By Santee Ross, University of Montana

I’ve had a certain food craving recently. Maybe it’s because my fellow blogger Stacy Thacker has me reminiscing about the dry Southwest with her latest blogs. Maybe it’s because my mother recently sent me a bag of Bluebird flour, saying I should start working on my bread-making skills.

Even from far away she is still grooming me for marriage material.

Maybe it’s a combination of the two but either way I was craving milk gravy over the weekend. I would always beg my grandmother to make this for me whenever I was out at her house near the First Mesa. Then when my family moved from Arizona to Wyoming I begged my mother to make it whenever I got homesick for the desert and cactus.

Milk gravy is usually a breakfast kind of meal that’s pretty much biscuits and gravy but rez style. Let’s get started.

Prep time: If you’re not a morning person this could be a long process but if you’re fully awake it’ll be about 15 min.
Cook time: This recipe was made for low maintenance cooks like me so it’ll be about 15-20 min. Low maintenance does not mean low taste though, this dish will rock your morning like a double espresso shot!

What you’ll need:

• About 4 cans of evaporated milk or 4 cups of regular milk

I don’t recommend regular milk because it basically tastes like warm water--eww.

• ½ cup of flour--Bluebird is the best but that’s just me.
• Bacon--however much bacon you want or have.
• Bread--homemade yeast bread is how my grandma served it but regular sliced bread tastes just as good.

Measurements is a little more crucial here than in my last Rez Recipes blog. I discovered that this weekend when I made a first batch that gave me clumpy dumplings instead of a smooth creamy finish.

Alright here’s what you do:

1. Cut up your bacon in little bite size pieces and fry em up.
2. Put the cooked bacon in a saucepan along with the grease for better flavor. But you don’t have take the unhealthy option like me.
3. Add 3 cans of evaporated milk and keep your heat on medium-low. Make sure you keep an eye on the heat because this recipe can easily burn.
4. While your stuff in the pan warms up, in a small bowl mix a ½ cup of flour with a 1 cup of evaporated milk. Make sure you whisk the flour really good so that there are no clumps, otherwise you get dumplings like I did in my first batch--mother I can tell you’re shaking your head, I’m sorry.
5. After you whisk the flour really well add it to the pan. It’s better to keep the heat on a medium-low setting because it can still burn.
6. Keep stirring till the milk thickens and then serve over your bread. You can add just a little bit of flour if it isn’t thickening but again be careful of clumping.

After it’s done, your taste buds are going to become addicted.

Tip: Salt and pepper it up with this dish.

Santee Ross (Hopi/Lakota) is from Lander, Wyo.