Scones and cat sick

Parkrun this morning. I was running today, then sorting the tokens back into numerical order ready for me to give them out next week.

I ran on Thursday evening with my running group, and my legs were still stiff from that. But they nevertheless managed to get me round in a sub-forty-minute time for the first time since before the pandemic. I was delighted! I would have been happy with just running all the way round without walking, but to improve my time was brilliant. My legs are well stiff now; lots of stretches are in my near future.

We’ve switched to the winter course, which many prefer, because of the recent rain. We’ve had more than usual, and the wind got up a bit. My family have been sending photos and videos that people have taken of the waves crashing over the piers in Sunderland and Seaham.

Later, I warmed up some mulled wine from last winter in the slow cooker and roasted some chestnuts in an enclosed oven. What a hassle to peel the chestnuts! I saw chestnuts in Japan, which must have given me ideas.

A few days ago, I saw this video on Reddit of British schoolboys trying American biscuits and gravy, and I started getting more ideas.

I asked my American friend if they really don’t have beans on toast in America, and she said it’s true. We agreed to try the dish that was foreign to us, and she sent me a recipe. All I told her was to butter the toast.

Biscuits and gravy is apparently a breakfast dish, and can be served with a fruit cup – I think breakfast is a bit early to be cracking open the Pimms. It turns out that a fruit cup is American for a fruit salad.

Nevertheless, we had it for tea today.

First, I made the biscuits, which are like scones but made with buttermilk, or the vegan equivalent, and all-purpose flour. I always thought all-purpose flour was plain flour, but for some reason I thought it was self-raising flour today. However, I used neither of those, and picked up the strong bread flour and used that.

When I realised, I had a minor trauma, then looked up what all-purpose flour actually is. It turns out it’s actually more like our strong bread flour than our plain flour. So I hadn’t done goofed; I’d accidentally done the right thing!

I used the conversion button to use metric instead of American units, which gave some weird measuring units. Luckily, I have a degree in measuring things.

Cups were converted to grams, which was fine for the flour, but weird for the soya milk. Tablespoons and other spoon sizes were kept, which was fine for the baking powder and the salt, but weird for the butter. For your reference, four tablespoons of butter is 56.69904625 grams of butter.

The recipe said it serves six, but then said to use a four-inch cookie cutter. After I measured all our biscuit cutters, I got only five biscuits. They seemed huge, but I went with it, and put them in the oven.

Next, I made the gravy. I broke up some sausages and browned them in a pan, then essentially made a lumpy, peppery white sauce. That was straightforward enough; I can make a white sauce in my sleep, thanks to my cookery teacher at school, who taught me two things:
1) how to make a cheese sauce, which is a white sauce with cheese in – and for the love of all that is cheesy, make sure you take the pan off the heat before adding the cheese
2) for pastry, use half fat to flour (by mass), and get lots of air into it when rubbing it in.

I put the biscuits and gravy on the plate; the gravy looked so unappetising and the whole thing so beige that I thought I’d put some lettuce on the side. My American friend laughed at that: she’s never seen biscuits and gravy served with leafy greens.

I served the meal; after commenting on its cat barf appearance, we tried it. It was really tasty! Mr Perkins was all in my face while I tried to eat. I gave him some biscuit, and he shovelled it in. His paw was constantly pawing at me for more, but he got no more.

Meanwhile, Mr Pandammonium wolfed his down. I can make that again, was his verdict – worth even the mess in the kitchen that I left him to clear up.

The fifth one we halved afterwards. Mr Pandammonium wiped the scrapings of gravy from the pan, and I had mine with butter and jam, like a real scone.

If you’ve not had American biscuits and gravy, try it. They’re not biscuits, and it’s not gravy, but whatever you call it, it’s tasty and comforting.