Mormon Gravy

Mormon Gravy

This is a recipe that I (being your mom) grew up on.  My mother made it often and always served it with Bisquick drop biscuits.  Dad's family had biscuits and/or cornbread on the table each day, always made from scratch whereas my mother made biscuits the easy way.  Anyway, back to our family history of eating "Mormon Gravy."  I'm sure that my mother grew up on this, too, since it's an easy way to feed a lot of people and she came from a family of 12 children.  

"Mormon Gravy" is a milk gravy and is a way of using pan drippings and little bits of meat left from whatever kind of meat was cooked for a previous meal.  Pioneers, including the Mormons had to use every bit of food they had in the most economical way they could and I'm sure this was often made with water when milk wasn't available.

Dad and I made it with ground beef, the way my mother did, but also used it with dried beef (the kind that comes in a little glass - you children probably remember having those as juice glasses when you were growing up).  When we made the gravy with dried beef torn into little pieces (chipped beef) we often served it over rice.  When Dad was in the Army it was served over toast but I won't tell you what the soldiers in the mess hall called it - ask him!

Ingredients

3 tablespoons meat drippings Not being as poor as the pioneers, we always started by cooking some ground beef, as did my  mother.  Sometimes, she would make hamburgers the night before and save the pan with a little bit of meat to make Mormon Gravy for breakfast in the morning.  We stretched a pound of ground beef to feed a growing family by leaving all of the beef in and using it as a main meal.  Obviously, it can be made with whatever meat one has and, if a little more oil is needed some can be added.

3 tablespoons flour

2 cups milk 

Salt and pepper

Directions

Leave 3 tablespoons fat drippings infrying pan in which meat was cooked. Add flour and brown slightlywhile stirring. Remove from heat and add milk, stirring well toblend. Return to heat; cook and stir until mixture is thick andsmooth. Season to taste. Serve with potatoes, biscuits, or cornbread.Note: This gravy is usually made from fried beef drippings, but othermeat drippings are commonly used.

Making this is not an exact recipe.  There are numerous recipes for this type of gravy on the Internet.  This happens to be closest to what my mother (your Grandmother Munroe) made.  Amounts may vary so feel free to experiment should you decide to try it.  


Below is a copy of a little handout that I gave the Relief Society Sister in our Branch in New Delhi when I taught a Homemaking Meeting and we talked about the Mormon Pioneers.


Side Pork andMormon Gravy

*Mormongravy, common fare among the early settlers and apparently a creationof necessity expressly for the times, is still hearty and nourishingfor many of this generation who like to make it with ground beef orfrizzled ham or bacon and serve it over baked potatoes.

* Iate a lot of “Mormon Gravy” while growing up. My mother made itwith ground (minced) beef and always served it with biscuits and aside dish of peas. In America, biscuits (in India, biscuits refer to cookies)refer to small quick breads, which use baking powder or baking sodato make them rise. They are tender and light. The tradition ofeating “Mormon Gravy” is one that was passed down throughgenerations from my Mormon Pioneer ancestors. – Sister Walley

8thick slices side pork (or thick-cut bacon strips)

4tablespoons meat drippings

3tablespoons flour

2cups milk

Salt,pepper, paprika

Cookmeat on both sides in heavy frying pan until crisp. Remove from panand keep warm. Measure fat and return desired amount to skillet. Addflour and brown slightly. Remove from heat and add milk, stirringwell to blend. Return to heat and cook and stir until mixture isthick and smooth. Season to taste. Serve with side pork on potatoes,biscuits, cornbread, or even pancakes.

 

Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff-ish Stew

This is adapted from this slow cooker beef stroganoff recipe and its comments. It came out a little more soupy than would have been quite proper for beef stroganoff, but that was fine because we were looking for a stew, rather than something to serve over noodles, anyway. And that's what this is.

Ingredients:
1 pound beef for stew
1 red onion, chopped
1 (10.5 oz) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
8 oz fresh chanterelle mushrooms
5-6 small new potatoes, unpeeled, cut into chunks
salt and pepper
1 tbsp dried chives
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 cube beef bouillon
1/2 cup red cooking wine
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp flour
16 oz sour cream (could do with less)
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

1. Put the beef in the bottom of the slow cooker. Salt and pepper to taste.

2. Add the potatoes, onion, and mushrooms.

3. Add the mushroom soup, water, chives, garlic, W-shire sauce.

4. In a bowl or measuring cup, whisk the flour together with the cooking wine. Add to the pot.

5. Cover, cook on low for 5-6 hours.

6. Add sour cream and parsley, stir. Cook for another 45 min. to an hour.

7. Serve with rice.

Note on sour cream: The original recipe calls for 16 oz sour cream. That's what we did, and it tasted great. That much sour cream did, however, kind of dilute the awesome beef-mushroom taste that was going on before I added the sour cream. Next time I'll try only using half to two-thirds as much sour cream.

