For as long as I can remember, our family celebrated Easter at my grandparent’s house. We would all pour out of my mom’s avocado green station wagon and us kids would run right into the house to find my grandma working in the kitchen and my grandpa grilling lamb in their sunny backyard. We would immediately check out grandma’s candy dish to survey our Easter loot, then we’d run right into the kitchen for a slab of her infamous Italian Easter bread. That thick, delicious bread studded with Italian sausage, cheese and egg proved more tempting than EASTER CANDY. Can you imagine? Bread better than Easter candy?? We ate our pieces so fast, they’d get stuck in the bottom of our throats. No doubt, we were enthusiastic about that bread.

This year my grandma will be in New York while I’m here in California celebrating Easter without her Easter bread! I hope she makes some for our relatives back east. Eat a few slices for me, will ya?  Where am I going with this? Let me get to it… I made these little biscuits last weekend and they totally tasted like my grandma’s Easter bread!  I mean, they’re definitely not a 100% replacement for her legit Easter bread, but they’re a nice knockoff, if I do say so myself.

Carbs + Meat + Cheese = Trouble. The kind of trouble that I love getting into.

And we’re off!

Take the sausages out of their casings to crumble & brown in a skillet. Set the sausage aside.

Get your dry ingredients together. Whisk to combine.

Now add in the sausage & milk.

MIX.

Pile the dough out onto a floured topped surface. Make a disk & cut 6 triangles.

Chop up some cheese cubes.

Take a triangle and put a cube in. Fold the dough around it and tada! You have a ball/biscuit.

Put the biscuits onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Top with milk & bake!

This is what you get. THIS IS WHAT YOU GET!!!!!

And of course I ate one right away. Totally worth the mouth burn! Look at that cheese!

I served our biscuits with fried eggs & peppers.

I think my grandma would totally approve! Wait. I KNOW my grandma would approve.

Sausage Cheddar Biscuits

Makes 6

(recipe adapted from Rachael Ray Magazine)

• 1/2 lb. spicy Italian sausage
• 1 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1 oz. sharp cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 450 F. In a large skillet, crumble sausage and cook on medium-high heat until browned, about 5 minutes. Drain sausage and let cool on a plate. In a medium bowl whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together. Add the milk and sausage into the dry ingredients and stir until combined. Turn out the dough onto a flat floured surface and form into a disk. Cut 6 even triangles. Take a cube of cheese and place in the center of each triangle and roll the dough around the cheese to form a ball. Place the dough balls on a parchment lined baking sheet. Brush the tops with milk and bake until golden, 12 to 15 minutes.