Homemade Breakfast Sausage, Ground

Nothing better than biscuits with sausage gravy!

My family loves to eat breakfast, no matter what time of day that happens to be! I've been making breakfast for dinner since I was first married over 27 years ago.

Now this doesn't mean we don't enjoy breakfast in the morning, because we do! It's just that we would eat 'breakfast' any time of the day,.. as long as it's what my family calls 'big breakfast'.

Allow me to explain. If I served my family oatmeal for dinner, they wouldn't think that's so cool. So understand that my family will eat breakfast for dinner, IF it includes meat, potatoes, eggs and maybe some kind of bread. So 'big breakfast' to my family might be pancakes with fried potatoes and bacon on the side. Or maybe omelettes with cheddar cheese & applesauce (my husbands' favorite) with fried ham and whole wheat toast. Or how about some crispy hash browns, with 2 fluffy biscuits opened on top and smothered in sausage gravy. Maybe with a couple over-easy eggs on top for good measure. Now THAT'S what my family calls 'big breakfast'!

So when the day arrived that I discovered I could make sausage at home, I naturally tried making some breakfast sausage. I looked online and found a few recipes that looked interesting. I'm using a recipe I found on allrecipes.com, but I changed the amounts of each of the spices, making it more to my liking. I think it's delicious. Hope you agree!

Ingredients:

2 1/2 pounds pork (Buy it already ground if you have no meat grinder)
2 Tbl dried sage
2 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 + 1/8 tsp dried marjoram
2 Tbl brown sugar
1 Tbl crushed red pepper flakes
1 pinch ground cloves

If you're using unground pork, follow the directions here.

*This recipe allows for the sausage to be eaten immediately, no need to let the spices cure with the meat overnight.

Breakfast Croissants

Quick & easy treat for the whole family.

Around our house, breakfast is a favorite. We love breakfast food..biscuits with sausage gravy, orange-cranberry pancakes, fried potatoes, breakfast burritos, waffles....You get my point, right? We LOVE breakfast food. I didn't even start on breakfast breads... donuts, coffee cake, danish...and so on. Speaking of danish, my daughter Laurel just made some awesome danish a few days ago and posted the recipe on her blog: CaliforniaLaurel.blogspot.com. You can view the recipe and pictures here.

Of course, we have breakfast for dinner as often as possible. We even go out for breakfast late at night. (I know we aren't the only people who do this or Denneys wouldn't have a 24 hour breakfast menu!)

So with all that said, here it is Valentines Day. I had to run to the store early this morning because we had no sugar for our coffee! So I thought of grabbing some type of fresh-baked donut or something for my husband to get this special day started off right. (He's a great fan of all things 'pastry') Then I remembered our croissant trick...buy a roll of crescent rolls and add a few goodies and...Wa-LA! Fresh, hot, delicious pastry...for a fraction of the cost! Here are the details:

STEP 1: Buy crescent rolls. Mine were $1.98 on sale.






On the left, raspberry jam. On the right, Nutella.

          
             STEP 2: Before rolling, add yummy stuff.





These are the only savory croissants I made.  They have
brown-sugar ham & cheddar cheese.

  



These actually got more yummy stuff on top before
 the went into the oven.

  
            STEP 3: Bake according to package directions.


      STEP 4: Once out of the oven, add more yummy stuff.




The lemon drizzle on the left, and the plain drizzle on the right,.. just
to give me something to help the almonds stick.

 



On the ham & cheese I sprinkled a few bits of shredded cheese. On the
'cinnabon' I had smeared butter & cream cheese inside. The I had sprinkled
the inside as well as the outside with cinnamon & sugar.

 

    STEP 5: Eat. (At this point, they can't help it... they're yummy!!)




These actually didn't need this since there were only a few different flavors,
but I like to scribble across my parchment what flavor they are..just in case.