Dairy Free Drop Biscuits with Sausage Gravy

 
Here are two great recipes that are actually quite easy to adjust to dairy free.  Honestly even before we were dairy free I was never much of a biscuit maker.  I tended to work the dough too much and ended up with hockey pucks instead of fluffy biscuits.  Recently I saw someone making drop biscuits on a show.  Hmmmmmmmm, maybe this is finally a way that I can successfully make biscuits!?  So, the search began for a dairy free version.  I found lots of Gluten Free/Dairy Free....... but I just wanted dairy free, so the search continued.  A lot of times I have realized that you can easily substitute almond milk for dairy milk but I know that with biscuits you need the fat.  Then a search yielded an unconventional recipe that I HAD to try to make dairy free, they were called Mayonnaise Drop Biscuits!  Now I have used mayo as a fat for baking before, why did it never occur to me to try it in a biscuit?!  TRUST me, these do NOT taste like mayo!  Here we go, biscuits first.  If I can do it, so can you!

 Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Ingredients:
2 Cups All Purpose Flour
3 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup Almond Milk
6 TB Mayo

Sift dry ingredients, then add milk & mayo JUST until combined.  It's better to have a little flour on the sides than work it too much!  You can use 2 spoons to drop the dough onto your pan (lined with silicone or parchment paper) or you can use a scoop.  Bake for 10-15 minutes depending on the size of your biscuits.

 DONE!  They were more browned than they look, gotta work on the kitchen lighting for pictures.  Start to finish these were done, including pictures, in less than 20 minutes!

Now, on to the Sausage Gravy!!  This is by far one of our very favorite recipes!  On a side note, this is not a low fat/calorie meal =) 

Gather all ingredients and tools.  This is important because once you get going on the gravy, it's hard to stop!
Ingredients:
1 lb Sausage
4 spoons All Purpose Flour
2 cups (plus extra) Almond Milk
Salt & Pepper to taste

 Pan with deep sides, nylon wisk (or other wisk safe for your pan), small pot with 2 cups of hot almond milk (not boiling), a slotted spoon, and plate or a bowl for sausage once browned.

 Brown the sausage well and remove to a plate.  I put 4 spoons (these are eating spoons) of flour to the pan and immediately start whisking.  The key to a good gravy is making sure that the ratio of fat to flour is about the same.

 Whisk for a minute or two, cooking the flour.

 Using hot milk, add about 1/2 cup and immediately whisk.  Keep whisking until lumps are beginning to smooth and bubble, that's when you want to add more milk 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup.  Once again, whisk immediately until mixture begins to get smooth and you see bubbles.  Add more milk and whisk again.  At this point once it comes up to a bubble, reduce heat to medium-low.  If gravy seems to be too thick add a bit more milk (cold is fine at this point)  Don't add too much, you can keep adding as you need to thin the gravy, but at this point you won't be able to make it any thicker..... at least not easily. 

 This is what it will look like when it is ready to add more milk.

 Now is when you add the sausage back to pan, make sure that it is on low heat until ready to serve.