Sticks & Stones

When my kids were little, one of their favorite meals was something I called Sticks & Stones. It includes smoked sausage with gravy and beautiful little new potatoes and fresh green beans. 

Sticks and Stones

I package smoked sausage, your favorite brand (I like Eckrich)

3 tablespoons flour

2 cups milk

Very small new potatoes, white or red, as small as you can pick out at the grocery store

Fresh green beans

1 tablespoon butter

**Potential ingredient: bacon grease**

Steam the beans and potatoes. If the beans are fully cooked before the potatoes, just take them out and set them aside. Use very small potatoes.

Slice the sausage diagonally. I like to cut it on an angle so there is as much cut surface as possible making contact with the cooking surface. The grease that comes out of the sausage will be used as a base for your gravy. Brown the sausages, about 3-4 minutes on each side. Remove them from the pan, saving the grease.  (Variation Alert: If your sausage is very lean and there is little grease in the pan, add some bacon grease. What...no bacon grease? Don't you save the grease in a jar in the fridge when you fry bacon? I do and it sure comes in handy at times...like in this dish.)

Add 1 tablespoon butter to the sausage drippings (or bacon grease).  Combine the flour and milk in a jar with a lid. Shake well. Shake even more. You don't want lumps. Slowly whisk in the milk/flour mix to the hot grease. Increase the heat to medium high.  Add salt & pepper to taste. Continue whisking until the sauce begins to thicken and the raw taste of flour has cooked out, about 5 minutes. You may want to add more milk if it is too thick or another smaller dose of flour/milk mix if it's too thin.

Add the sausage back to the skillet with the gravy and cook a couple of more minutes to make sure all is hot.  Toss the potatoes and green beans with melted butter.  Serve with a green salad.