No Sudden Moves.

I've been thinking.

It's increasingly difficult to justify eating meat. This has been nagging at me for a while now. I'll not list all of the reasons, there are many and various, both political and personal, and all of the reasons don't encompass all of the animals.

Becoming a vegetarian overnight isn't likely to be sustainable, I'd not know how and i'd probably end up dropping the idea.

So for now, I'll not be cooking red meat, and will avoid food that's based around it when eating out. What meat I do buy won't be from supermarkets and there will be a lot less chicken and pork. Tending towards none. We'll see.

But if you go on or in water, the chances of being eaten by me have greatly increased.

Just so you know.

Sausage, Mash and Onion and Beetroot Gravy

Below there is a picture. It should be a picture of a pile of mash with sausages on top covered with onion gravy, instead it's an empty plate. You can still see the signs of mash and gravy if you look closely.

The highlight was the gravy. Without a doubt the best gravy I have ever created. So I thought I'd share it. This is not traditional onion gravy by any stretch of the imagination but trust me it works.

Magnificent Onion and Beetroot Gravy

You'll need:

• an onion in large chunks
• a beetroot (or in my case three very tiny beetroots)
• some butter
• some cooking oil
• a bit of salt and pepper
• a dash of pomegranate molasses (probably optional but delicious)
• a dash of balsamic vinegar
• half a teaspoon of marmite
• a teaspoon of dijon mustard
• a dash of Worcestershire sauce
• a tablespoon of sugar

Put the butter and cooking oil into a pan and let it melt, chuck in the large onion chunks. Make sure your hob is on the lowest possible heat it can be, let the onions sit about. Peel and cut your beetroot into very thin strips, add to the onions then sprinkle in a little salt and pepper. Let the onions and beetroot cook slowly until the onion is mostly transparent. The low and slow cooking releases the natural sugars in the onion and beetroot meaning that you'll get a wonderfully gloopy gravy.

Add a tiny amount (just covering the mixture) of water to the pan along with the pomegranate molasses, balsamic vinegar, marmite, dijon mustard and Worcestershire sauce then stir in the sugar. Now you can leave it there for a bit while you brown off those sausages in a frying pan (the ones you're making the gravy for, remember). Once they're browned add the gravy to the pan, try to mix in any sticky bits on the bottom of the pan, they're just browned sausage and will add flavour. Turn down the heat on the frying pan to the lowest it'll go and let it bubble away for at least 15 minutes, until the sausages are done. 

You should end up with sausages coated in the gravy goodness, with just enough left over to drizzle mercilessly over your mash. Because this mixture is sticky there's no need to mess about with cornflour, you can see when the gravy is done by looking at the consistency. If it looks like gravy then it's done, if it's not thick enough leave it for longer on the low heat.

Serve over mashed potato, the sharpness of the beetroot and creaminess of the mash work wonderfully together. Enjoy. 

I think I may have accidentally upped the gravy game in this house. Sorry Paul.