I’ve been experimenting with a gluten-free diet lately. That’s my latest excuse for not updating with more regularity anyways. (Don’t you just love how I always seem to have an excuse? ) When I was given the opportunity to try these, I couldn’t resist throwing the diet experiment out the window, at least long enough for breakfast. I’ve been gushing about these cinnamon rolls to anyone who will listen, so I figured I better tell all of you as well!

First of all, you just can’t go wrong with Cinnabon and cinnamon rolls. In fact, I have been really wanting cinnamon rolls for quite some time. Living by myself though, I just never could justify making an entire container or even making them from scratch because hello? My thighs just do not need me to polish off an entire batch of cinnamon rolls by myself. Which brings me to this new offering from the folks at Pillsbury. Instead of arriving in a tube, these cinnamon rolls are in a bag. In the freezer section. Imagine how excited I was when I realized, I could make myself two cinnamon rolls. I could make myself two, and put the rest in the freezer for breakfast NEXT Saturday!

I was concerned about how they would turn out being baked on a cookie sheet by themselves, when all the cinnamon rolls I’ve ever had before have been all smushed together in a pan. But I set my oven to 350, and greased my cookie sheet. The rolls looked a little compressed when I took them out of the bag, but I decided to have faith. (These are the regular sized, by the way… I didn’t trust myself not to eat the entire bag of minis.)

20 minutes later, I pulled them out of the oven. They’d puffed up, were normally shaped cinnamon rolls, and they smelled delicious.

In the bag, there was one packet of icing available for every two cinnamon rolls. I was impressed that there was plenty of icing available for each roll, and so conveniently packaged.

The verdict? AWESOME. They were wonderful, not crunchy as I’d worried they would be. And the best part? Being able to bake only 2 at a time kept me from going back for the rest of them. I’d have gladly eaten more cinnamon rolls if they were already baked, but I didn’t want to wait another 20 minutes to bake more. These cinnamon rolls that I can bake individually may be one of the most dangerous things I’ve discovered this year. Especially when they’re chock full of things that I had been trying to avoid.

One of my favorite breakfast foods is Sausage Gravy and Biscuits, but I’m really picky. I’m about to tell you how I make my sausage gravy. I won’t go so far as to say that it’s the best Sausage Gravy in the world, but everyone I’ve made it for loves it. Since my mother reads this, I’ll go ahead and add the disclaimer now that she’s the one who taught me how.
Anyways, on to the good stuff!

What You’ll Need

Sausage (I go for mild, but you can go hotter if you want. You definitely don’t want any “special” sausage… no maple, no Italian, etc. Just regular breakfast sausage), Milk, Flour, Salt, Pepper, and Biscuits. I usually go for the buttermilk biscuits, but I’m good grabbing the wrong kind. These are “Butter Tastin’” biscuits and they worked out just fine.

Start Cooking

I like to tear up my biscuits and pour the gravy over the top. Because of this, I always start the biscuits before I do anything else. I want them to get out of the oven before the gravy is done so they’ll cool enough to handle. Now, you could be really ambitious and make your own biscuits if you want, but as for me, I think the folks at Pillsbury have done a fine job. So go ahead and make those according to package directions.

While your biscuits are baking, start browning your sausage. Make sure you cook it thoroughly! We don’t want to get sick from our yummy breakfast!

When your sausage is browned, just leave it in the pan. Don’t do ANYTHING to it… no draining, no rinsing. You want to keep any and all grease in the pan. You’re going to pour in enough flour to coat the sausage and soak up any grease in the pan. This is what’s going to give your gravy good flavor! I always pour in a little extra flour, just for good measure.

This is what my pan looked like when I was ready to add the milk. At this point, you are just going to pour milk into your pan until you’ve got your sausage and flour mixture good and covered.

Salt and pepper to taste. Then you’re just going to let it cook over a medium heat until it thickens, making sure to stir it occasionally. You’ll have to judge how much heat you need… you want it to cook, but you don’t want to be burning the bottom while you’re waiting for it to thicken.

In the meantime your biscuits should have finished baking.

Mmm… don’t those look good?? So they’re going to sit there and cool off a little bit until your gravy is finally done.

Here’s my finished gravy. Is your stomach rumbling yet? Cause mine sure is!! Now you’ll want to grab two biscuits and tear them up on your plate. This is why you wanted the biscuits to cool a little bit… cutting them up with a fork just doesn’t have the same effect. Sure, you could probably split them open and pour gravy on top, but again… it just wouldn’t be the same.

Finally you’re ready to scoop a generous helping of Sausage Gravy on top. If you didn’t salt and pepper enough during the cooking process, don’t be afraid to add a little more now if you need it.

Doesn’t that look good?