Biscuits & Gravy

Serves 4-6
Vegetarian

You don’t have to be a vegetarian to appreciate how remarkably delicious this dish is. Instead of traditional gravy made with the drippings from rendered sausage, this gravy is made with soy meat. What it lacks in greasy animal fat it makes up for in flavor. If you don’t feel like making biscuits from scratch, try serving the gravy over toasted wheat bread, or you can buy that dough in the tube (nobody will be the wiser, I promise).

1 cup of white flour (if you have it, you can replace ½ of it with whole wheat pastry flour)
salt & pepper
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
3 tablespoons of really cold butter, cut in tiny pieces
about ¼ cup milk
½ package of fake breakfast sausage (I like GimmeLean breakfast sausage) about 2 cups of it
butter
milk
soy sauce
hot sauce
dried herbs (I like to use thyme and a little rosemary)
dried mustard (you can use regular mustard, if you like)

Preheat your oven to 400°.

In a mixing bowl combine flour, salt, a ton of black pepper, baking powder, and baking soda.

Using your fingers, rub in butter until mixture forms coarse crumbs (make sure the butter is really cold). Add just enough milk for dough to come together. If it gets too sticky, add a little more flour. Don’t overwork the dough! If you do, you will get tough biscuits.

Pat out the dough onto a floured surface into a circle that is about ½ an inch thick. Use the top of a small glass to cut out the biscuits.

Transfer the biscuits to a baking sheet. Brush the tops with a little milk. Bake them for about 10-15 minutes, until tops are golden and bottoms are lightly browned.

While the biscuits bake, heat a few tablespoons of butter in a pan. Crumble in the sausage and cook it until it is brown.

Sprinkle a few tablespoons of flour into the pan. Next, add a few tablespoons of butter. Cook the butter and the flour for a minute. (Congratulations! You have just made a “roux”. This is a fancy French way of saying “a paste that thickens sauces”.)

Add 1½ cup of milk. Stir the mixture. Add a few dashes of soy sauce, hot sauce, some fresh herbs, some dried mustard, and a bunch of salt and pepper. Allow the gravy to come to a boil. If it seems too thick, add more milk.

When the biscuits are done, split them and slather them with gravy.

As you can see, this dish is pretty rich. Try serving it with a fresh fruit salad, or sliced tomatoes to lighten it up.