Soul Food

Ok, I don't know if this actually counts as soul food. In my experience, soul food = weird southern cuisine, but I guess that's not all true. There is some weird stuff in that category though! So anyways, you all know I'm not going to go feeding my family any sea critters or chitlins, so what is it??

Biscuits &Tomato Gravy!!!

Yep! I'd never heard of it either! Um.... you guys hadn't heard of such a thing before, had you? Anyway, my piano student mentioned it to me, was horrified that I never heard of it, told me the basic recipe, helped me find a recipe online, and had her mom call me on their way home to tell me her recipe. Whew!! After all that, you can see that I HAD to make it!! And y'know what? It is really good! I must confess to making a couple Burrell-style modifications though. Here is the link to the basic recipe I used.

Tomato Gravy
10-15 tomatoes (blanched & peeled)
1/2 stick butter
3 Tbs. flour
2 cups milk
salt, to taste
fresh basil, to taste
mozzarella, to taste :)
Biscuits (I made these, but I know Mom's recipe is great too!)

Melt butter in medium pan, add sliced (& peeled!!) tomatoes. Cook & stir a few minutes till the tomatoes are good and mushy. Add flour and stir till thick. Slowly add milk and cook till it thickens again. Now that's all the recipe says, so I threw in a good bit of salt, and ran out front and picked some basil leaves and roughly chopped them before adding them in. MMmmmmm!! I hate it when recipes go on and on about the marvels of fresh basil. Do you have any idea how much that stuff costs?!? Eek!! So I'll say it quietly: The fresh basil flavor was aMAzing!!! I'm sure dried would be delish also, and feel free to just skip it if you want! The recipe doesn't call for it in the first place! (Say, do any of you have a basil plant and know when to harvest it? Ours has flowers on it, but it tastes fine! Did I just poison us or anything?) And we served it with grated mozzarella on top of it all.

Best if served over heart-shaped biscuits and poked by hungry little fingers!

Mmmmm, also marvelous if served with pepper poppers!!

So there you go!! Not to brag or anything, but I grew all the tomatoes and peppers in my very own garden :D. Ok, I guess I did mean to brag just a teensy bit. And don't forget the basil was from my front garden bed... ;) OK, I'll quit now!! So go make some tomato gravy now!! It's good stuff!!! Tastes like tomato soup, if you're wondering.

Discaimer: I have no idea what's up with our camera taking bad fuzzy pictures, but I'd bet money that it has a LOT to do with it's operator! Sorry :P. Someday we'll get a new camera that will take incredible pictures without any assistance from me...