Soggy Biscuits and Nut Gravy

Hello, old friends, here is a new post! I've been gone a bit, but of course I couldn't stop cooking.

First, a reading update: I've delved deeply into Dick and, I hope, come out with an improved understanding of the interrelationships between possible worlds, psychedelic hallucinogens, time travel, lost love, and the I Ching. I'd advise a shot at The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch if you've spacetime to spare. If not, here's a quick and unrelated webcomic about familial fractures and the moon.

Now, today's recipe: biscuits and gravy, vegan style, avec almonds! (thanks to Steve and Melissa for help with this one).

Refried Refried Beans

Dearest Cyberwebbers,

Here's a thing prefaced by an update on my second-rate readings!

I just finished The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov, wherein extraterrestrial germaphobes resist the advances of a genial gumshoe and his robot sidekick. It's half as good as a dark noir thriller a la Chandler or an Agathan murder mystery, with an underdeveloped sideline of dystopian robophobia. It has neither robohuman harmony nor technofear enough to keep a real sci-fan engaged, and the writing style is notably without embellishments. A decidedly lower-tier Isaac effort, well behind I Robot (which is way better than the movie) and the Foundation trilogy.

Afterward, I started The Fortress of Solitude, a hunk of mainstream fiction by one of my favorite sci-fi authors, Jonathan Lethem (check out Gun, With Occasional Music). Lethem's words soak through your retinas and encapsulate your brain in the fabric of the novel. It's way better.

\\\Abrupt subject change\\\

How was your Cinco de Mayo, bro? Here's a tasty thing for your burritos:

Soylent Great

Hey Kids,

Good news all around! I've got 5000 Spirits (or The Layers of the Onion), the All Materia, and a killer breakfast soysage recipe (which is, actually, both vegan and soy-free). I'm only planning to share the last one.

If you're like me, then your grandfather made killer breakfasts with bacon, sausage, mushrooms, applesauce, and love, all fried up in a big cast iron skillet. You only got the last bit because you were a picky eater, and you've had to live with regret your whole life. Now that you've gone veggie, you'll never fully recreate pepaw's breakfast, but here's the next best thing:

Dry ingredients:
2 cups gluten flour
4 cloves minced garlic
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp rosemary
2 tsp marjoram
2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp sage
2 tsp red pepper flakes
2 tsp thyme
2 tbsp brown sugar
OPTIONAL: 1/4 cup oatmeal

Wet ingredients 1:
1/4 cup canola oil
1 cup water
1 tbsp tamari
2 tsp vegan worcestershire sauce (WIZARD BRAND)
1/4 tsp liquid smoke

Wet ingredients 2:
4 cups veggie stock
3 tbsp tamari
2 whole cloves garlic
2 bay leaves (these will be wet when you're using them).

Extra crap:
Cheesecloth, divided into 4 6"x6" peices


Killer. From here things are simple. Directions run in a trilogy.

Step 4: Combine the dry ingredients with themselves and mix them up. Now combine the Wet Ingredients 1 in a separate bowl. NOW combine the wet ingredients 2 in a THIRD bowl. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. This is all just character development and rising action. You don't even know that the tamari in the Wet Ingredients 1 is related to the tamari in Wet Ingredients 2.


Step 5: Now pour the Wet Ingredients 1 onto the Dry Ingredients and kneed FAST (like the only things between you and too tough, inedible sausages are 20 men in snowspeeders and one ion cannon). Because there are so many spices, it will quickly become hard to get the dough to stick to itself. Before this happens, divide it into four turd-like slices (now our main characters are all split up). Wrap each little turd in cheesecloth. If you want, you can freeze one of the wrapped turds, but this won't help anything and you'll just unfreeze it at the beginning of Step 6.


Step 6: Put all of the seitan chunks in a baking pan and pour the Wet Ingredients 2 over it. Seal the top. Put the covered pan in the oven for 1-1.25 hours. The seitan will find the good in the liquid and slowly absorb it until the liquid gives itself up to the force. Keep an eye on it, or enlist the aid of some cute fur-covered friends. Pull it out and let it sit until it cools before you remove the top.

You can refrigerate this stuff for a few weeks so long as you keep it moist. Cut it into 1/2 inch slices and pan-fry it in olive oil with whatever else you eat for breakfast, or use it instead of breakfast sausage in whatever recipe you want! MMMMMM! MM MM MMMMMM!