Day 9 of NaBloPoMo: What is your favorite Saturday morning breakfast?

I love a big country breakfast of biscuits and gravy, sausage or bacon and eggs, especially when served with homegrown vine-ripened tomatoes. 

I got to choose the prompt for today and wouldn't you know?  I chose to write about food.

My question was, "What is your favorite Saturday morning breakfast and what memories do you associate with it?"

Saturday morning breakfasts have always been special to me because that's when everyone is home and there is more reason to cook.  When our kids were growing up, sometimes it was just the four of us for breakfast, but often they had a sleepover pal or two sitting at the table.  I don't think I ever saw one of them turn down biscuits and gravy.

Now that we are empty-nesters, it's usually just me and the hubs, but we still love our biscuits and gravy on occasion.  Most every other day of the week we are too pressed for time to eat a meal like that.  It's probably a good thing, or else we wouldn't be able to fit through the door.

The generations before us ate like that nearly every day though, and they didn't get fat...not usually.

Our lives don't require as much manual labor as their's did back in the day when our grandmothers prepared big homemade breakfasts.

Appalachian families were typically large, with anywhere up to ten children being common (sometimes more).  Laundry was done on a washboard or in a wringer washer, and water had to be hauled from the creek or pulled from a well to do that.  That's just one example of the more labor intensive way of doing things.

Most of the food our grandmother's prepared-fresh meat and fresh produce-was raised on the farm, and that required a lot of hard work.

Cooks had to buy flour, though, and it was often sold in 50 pound sacks. Those emptied sacks were later sewn into aprons for the cooks or dresses for the little girls.

But I'm getting sidetracked.

I like biscuits and gravy any season of the year, but I don't fix that as often in summer because I hate to heat the house with the oven.

Now that it's cold, though, the extra heat just adds to the coziness.

Sometimes I use canned biscuits, but if I do, I use the small buttermilk kind-no buttery layers or anything fancy like that-my hubby won't have it.  Just plain old biscuits.

I love homemade biscuits, and I make them when I have plenty of time.

They are simple to make...I use about two cups of self-rising flour, a half stick of butter and probably 1/2 to 3/4 cups of milk.  Sometimes instead of butter I use a big spoonful of the lard that we rendered from our hog-butchering.  Either way, homemade biscuits are so good "you can't sit still and eat 'em."

For the gravy, I brown some flour in the drippings from the sausage or bacon, then I add milk and stir until the gravy is nice and thick.

I usually either fry some eggs or make scrambled eggs.  I prefer mine scrambled and smothered in gravy (well-peppered).

But to me, the slices of fresh tomato is what really sets this breakfast apart. Alas, that's a summertime specialty.

If there are biscuits left at the end of the meal, and I still have room in my tummy (I always have room in my tummy!), I'll smear some butter and homemade strawberry or blackberry jam on one, or I will drizzle some local honey on a buttered biscuit.  That's what I consider dessert.

This meal is iconic for our area, and I've been eating it all my life.  And yes, I realize that biscuits and gravy aren't supposed to be heart healthy, but some of my relatives who grew up eating the stuff (and still do) have lived (are living) to ripe old ages.

Again, I wonder if it isn't the meal but our less active lifestyles that harm our arteries. Maybe a combination of both.

I'm not worrying about it right now! Pass the biscuits and gravy!  ;)