And don't forget the gravy....

This has been a very busy week with Gardening, Ironing, cleaning and severe storms I am a bit tired today.

It was a two loaf sandwich bread week due to weather and possible power outages.

Our power did go out but came back on. Then went out again but then came on again and we were very fortunate we did not have damage as did so many others. A good thing when you have extra bread is grilled cheese sandwiches.

Bernadette enjoyed the hallway bed I prepared for the severe weather which is close to the hall closet (not seen in the photo) to quickly get into if needed which we did when the tornado siren blew and is quite unnerving. I did put the oil lamps, water and a few things in the built in laundry hamper to the left in the photo. The chain hanging is where I actually chained it shut in case of damage and we needed our extra emergency supplies.

I wanted to talk a bit about gravy. Many people email me about many things. One quite common discussion is the food budget. I do not talk a lot about it but there are many people around this world that struggle with affording groceries.

In the past people made use of their food better than we do now or at least I feel that.  Gravy seems to be something that people do not make much of anymore but adds so much to a meal. If we go out to eat often times there is gravy on mashed potatoes and such but at home not so much.

This above photo is leftover fat from cooking chicken in a bit of olive oil. I do not fry chicken anymore like I did in the past. But I saute the chicken in a small amount of olive oil. Sometimes the chicken will then produce more fat and fry itself as long as we do this with a lid on.

Not a very appetizing photo but here's the deal. If you are trying to feed a family or yourself and the budget is extremely tight then use all you can with what you have.

Just flour and water and a bit of grease drippings can make a wonderful gravy that will help to stretch a meal. I only had a few small pieces of chicken but I had a pot of rice. Even if you only have a tablespoon or two of drippings it can make gravy.

By adding flour into the grease will make a bubbly thickener. Pulling all the meat particles from the bottom of the pan. How much flour?  Well it depends. Making gravy is something we do by just doing. It all depends how much grease we have. This photo above is not gravy yet, it is just grease and flour and this needed just a little more flour. 

What we want to do is add enough flour to end up with a thinned paste, not really paste but more like a batter. Does that make sense?  So we keep cooking the flour in the grease so it does not taste floury.  We cook it until it darkens as it is doing here. 

Once it gets to the color we like our gravy then we add the water and briskly whisk or stir. I really like to use a whisk. In the past often a fork was used which is what I used in the past.

Now I have added the water. How much water?  Once again depends on how much water you need to make it turn to the thickness you like. We all like our gravy a certain way.  If we don't brown our flour we end up with a floury tasting white gravy.  It will boil quite fast so when you add the water make sure to reduce the heat just before we do. Have water right there to add more if needed. With practice we all can make gravy.

This makes the rice very tasty. You can make darker gravy by just cooking the flour longer.

Add some mixed vegetables and you could eat just this and get filled up or a small piece of chicken or meat. You can make the gravy with any meat drippings.

Below are two ads from the 1948 newspaper from our area.

The other day I showed you an ad from 1948 from the counter at cash drug store. Today's meal at the City Cafe in 1948.

1948 no television stations yet so radio was the entertainment.

Grandma Donna