Gravy Train

I've been a little busy lately. Whirlwind busy. Ten million thoughts running around in circles in my head busy. Not enough room left in my planner busy. This is more or less a natural state of being for me. However, there is a point of overload. Do you know how I knew I had reached this?

I brought gravy for lunch.

I thought it was lentil soup. If I wasn't in such a hurry to leave, I would have remembered that we finished all the lentil soup weeks ago, and this tiny container was filled with gravy. I didn't notice until I took it out of the microwave at work. It smelled delicious, but even I cannot eat a whole bowlful of gravy.

Gravy has gotten a bad rap. Maybe it's because some gravies are very fattening and seem, well, glutenous. It's ok for Thanksgiving, but not for Tuesday night dinner.

However, I think it's a highly delicious and useful condiment. Now that cold weather has descended upon the Burgh, I will be eating a lot more gravy on my potatoes and chickpea patties and cauliflower millet mash and mushroom loaf. The art of gravy making has been somewhat lost...died out with our grandmas, I suppose, and nobody bothered to teach my generation. Now we're all waking up and saying, "Holy crap, I'm the grown-up! I'm in charge here. And I don't even know how to make gravy!"

So here's a rough tutorial...which just happens to be low-fat and vegan.


First, chop up some onions. Maybe 3 big ones. It depends on how much gravy you want.
Heat up a teeny, tiny bit of oil. Dump the onions in. You want to carmelize the onions, and this goes better with less oil. You need medium heat. To low, and they get soft without burning, too high and they turn black. If they start to burn, deglaze with some water. This means, put some water in the pan. It will sizzle, and unstick your onions. Cook these onions for a long time, until they are brown and soft. Keep adding water and adjusting the heat as necessary.

Next, blend them up with some water.

While you are blending them up, make a roux with some oil and flour. This means, you heat up some oil (a few tablespoons) and slowly add some flour (teaspoon by teasoon), stirring rapidly, so it doesn't clump too much. It will be kind of pasty. Then slowly add in your onion water mixture that is all blended up. Stir rapidly while you are pouring it in.

It is very likely at this point that you have gravy that is either too thick or too thin. DO NOT FEAR! Just add more water to thin it out, or let it cook uncovered on medium heat for a while to thicken it up.

That's it. Now you have gravy. The bigger challenge is deciding what you want to put your gravy on.