Monday, August 25, 2008

what's better than chocolate?

i am a big fan of biscuits and sausage gravy.

not everybody is...

...and i get that. not everyone likes meat and therefore would not enjoy meat byproducts. other people are health conscious and prefer not to eat things that are just pure bad for you.

while i am a big fan of sausage gravy, i'm also a very particular fan of it. years ago just after college, it was practically a weekend tradition to cook up a big pan of sausage, then fix a big pan of gravy and finally pile it all together with some heart stopping buttery biscuits.

as it turns out, there are many things in life that are not at all like riding a bike.

if you aren't in the habit of making meat gravies, they just don't turn out well. you've got to practice to get it just right. ten years later, the last couple of times i've tried, its been a flop. but my attempts are not nearly as bad as anything i've purchased here in this southwestern town. las vegas isn't exactly known for its homey fatty southern cooking so naturally no one here is going to do sausage gravy well.

but then i remembered a recipe a coworker shared with me a few years ago. it is not at all for sausage gravy, but its that sort of kentucky recipe that makes you feel at home on a saturday morning. it seems strange, i know, but it is for chocolate gravy and you really do put it on biscuits. the buttery the better! it's perfectly bad for you and delightfully warm and comforting in that way carby things usually are. my coworker explained that his mother, aunts, and grandmother, from the hills of eastern kentucky, had been making this his whole life. i was given a stern warning to not burn the milk and i'll pass that on to you, in all caps even . and while this is not sausage gravy, it will do very well for now until i can move back east and visit a bob evans restaurant.


chocolate gravy
by hannah newsome

4 cups milk
1 cup sugar
3-4 heaping tablespoons flour
3-4 heaping tablespoons cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla

pour milk into medium saucepan. cook milk on medium to med-high. DO NOT USE HIGH. DO NOT BURN THE MILK. while milk is warming, mix dry ingredients well, pour 1/3 of your milk into dry ingredients to make a paste. return paste to saucepan with remaining milk. stir continuously until it thickens. pour over biscuits, breads, anything really. enjoy!

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