Vegetarian Biscuits & Gravy

I'm pretty sure I hadn't eaten biscuits and gravy before I started college. One of the best things about college life (I'm not kidding here) was Saturday's at Chuck's, the name given to the campus cafeteria.

Saturdays, you could show up any time before one o'clock, and eat as much as you wanted...and the food was surprisingly good.

No eight AM classes requiring a Hoover-approach to breakfast; a group of us would roll out of bed around ten or eleven, dress as casually as the 'Law' allowed (it was a conservative Christian college), and walk over to Chuck's.

Breakfast foods...my favorite...as far as the eye could see. The usual cold cereal dispensers, and bagel stations were there, of course, but the good stuff...the eggs and waffles and other hot items; that's what made it special.

For me, it was all about their biscuits and gravy. I mean, someone had taken some of the best things about food...real, comfort, food...and put it in one dish.

I enjoyed those Saturday brunches, for the food, the camaraderie, for the relaxed (by the school's standards) atmosphere.

Just a few years later, I stopped eating meat, and well...that was that.

Within the last month or so, I ordered and received Retro Diner, a pretty fabulous book in it's own right.

But what really got me excited was a recipe for Biscuits and Gravy...after reading it, I realized I could probably fake a veggie version!

See, this one didn't require drippings from the sausage...I know, sounds weird, but I figured it was worth a shot.

So did Matt, who took it upon himself to make this for me.

Using their recipe as a 'guide', but following his own common sense (and with the help of some vegetarian sausage patties), he prepared for me a pretty darn good plate of Biscuits and (vegetarian) Gravy.

The biscuits were perfect. The gravy had the right consistency, although it's still lacking a little 'something' in flavor. That's to be expected, what with vegetable-based meat substitutes not really containing lots of fats.

But it's a start. A really good, comforting, start.




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Tagged with: Food & Drink + Breakfast + Vegetarian + Biscuits + Sausage + Retro + Diners + Cookbooks