Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

Another great weekend is in the books.  I am still waiting for my office to give me a four day weekend every weekend, but until then, today its back to the grind.

I had a coupon for two free New York strip steaks at our local grocery store – so I got two steaks that would have cost $9 each free!  Because of that, I splurged on scallops – these six scallops cost $10, but so worth it.  I like to think of Saturday’s dinner as date night in, because there is no way we could have had that dinner for $12 out.

I actually cooked the scallops in a small cast iron skillet that was heated with a bit of olive oil.  Try as I might to get most of the moisture out, they started steaming in the pan vs. getting a nice crust, so I ended up finishing them up straight on the grill.

The secret to a perfect grilled steak?  Make sure your meat is at room temperature.  I normally take it out at least an hour before grilling.  Generously season with salt and pepper.  And my rule of thumb for medium rare steak – 2x2x2x2 – two minutes on one side in one direction, flip for 2 minutes, then reverse the direction and cook 2 minutes each side again.  I actually use my stop watch on my iPhone!

For a steak this size, I let it sit for 10 minutes so the juices redistribute.  I ended up making a lemon butter sauce for the scallops and steak – just 2 tablespoons of butter melted with a teaspoon of lemon zest, juice of 1/2  lemon, salt, pepper and minced garlic.

The scallops were cooked perfectly.  Scallops will always remind me of my Dad.  He loved them, and we would go to Red Lobster and he would always complain that the scallops were too small.  At the time I didn’t know any better, but I don’t think Red Lobster is known for its quality seafood!

It’s days like yesterday that I miss my Dad.  He passed away when I was 32 and he would have been 75 years old this fall!  I hope you were able to spend time with your Dad yesterday!

The picture at the beach was in Nags Head – Mom, correct me if I am wrong, but I think this was when I was 16, so Dad would have been 46 in this picture?  Wow, that’s only a year older than I am now!

Long time readers know this already, but I was a single Mom until Hannah was 8.  I moved in with my parents for “a year” which turned into five years, but I wouldn’t change a thing because it was the last 5 years of my Dad’s life.  Hannah, being the oldest grandchild, knew him the best.  It wasn’t unusual after church to see them taking a nap together on Poppy’s recliner!

Since Tony’s son lives in Austin, they just talked on the phone yesterday, but he did have a breakfast request – biscuits and sausage gravy.  If there was ever a better breakfast invented, I don’t know what it could be.

I used Ally’s recipe for the biscuits, simply because her recipe only made 6 biscuits.  If there are biscuits around, I am going to eat them!  My only secret to fluffy, tender biscuits is that I keep some butter in the freezer – when I need butter for biscuits or pie crust, I just shred the frozen butter and it stays super cold when mixed with the flour.

The gravy is simple too.  This is really enough gravy for four people.

• 8 ounces Jimmy Dean sage sausage
• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 cups skim milk
• generous pinches of salt and pepper

Brown the sausage.  Sprinkle with the flour and cook for one minute.  Slowly add the milk, stirring pretty constantly.  Remove from heat and add salt and pepper to taste.

I was going to have a Green monster for breakfast, well until I smelled the sausage gravy!  Luckily this was my breakfast and lunch and I did snack on fruit later on.

I missed doing Insanity on Saturday – I had my cleaning pants on deep cleaned our bedroom.  We also did some rearranging.  See, I love to sleep.  Love it.  But as we’ve gotten older, if Tony wakes up for any reason, that wakes me up.  So we moved Hannah’s bed into our room – so now we have a queen size bed and a full size bed side by side.  It was glorious sleeping – Tony never woke me up once!

But I made up for it yesterday – it was pure cardio AND cardio abs.  55 minutes!

Yep, that was a tough one.  Tonight is the Fit Test again and I am curious to see if I’ve improved in two weeks. 

Ever since Tony and I ate at Rudy’s in Austin, we’ve been dreaming about their moist brisket.  We are still trying to recreate it at home.  This was good, but not great.  I think my coals were too hot to begin with.  We will keep trying though!

Alright, time to get my shit together.  We have June birthday celebrations today, so I made lemon poppy seed granola to make breakfast parfaits with Chobani, I bought a kringle, if anyone is in Wisconsin, you know what that is, and for dessert I made angel food cake with a mixed fruit sauce.

It’s supposed to be 85 degrees today, so I plan on hitting the outdoor pool this afternoon.  What’s your exercise plan today?  Make it a great day!