Junk Food: Fries and Gravy

This is one of those meals that initially inspired this blog and title, the classic dinner of the university student: Fries and Gravy.

Bonus points on the junk food scale here for utilizing Frozen Steak Cut Fries baked at 450 as per-package.

The gravy utilizes some of my lovely dark onion/garlic based veggie broth and a simple gravy recipe.


Simpleton Gravy

• Homemade Veggie Broth
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, smashed-n-minced
• fresh pepper, grey salt, paprika and cumin
• roux: Earth Balance and WW flour
• Corn Starch (if needed)

First melt your margerine in the pan over medium high heat, turning down to avoid burning. Sautee the onion with salt-n-pepper, adding the garlic, cumin and paprika once the onion is translucient. Cook until fragrant and add in your flour a little at time. Use a whisk to make the roux and cook until darkened.

Once the roux is cooked, slowly add the broth whisking as you go to ensure everything is mixing well. Continue to cook and add broth until you've reached the desired volume and thickness. If thickening isn't enough add a corn starch slurry and continue to cook.

Remove fries from the oven and plate with gravy and more salt/pepper.

And you people thought vegan meant healthy

Well as usual, I am here to prove you wrong and bring you down into the gutters of vegan cuisine and eating. No, I'm not going to re-create mike's Tater pig, but we are headed into Lazy, Processed, No Effort, Heart Attack promotive Eating.

First up on our way to triple bi-pass, my introduction to solid food one week after wisdom tooth surgery. It ain't pretty, but damn if it isn't tasty. Simple, spicy fries and gravy. Gross you say? I thought so too, packaged spicy fries are to be enjoyed on their own or preferably not at all, but thanks to my little brother and his disgusting habits, I've given it a shot and by Goddess if it isn't white trash good eatings.







Extremely simple, prepare frozen spicy fries as directed by package. Once fries are done and hot, open your can of mushroom gravy (vegan of course) and ladle on top of plated fries.


Normally I would suggest you heat the gravy first, but as I wasn't supposed to be eating hot foods this combination of hot fries and room temperature gravy turned out to be a great combination (not warm enough for it to be an issue with my stitches but not so cold I want to hurl and give up eating all together). This was especially helpful if allowed to sit for a few minutes in order to soften up the crispier edges of the fries. Those of you not recovering from Oral Surgery are encourage to eat immediately.

CHICKPEA CUTLETS; THEY'RE HERE!

That's right, I was finally able to make these and they were so good my mother ate them without gravy! and went back for seconds (trust me on how huge this is, this woman won't eat pasta and goes back to kfc to make sure they give her breast because she won't eat dark meat and hates to try new things [yeah I know KFC is fucking gross, she's actually stopped going but anyways]).

Here they are in all their glory:

Signing backup are some mashed potatoes (simple version, boil taters, mash with a few tablespoons of EB, done), green beans and "Shit we're out of mushroom gravy and mushrooms emergency gravy" which was the best gravy James has apprently ever had (Jame's is a omni so this is a good sign).
















Shit we're out of mushroom gravy and mushrooms emergency gravy
A Note: This Gravy is insanely thick, if the prospect of thick gravy puts you off add some water and stir (or soy milk or veggie broth or wine if you like that kinda thing).

• 2 cups of Veggie broth (I used boxed, because I am lazy and don't care about sodium and heart attacks, homemade would work just as well if not better)
• 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 onion chopped
  
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• Spices suggested: Black pepper (fresh), rosemary, sage, thyme, sea salt, Paprika and lots of it
• oil

I used the cast Iron pan I had just finished cooking the cutlets in, add oil and fry garlic and onions until translucent , soft, and fragrant. As onions cook spice with suggested spices (or any favorites of your own), add more oil if it sticks. Off the stove whisk your flour with the broth and set aside. Once the onions are done to your liking, slowly add the broth flour mixture (You will probably need to re-whisk a little before hand). Keep stirring!! It will thicken a lot and continue to thicken if left alone and well, it pretty much just keeps thickening, again if you like it thinner add some liquid and keep stirring. Turn down heat and simmer, stir to prevent burning. Once heated serve and enjoy. Again I like onions in my gravy, if you want something "smooth" then I suppose you could strain it, but I would suggest thinning it first as the thickness of this gravy (seriously I am not kidding you, its thick) would make a big mess of your strainer, but if you Ian, have some fetish for dish duty or are not on dish duty proceed sans thinning.

The beans are nothing special just frozen beans microwaved with some Earth Balance (ew I know, but they weren't soo bad).