Openness to New Experiences

AVI sometimes accuses me of this, with fairness. Today for our late Sunday breakfast I made applewood-smoked bacon and fried eggs, but I decided to try DL Sly's take on biscuits (see the comments to the Southern Biscuits post). Just to be fair to Lodge Cast Iron's Dutch oven cookbook, and because I was making bacon instead of sausage, I decided to try their recommended packet gravy as well. I baked the biscuits in a Dutch oven, pictured.

The chief difference in Sly's family biscuits and mine is the lack of any kneading or folding. As a result, the biscuits are very much like my mother's spoon biscuits: my grandmother, who taught me, was my paternal grandmother; my maternal grandmother never made biscuits because she made them for my paternal grandfather one time when they were first married and he laughed at them, so she never once made them again for him again in her entire life. As a result, my mother's biscuits were learned after she married and was majoring in home economics in college (apparently a thing one could do in those days; she later transferred her major to education and became a career teacher).

These biscuits are excellent for gravy-and-biscuits because the zero kneading and folding means that they have almost no gluten in them. They are thus extremely tender to the fork. They are less suitable than mine for making an egg-and-bacon sandwich, as they lack the fluffy layers that keep them from falling apart as easily. Depending on the meal plan, however, they might be a great choice.

The packet gravy was not a good recommendation: I stand by my earlier condemnation of it, now on empirical grounds. It is not a third as good as the from-scratch sausage gravy, and it isn't even particularly easier to make because you still have to mix the packet with cold water before then stirring it into boiling water. If you're going to do that much, go all the way and have the full and delicious experience. 

Still, you know, you try new things and some of it works, some of it doesn't. The biscuits were great; the packet gravy was not. Live and learn.