Quick and easy sausage gravy

Cooking time: 15 minutes.

This makes enough for one person...for a few meals...but you should probably share...they'll ask what you cooked that smells so good... It is also really easy to make.  Other than when I am opening up the package sausage with a knife, I usually hold our 2-year-old in my other arm while I cook this for breakfast one-handed.

Open one package of seasoned ground sausage from your Anchor Ranch Farm pasture-raised pork share.

Put a cast iron skillet or other metal cooking vessel on the stove on medium heat.  The diameter of the cooking vessel should be around 12 inches but a couple under or over is fine. 

Put the sausage in the skillet and use a heat-proof spatula to break it up.  Even though the fat from pasture-raised pork doesn't "melt" as much as that from conventional pigs, you don't need to add any extra fat. 

Cook until the sausage is cooked through.  Stir a few times to keep the sausage from only browning on one side.

Sprinkle 1/3 cup of flour over the sausage (sprinkle, don't just dump it in a pile) and stir to coat.  

Add in whole milk, half and half, or natural cream (no carrageenan or other gums) until the sausage is not quite covered with milk.  This is generally about 2 cups.  I've always used milk from Joe Bray's cows at Wholesome Family Farm.

Keep at medium heat until the milk starts to boil, and then turn down the heat to low or turn it off if the pan you are using retains heat well.  This is the only time you have to watch the pan, as you don't want to burn the milk.  The rest of the time you should check in and stir once in a while but you don't need to stand by the stove all the time.

Stir the sausage-milk-flour mixture occasionally until the milk gravy thickens.  It will thicken substantially after a few minutes so don't prematurely add extra flour.

Serve with homemade bread or biscuits or just put a few spoonfuls over a couple sunny-side-up eggs from pasture-raised chickens.  

I've been on a quest for good sausage gravy for the past 10 years.  Almost all of it is horrible sludge.  I've had three that were outstanding.  One at a small regional airport outside Boulder, CO.  One from Pat's food truck in McMinnville, OR.  And this is the best.  Those other guys are better cooks than me, so this one's all due to the main ingredient.