Orange Rolls

recipe from Taste of Home; image from Playz With Food

Buttermilk Biscuits & Sausage Gravy

I’m not a huge fan of biscuits & gravy.  I’ve tried the dish on several menus and never been all that impressed.  I must have a lil’ bit of Southern in me somewhere, though because every once in a great while I get a strange hankering for some biscuits & gravy!  This happened to me the other night when I was in a hurry to put dinner on the table and I needed to use up some buttermilk I had in the fridge.  Well, the biscuits & gravy I threw together were the best I’ve ever made or had, so I thought I’d put the recipes on here for reference during my next rare biscuits-&-gravy craving. 

Who knew from-scratch biscuits were so EASY to make?!?  I couldn’t believe how quickly these came together!  And let me tell you, they are so much better than those nasty tube biscuits in the refrigerator section!  Plus, making them from scratch saves you the terror of having to pop open that pressurized bomb/tube (YIKES!  That scares the daylights out of me!  Every. Single. Time.  I HATE opening those things!)recipe adapted from Today’s My Best Creative Day; image from The Prairie Homestead

 

I adapted a sausage gravy recipe I found here.  All I had on hand was maple-flavored sausage, and I actually really liked the sweetness it infused into the gravy, so I contributed a little touch more in the way of some really fancy maple syrup I recently splurged on at my favorite local gourmet kitchen supply store.  This allowed me to keep the seasonings to a minimum, adding just a little bit of thyme and sage.  Next time, I’d really like to try making it with fresh herbs.
recipe adapted from Taste and Tell; image from Chef In Training

Carrabba’s Italian Grill “Butter”

Need a simple side to serve with a summer salad out on the patio?  We love adding a crusty loaf of bread to the table with a small plate of this dipping “butter” for everybody to enjoy. 

I’ll admit, I have been tempted to change the name from “dipping butter” to “mopping butter”; everybody loves tearing off a hunk of bread and mopping the stuff off their plates!
image and recipe courtesy:  Cookin’ Up North

{Pssst.  It’s also cozy serving this in the dead of winter with a hearty plate of lasagna or a big bowl of spaghetti.} 

We’ve actually never eaten at Carrabba’s, so I can’t vouch for the authenticity here, but my brother has eaten there a couple of times and he confirms that this recipe really is a lot like theirs.