Biscuits and gravy with Eggs; Planning Ahead for Dinner

Italian sweet red pepper for the first batch

Today I woke up wanting some biscuits and gravy...sausage gravy. So I decided to make myself some. It was destined to be one of those kind of days...

I started out with an onion and one of those crisp, bright green bell peppers from our SLO Veg box of vegies and fruit. I have been using the bell peppers in everything the last couple of weeks, and this is my last one, except for the ones I sliced and put in the freezer, that is. Anyway, I diced up a quarter cup of so of onions and bell peppers for two batches of ground beef. I also diced up half of my last sweet Italian red pepper for one batch. It was also going to be the starter for some hamburger that I would cook and freeze for quick dinners later in the week. One batch would be seasoned with Italian flavors and the other with Mexican spices. That way I could make a quick spaghetti sauce or tacos or rice bowls or stuffed zucchini or...lotsa things!

Diced onions and bell peppers are the basis for a good ground meat saute.

But back to breakfast. I made some drop biscuits using coconut milk and some coconut flour in my standard biscuit recipe. It was about two cups regular all purpose flour and 1/2 cup coconut flour. They came out a little more dense than I like, but I am experimenting with different flours. Drowned in gravy or slathered with homemade jam, they would be great anyway! I also had a couple of links of beer brats in the refrigerator, and (sorry honey!) today they were gonna be the sausage for my gravy.  Beer brats are Lee's favorite sausage in the whole wide world, and I am sure he would prefer to eat them whole, in a bun with mustard and sauerkraut. I saved him three of the links. 

I learned a great way to make sausage gravy from Pioneer Woman. I began by removing the casing and breaking the sausage into chunks, then adding in the onions and bell peppers. I let it all brown in the saute pan and then stirred in a scoop of flour, stirring until it glommed onto all the sausage chunks and absorbed any juices. Then I stirred in two cups of milk and stirred that while it cooked and thickened into a nice gravy sauce. I gave it a liberal sprinkling of pepper and a little bit of salt. I thought a bit of thyme would enhance the gravy, so I added a teaspoon full of dried thyme. Now that I think of it, I think I have live thyme plant outside...have to remember to check on that tomorrow and see if it is still alive. This is why I have to buy my vegies and fruits from the farmers, because I can't remember to water my own stuff at home!
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2013/08/recipes-from-tomorrows-show-4/#comments

Eggs scrambled in coconut oil completed our breakfast plates and we even let the kid have some. Best part is, I have extra biscuits in that I put in the freezer so I can have some biscuits and jam in the mornings before work. Yummy!

This is the Mexican blend with oregano, garlic salt, pepper and chili powder, onions and bell peppers

The Italian blend has onions, bell peppers, sweet red peppers, and Italian spices of rosemary, basil, parsley, and garlic