy and biscuits. I browned the crumbled sausage in extra fat of any kind until it was done then made the gravy in the conventional way. But this does sound delicious. Thanks for sharing. My father-in-law ate two eggs for breakfast nearly all of his life, as well as fatty foods -- such as gravy and biscuits (he loved gravy), and died with pulmonary disease. I tend to think it is in the genes. God bless ~Judy
@jacsnews - Thanks, Judy. I know what you mean about the genes. My father-in-law did everything wrong (smoked, chewed, drank, was really overweight, didn't exercise) and had everything wrong with him (cancer, emphysema, high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, to name a few) and died at the age of 92, at home, in his bed, not on any medication whatsoever, not even aspirin! I do credit my mother-in-law, however, who took very good care of him, and followed the doctor's advice exactly, although she couldn't get him to get rid of his bad habits. Ask me what happened when their Doberman Pinscher swallowed Daddy's whole bottle of diuretic pills...
Looks good! y Hubby loves his biscuits and gravy, too!............Have a Blessed Sunday!........the sweet tea sounds good, too
.........In Christ's Love.....Monic
I figure I should comment also. Not being brought up in the South, those things are "foreign" to me and I haven't eaten them. But... the gravy and biscuits and sweet tea sound wonderful. I don't think that I would ever have that much bacon grease to make the recipe. Maybe cooking a pound of bacon I could probably 1/2 the recipe and have that much grease to be able to make the gravy, as it really sounds yummy! Also giving a picture was great. Thanks Mary! - Diane
@mrschristianwojociechowski - Love you, Diane. Isn't this Xanga stuff fun?
I'm glad you stopped by! I'm still getting used to the gastric bypass diet and the foods that agree with me and don't agree with me. It's a big change! That recipe sounds great, but I will have a wait a few years, maybe, to try it out. I loved sausage, biscuits and gravy, and I think I'd like the bacon, too. We used to sop up bacon gravy with white bread and eat that!!
I LOVED that post!
I was relating big time and remember our family always saving the bacon grease ... we always seemed to have plenty! It was used to season veggies even...man. A wonder we are still alive, eh?! 
But man, cooking with it was GOOD! You were talking about peeling eggs? The ONLY thing that always seems to work for me....after they are cooked...I take them over to the sink and drain the water....then fill with a little warm water and turn the cold on a bit...then I gently crack the fat end of the egg, roll it in my hands -under the cold water- and peel. It always seems to come right off. Thanks for that memory and the wonderful recipes!
@sweet_moonchild - If I were you, I wouldn't eat it at all! I just had a badly infected gall-bladder removed. They had to take it out the old-fashioned way IN ADDITION to the three punctures on my side. I have a huge scar all across my mid-section. The gall stone was as big as a golf ball. They took a picture of it next to the doctor's watch, and it was as big as his watch dial! Nobody could believe I never had any pain. I was in the hospital more than a week, on anti-biotics. Ugh! Anyway, I am really messed up now. It is hard for me to eat a lot of things, especially food from any fish restaurant -- you know, where everything is fried, even the pickles. Thanks for adding me as a friend. Good luck recovering from your surgery.
@GrannyKnowz - Thanks for adding me as a friend. Yes, our family always saved the bacon grease, too. My father in law remembers spreading it on bread and eating it! He lived to be 92. We only rarely eat the bacon gravy and biscuits now because I'm afraid it will mess us up. But it sure is good. Thanks for the tip on peeling eggs. I'll try to remember it.
Old fashion gravy...it's good and naughty. Ate a lot of it too. Also, remember Mom taking macaroni after it was cooked and scrambling eggs in it and then sis and I would put ketchup on it. Now, don't go ewwwwww, it was good...especially when one is hungry. *g*
@GrannieDee - Sounds like an interesting dish! Glad you like the naughty bacon gravy recipe. As a matter of fact, I have gotten so many good responses from it that I think I'll go make some more and eat it! Thanks for adding me as a friend!
We don't do any of the fat stuff since Wil's heart surgery 6 years ago...oh, once in awhile we do whatever but not as a usual thing. I'm on WW so that precludes me doing lots of that too plus just don't need it.
I subscribed to you and you are welcome to do the same to me. I enjoyed your post.
@TheSunnyC - Thanks for adding me as a friend. I do believe I got more comments (all positive!) on that post than on any other one I have done.
Thanks for stopping by my site, I love comments!
@theretrohousewife - Thought your site was so cool. Thanks for adding me as a friend.