In any case, it's hardly a healthy meal, but it was really good. Especially with the fresh chanterelles. I'm sure other mushrooms would be good, too, but the chanterelles really hold their flavor nicely.

Borscht

This is another recipe I got from allrecipes, modified a bit according to the comments, and will probably modify a bit more next time I make it. Here's what I think needs to happen.

Ingredients:
*2/3 pound beef stew meat, cut into 1/2 inch or 1 inch cubes
*3-4 beets, peeled and chopped (see #1 below)
*1 large or 2 smallish potatoes, peeled and chopped
*1/2 cup baby carrots, chopped
*1/2 white onion, chopped
*3 cloves garlic or to taste, minced
*4 cups beef broth (may not use all)
*1 6-oz can tomato paste
*1 28-oz can diced tomatoes
*4 tbsp red wine vinegar
*3 tbsp brown sugar
*1 1/2 tsp dried dill weed
*1 tbsp dried parsley
*1 bay leaf
*1 tsp salt
*1/2 tsp ground black pepper, or to taste
*2 cups shredded green cabbage
*sour cream

1. Chop the beets. Supposedly beets are hard to peel unless you boil them for about 10 minutes first. I did this, and that did make them pretty easy to peel. I chopped them into cubes of no bigger than 1 cm, and smaller might even be better.

2. Chop the carrots, potato, and onion. The potato(es), too, should be chopped rather small. I chopped it large, because that's how we like it in curry and stuff, but it didn't get as soft as we would have liked: small is better here.

3. Put beef, beets, carrots, potato, garlic, and onion into slow cooker. Open diced tomatoes and put them into the slow cooker without draining.

4. In a bowl, whisk together the tomato paste, vinegar, brown sugar, dill, parsley, salt, and pepper with 2 cups of the beef broth. Pour into slow cooker. Add more beef broth if needed until everything is covered and there's as much liquid as you'd like. Put the bay leaf in.

5. Cook on low for 7 hours.

6. Add the cabbage and cook on high for an hour.

7. Serve with plenty of sour cream and some good hard crusty bread.

Notes: The amounts given in the original version of this recipe were too much for our 5-qt cooker - I ended up having to discard some potato and beet and carrot just to be able to fit the tomatoes in. And in the end there was no room for the cabbage, either, so we actually skipped that. According to the comments the directed half hour on high for the cabbage isn't long enough, so I'm guessing an hour might be, but that's just a guess. ...If you've never used them, everything you've heard about beets is true: they make an amazing mess. Their juice looks just like blood. But cleanup was easier than I'd expected, and my hands aren't pink, even though I didn't wear gloves. I think next time I might use canned (non-pickled) beets, to see if they work as well. I had a hard time judging how much beet to use, too: the recipe called for 4, but didn't say what size. I used five, because the ones I got seemed a little small to me, but further research makes me think maybe they weren't, so I think next time I'll use 4 or maybe only 3, if they're medium size. ...Obviously a lot of what we liked about this was the beef, but I'm sure it would be just as good without it, and with veggie broth instead of beef. The essence of it is the beet/tomato/dill soup, with the sour cream as a garnish.

Anyway, all those caveats noted, this came out pretty satisfying. I've only had borscht in restaurants a couple of times, so I don't have too much to compare it to, but it was a nice warm way to end a rainy day (you'll read those words many times between now and next May, I'm sure!).

hoisin beef with soybeans and noodles

i randomly got this recipe from eatingwell.com. we had it for dinner tonight and it was AWESOME.

ingredients:
8 oz. noodles (i used buckwheat noodles, but whole wheat spaghetti would do)
3 tbs lime juice
3 tbs hoisin sauce
2 tsp chili-garlic sauce
1 tsp cornstarch
2 tsp sesame oil
8 oz. flank steak, thinly sliced (trim the fat off)
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
10 oz. frozen shelled soybeans, thawed
1 tbs fresh minced ginger (or not fresh as the case may be)
cilantro

preparation:
prepare noodles according to package directions. drain.

whisk together lime juice, hoisin sauce, chili-garlic sauce, and cornstarch. save.

heat oil over med-high heat. add steak and cook until just cooked through. transfer steak to a plate. add bell pepper to the meat juices and cook, stirring, for about a minute. add soybeans and cook through, about 2 minutes. (in my case, the soybeans were still frozen, so i did them first and then the pepper) stir in the sauce, and the beef. cook, stirring, about 1 minute. add noodles, toss. sprinkle cilantro on top.


vegetarian note: i think this would taste equally good sans beef, but with more peppers...also seems like it would be a good candidate for tempeh or seitan.