Jimbo’s Vegan Gravy

Mom had made a huge batch of cornbread stuffing for Thanksgiving and froze a portion for us in a handy oven friendly pan. There was a time last week when I had thawed it over night and counted on it for lunch the next day. I somehow dried out the edges of the stuffing when I baked it so threw together a quick vegan gravy that I thought would go well with the seasoned cornbread. Jim loved the meal, “You should blog this awesome gravy!”

Of course it’s moments like that I end up regretting; no photos, no measuring of ingredients and we ate every drop of it. In my rush to pull it all together, I didn’t have time. I would have to recreate it and see if it was still worthy of Jim’s praise since he kept mentioning it all week, “Great Sage may be an award winning vegan restaurant but I bet they don’t have gravy like yours.”

Since we had eaten all of the left over stuffing, I went shopping for a few ingredients to stuff a halved acorn squash and got some MorningStar Farms® Meal Starters® Chik’n Strips too. It was a pretty thick, southern-style gravy and I thought those items would pair well with it.

It turned out the same as the first time and Jim loved it. It was his enthusiasm that got me to replicate it before I forgot what I had done, for this I thank him and name the gravy after him.

Jimbo’s Vegan Gravy
A thick southern-style vegan gravy.

Ingredients
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
1 Tablespoon Earth Balance Spread
1 Tablespoon Nutritional Yeast
1 Tablespoon Flour
1 Tablespoon Raw Almond Butter
1 Tablespoon Tofutti Sour Supreme
1 Cup RICE DREAM® Original Rice Milk
1 -2 dashes of Hickory Liquid Smoke
1/4 teaspoon Salt
dash of fine Black Pepper

Directions
If you have ever made gravy before you can see where this is going for the most part. Over low heat melt the Earth Balance and olive oil then stir in the flour and nutritional yeast. Cook over low heat about a minute, stirring constantly until the mixture is smooth and bubbly. This is where the roux varies a little because I then cook in the almond butter and Sour Supreme. Stir it all constantly to make a paste before incrementally adding in the liquid smoke and rice milk.

Bring to a low boil, add salt and pepper, and continue stirring for 1 minute. The gravy will thicken if you boil and stir it a minute longer. Remove from heat but serve while still warm.

Vegan Mac & Pleaze

plant based milks

A taste test of plant based milks was long overdue and we decided that an important factor would be in how they tasted applied to a couple of standard recipes.

I pulled out my big red book of magic, the Betty Crocker Spellbook (note animal sacrifice on cover – ugh!), and set out to adapt a couple of recipes that relied on cow’s milk and cheeses into decent vegan recipes.

First was good ol’ Mac & Cheese. I will be straight up in letting you know that the differences between the 3 milks that we tried were negligible in this test. They all pretty much cooked up the same way in the roux and it didn’t matter which of the vegan cheese products I added, they all separated a bit and really needed a topping of bread crumbs to absorb some of the greasiness that rose to the surface during baking.

It’s always nice to know we have a friendlier, vegan version of a rib sticking comfort food. We were quite pleased with the resulting recipe and, after putting my head together with Amy, have decided to call it…

Mac & Pleeze taste test (Rice, Coconut, Soy milks)

Mac & Pleaze
1 Cup uncooked elbow macaroni
2 Tablespoons of Earth Balance
2 Tablespoons Flour
1 C plant-based milk
2 Tablespoons white wine
1/3 Cup nutritional yeast
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon paprika
a few dashes cayenne
1 Cup Daiya Mozzarella Style Shreds or 10 slices of Galaxy Foods Rice Vegan American Flavor Slices
1/3 Cup bread crumbs

Cook the macaroni according to the directions on its box. Melt the Earth Balance and stir in flour. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until the mixture is smooth and bubbly. Slowly add your plant based milk of choice and white wine. Heat to boiling; stirring constantly. Boil and continue stirring for 1 minute while stirring in nutritional yeast, garlic, paprika and cayenne. Remove from heat. Continue stirring, gradually adding the vegan cheese until completely melted.

Place macaroni in ungreased 1 quart casserole. Stir cheese sauce into macaroni. Top with bread crumbs and bake uncovered 350° for 30 minutes. Serve hot.

Mac & Pleeze taste test (L-R Rice milk, Coconut milk, Soy Milk)