About and Gluten-free vegan Gravy!

What is this all about?!
Well, I have always been a meat eater, I'm not a vegetarian or vegan, but I know some of how to cook like one. I am not medically allergic to anything. I get a scratchy throat when I eat pineapple or walnuts, but that is only an irritation. However, some of the people I care the most about in this world have allergies, severe ones. So I learned how to cook for them.

One of my closest friends was allergic everything for a while. That meant: no eggs, meat, dairy, corn, soy, gluten, peanuts, or potatoes. You might think that is a short list, but each of those ingredients takes out a whole plethora of foods that we could not have. No traditional or store-bought pasta, cookies, bread, cake, chili, ect. It would take me days to list all of the things we could not eat or buy.

When a person who is very allergic to so many things has any one of those things, the situation gets very bad very fast. I have watched my friend have three Epinephrine shots in less than four hours, I have seen the moon-face, so round and swollen that a smile hurts, and I have watched the pain of hives and discomfort.
While I cannot say that anyone will benefit from reading a blog about this, I would like to try. If you have allergies, or love someone that does, I hope my experiences will help you in some way.

I intend to post some anecdotes and recipes, in hopes of helping someone else on their journey to eating with allergies, eating healthy, eating morally, or helping a friend do whats best for them.

I'll start out with my favorite, to kick things off!

Vegan Gravy adapted from a Bob's Red Mill recipe (they are a great resource for gluten-free and allergen-sensitive products)

Ingredients:
1/3 cup of a savory flour. This can be regular flour if you eat gluten. My favorite gluten-free flour for this is white bean flour.
1/4 cup Nutritional yeast. This is a must-have for a vegan household in my opinion, delicious and very healthy!
1/4 cup Olive oil. your preferred kind, but I'd recommend keeping it savory.
3 tablespoons Soy sauce or Braggs amino liquids (optional) If you are gluten-free, make sure to get the gluten free kind. Most American soy sauce brands have gluten! I'll discuss replacements for this at the end of the recipe.
Water
3-5 cloves garlic. Sliced into tiny slices is best, but minced works fine too. Play around with the amount till you get what you like.
Sage 1-3 large pinches. (optional) Play around with the amount till you get what you like. That's the best part about cooking!
Rosemary 1-2 large pinches. (optional)
Mushrooms 4-5. (optional) Sliced or diced will do.
Salt to taste. Preferably sea salt because you can use less and it is less likely to have unlisted additives people can be allergic to.

First, it is essential to have most of the ingredients ready when you start to cook. Cooking usually takes 20-30 mins, but most of the active work is all in a row, and you don't have much time to prepare the next thing.
Heat 1/2 cup of oil over medium heat, not until it's smoking, but until its hot. a good way to check is dropping one tiny piece of garlic, or a drop of water in to see if it sizzles.
when oil is hot add in the flour and stir quickly, making a roux (just a fat/flour paste) it should be pretty thick, if you don't have enough liquid add just a little bit of water, but no more than a tablespoon.
heat this for a very short time, less than a minute, stirring almost constantly. This will brown the flour and add a little more flavor. (if you are using bean flour, garbanzo or fava, less time will be needed). Add the rest of the oil, the spices and garlic, let that heat a moment and then add the nutritional yeast. Stir this and quickly add the Soy sauce or alternative. Mix very well. This should also be very thick. Add water to get desired thickness, then add in the mushrooms. Once those are in, turn down the heat and let it simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring every few minutes.

This is my favorite way of cooking it, but you can also add the spices, mushrooms and garlic in before the flour from the get-go. Other add-ins that have worked well for us are hot peppers (Jalapenos I think), tomatoes, peas, spinach, onions and carrots.

serve with: Mashed potatoes, corn, Mashed carrots&parsnips, peas mashed or not, sweet potatoes, roasted Brusselsprouts, cooked cabbage/kale/spinach/beet greens, toast or meat if you are the meat-eating sort.

soy sauce alternatives! well, the first alternative would be Braggs amino liquids, but it is also made of soy! Making the recipe without this will definitely change the flavor, but you can do that. Here are some other choices:

slice and dice an additional 2-3 mushrooms. saute them in some oil letting them burn just a little. puree and salt them, add to gravy at the appropriate time and enjoy with relish!

saute a tomato in one tablespoon olive oil, drain, mash up, salt and add to gravy.

Good luck in your endeavors and enjoy!