Sausage Cheese Biscuits

Friday, the last week of regular season football. We won, thirty-five to fourteen, against the team I had spent Sunday morning watching film of two weeks ago. Mike Reyes and I had built a plan around their over-aggressive corners and their deep safety and the line vulnerabilities. The plan executed. Diego had a fifty-yard touchdown on a corner-post route in the second quarter that I had drawn up Tuesday afternoon. Marcus had two TD passes and ran for one more on a designed quarterback keeper that I had installed Wednesday night. Daquan had two sacks and a forced fumble. Anthony had an interception. The defense gave up two touchdown drives in garbage time when our second team was in. The starters were already on the bench by then. We won the game. We finished the regular season ten and oh.

Ten and oh. The first ten-and-oh regular season in this program's history under my tenure. The third ten-and-oh of my career — I had two at the Albuquerque program before Denver. Ten and oh is a milestone but ten and oh is also a regular-season accomplishment, and the kids and the staff understand that the actual accomplishment is the playoffs. The state championship is what we are after. Ten and oh is just the road to get to where we are: the number one seed in the 5A state playoff bracket. Three games to win it. First game next Friday at home against the eighth seed. The bracket is the bracket. The work is the work.

The tailgate before the game was big. Maybe three hundred people total. The brisket I had been smoking since two a.m. It was eighteen pounds. I also did pulled pork. I also did green chile cheeseburgers off the flat-top griddle on the patio at the field house. I cooked the green chile cheeseburgers myself, with a spatula in each hand, on the four-foot griddle, while Mike Reyes manned the brisket-slicing station and the booster moms ran the rest of the spread. The green chile cheeseburgers are the dish that sells at every tailgate. I made forty-eight of them in an hour. They got eaten in twenty minutes. Tony Davis came through the line and said, "Carlos, the burger is the best thing about the tailgate." I said, "Tony, the brisket is the best thing." He said, "The brisket is great. The burger is the best thing." We had this conversation last year too. Tony will die on the green chile cheeseburger hill. I will die on the brisket hill. We have agreed to disagree.

Saturday morning the bracket came out. We were the one seed. The eight seed is a 5A team from Pueblo that finished six and four and made the playoffs on a tiebreaker. We had played them last week and beaten them by twenty-one. We are favored by twenty-eight. The game is at home Friday. The bracket on the other side of the bracket has Cherry Creek, who beat the four seed by twelve in their week ten. If we win Friday and they win Friday, we play in the semifinals at the home of the higher seed, which is us, the following Friday. The state final is two weeks after that, the first Saturday in December, at Mile High. Three games. Three Fridays. Then a Saturday. That is the road.

I did not sleep Saturday night. I lay in bed and thought about the bracket. I thought about Cherry Creek. I thought about the team. I thought about the things that could go wrong. I prayed. I got up at three. I made coffee. I sat at the kitchen island with my notebook open and started writing notes. The notes were about the next three weeks. They were not coaching notes — those are at the office, on the whiteboards — they were personal notes. Reminders. I wrote: do not let yourself talk about the championship out loud. I wrote: take care of Lisa. I wrote: call Mamá Wednesday. I wrote: write Diego a letter on Thursday. I wrote: wear the dog tags. I wrote: pray. I closed the notebook at five. Lisa was up. She poured coffee. She sat next to me. She said, "You okay." I said, "I am okay." She said, "Three games." I said, "Three games." She said, "Whatever happens, Carlos, I am with you." I said, "I know." We did not say more. We did not have to. The road bends. Feed your people. The game is won at the table.

The green chile cheeseburgers went fast — forty-eight in an hour, gone in twenty minutes — and what I keep thinking about is that a good tailgate dish is not really about the food itself, it is about what the food does to a crowd, how it pulls people in and holds them together for a few minutes before the game takes over. These Sausage Cheese Biscuits do the same thing the burgers do: they are warm, they are filling, they smell like something a person made with their hands, and they disappear fast. I have been making a version of these for early-morning pregame gatherings for years, and every time I put them out, someone finds me across the parking lot to say something about them — the way Tony Davis finds me about the burgers. That is the whole point.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 12 biscuits

Ingredients

1 lb breakfast sausage (mild or spicy), casings removed if links
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
1 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
3/4 cup cold buttermilk, plus more for brushing
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder (optional)

Instructions

Cook the sausage. In a skillet over medium heat, cook sausage until browned and cooked through, breaking it into small crumbles as it cooks. Drain on paper towels and let cool for 5 minutes.
Preheat and prep. Heat oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Make the dry mix. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, pepper, and garlic powder if using.
Cut in butter. Add cold butter cubes to the flour mixture. Using your fingertips or a pastry cutter, work the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with some pea-sized pieces remaining. Work quickly so the butter stays cold.
Add cheese and sausage. Stir in the shredded cheddar and cooled sausage crumbles until evenly distributed.
Add buttermilk. Pour in the cold buttermilk and stir gently with a fork just until the dough comes together. Do not overmix — a few shaggy bits are fine.
Shape and cut. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Pat into a 3/4-inch-thick rectangle. Cut into 12 squares or use a 2 1/2-inch round cutter. Place on prepared baking sheet with edges just touching.
Brush and bake. Brush tops lightly with buttermilk. Bake 18–20 minutes, until golden brown on top and cooked through. Rotate the pan once halfway through.
Serve warm. Let rest 3 minutes before serving. These are best hot from the oven but hold well wrapped in foil for a tailgate.

Nutrition (per serving)

Sausage Cheese Biscuits — The Dish That Feeds the Crowd Before the Game