Modern Choctaw Cornsticks

None of the women in my family are pushovers. They are firebrands, fighters both feisty and ferocious. They are engineers, businesswomen, nurses. Above all: they are, without exception, beautiful and intelligent women who know what they want in life. Naysayers could try and call them headstrong, but no one ever doubts their strength.

It's a big legacy to live up to.

My paternal grandmother is no exception. She's half Choctaw and Caucasian and hails originally from Southeastern Oklahoma in the heart of the Choctaw Nation before moving to New Mexico. Her American Indian mother died when she was young, and when her father remarried she was sent away to Indian boarding school.

A normal little girl would have probably raised less hell, but you probably know where this story was going. I don't have an exact number for the amount of times she ran away from the Goodland Indian Orphanage, but enough that it became obvious she wasn't going to stay at a place if she didn't want to. She was going to carve her own existence the way she viewed it, even as a child.

Biscuits and Bacon Gravy

I've made tons of sausage gravy (and eaten even more) but when Mr. Mochi came home with a steal: beautiful thick-cut bacon for 40 cents a pound, I knew I wanted to try bacon gravy. Bacon gravy is made the same way as sausage gravy, with a few quirks.

Now, this recipe is just made for serving over piping hot biscuits! Unfortunately, my oven decided to die on me, so I was not able to make any fresh biscuits. I don't know whats wrong, but the oven just won't heat up, and my biscuits just sat there as I fiddled for over an hour with the dial, turning it on and off and waiting 10, then 20 minutes to see if the oven would ever heat up. Hurray for cheap apartment living?

Putting aside my oven's betrayal, let's focus on those quirks. The bacon will take longer to cook than the sausage, because you want it nice and crisp to stand up to the gravy. It will also release quite a bit more fat, so you either have to use less bacon, or drain away some of the fat.  It is also less seasoned than sausage, so you will add more pepper, but less salt since the bacon is cured.

Oklahoma Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

Since I grew up with my mother's cooking, as well as my grandmother from her side, I am definitely more influenced by my Japanese roots when it comes to cooking. However, my father could be called a comfort food connoisseur, and it is funny to realize that some of his favorite foods have roots in his heritage.  Introduced to me at an early age, biscuits and gravy definitely harken to his Oklahoma heritage, where a majority of the Choctaw Tribe (our tribe) was relocated to.

I definitely won't say that this is my healthiest recipe on here, but it is delicious! Plus, I think Southern food gets a bad rap-- this has less calories than stuffed french toast (over 400 per serving, per Mimi's), and more protein. Per livestrong.com, one biscuit with 2tbs. of gravy is only around 256 calories.  Plus, if its homemade gravy, you will drastically cut down the salt. Okay okay, this may just be me rationalizing my favorite "bad" food. BUT ITS SO GOOD!