Good Suppers; and How I Make Mushroom Gravy
July 28, 2010 – 9:00 amI have made two brilliantly delicious suppers in a row over here. Monday night I splurged on a Celebration Roast, and cooked it in the oven pot-roast style with mushroom gravy and baby carrots, over short-grain brown rice, with a side of sauteed green beans. To make the mushroom gravy, here’s what I did:
- sautee diced white mushrooms, a few minced garlic cloves, and some onion in olive oil in a medium saucepan
- once those are soft and the mushrooms are cooked down, add a little more oil, and a few handfuls of flour.
- fry the veg-oil-flour mixture for a couple minutes.
- deglaze the pan with a bit of red wine
- add some herbs like sage and thyme
- pour in 2 cups of veggie broth, and maybe a little more wine if you’re feeling sassy (I was)
- cook it for a few minutes till it’s thick and starts to look like gravy
- salt and pepper to taste
As I said, I put the Celebration Roast in a covered casserole dish with some baby carrots (I could’ve added potatoes also, but opted for rice as my starch instead. What can I say – my soul loves rice n gravy.), then poured the gravy over it all and baked till the carrots were tender. It was comfort yum food.
Then last night I made the Hot-Sauce Glazed Tempeh from Veganomicon.
I recently wrote a paper about tempeh for my Food and Culture class, so I’ve been in the mood to play with it. I didn’t have any wine around, so after pondering my dilemma for a while, I decided to use orange juice instead. I’m brilliant. It certainly changes the undertone of the flavor of the marinade, but it was so yum. Killer even. I stole a bit of the marinade in which to toss some halved baby new potatoes, then roasted them in the oven. We had those with a side salad dressed in a citrus vinaigrette, but Monday’s green beans would have been just as nice of a green veggie accompaniment.
Both of these meals are fiber-full, traditional protein/starch/green-veggie meals. Very balanced, homey vegan fare. I think after all the transition in my life lately, what with moving, growing a baby, and adjusting to a new city; I’m hungry for some traditional (for me) home-cooked meals.