Chocolate Gravy

CHOCOLATE GRAVY OVER BISCUITS

I just added this to my "Recipes" page and wanted to share it here in a post as well:

I grew up (as I shared in "About Me") in a family where mom was born and raised in SW Virginia up in the hollers of the mountains.  She grew up in the late 30's and 40's when times were tough and the mountain folks were getting by on very simple meals but were creative in trying to make them taste good regardless.  If you have a heritage from SW Virginia and Tennessee, you've no doubt heard of chocolate gravy.  Otherwise, probably not :)

It's like a warm, thick, chocolate pudding you serve over biscuits for breakfast.  You can either put the butter right into the whole pot of chocolate gravy right after it's cooked, or (like my mom) reserve the butter for serving time.  You pour the gravy over biscuits and then put a pat of butter on top and let it melt over the warm chocolatey goodness :)  Yummm

The picture above is not mine, but borrowed from google image search.  I plan to make this soon and will take my own pics then.  Ok....on with the recipe!

There are several variations of this floating around the web here and there, but my mom never followed a written recipe. She just threw it together and it always turned out great.  However, I followed my mom around the kitchen one day when she was making it and as she was about to put ingredients into the pot, I measured them and wrote them down and this is the result of that:

CHOCOLATE GRAVY

2 cups sugar

8 tablespoons flour (slightly heaped)

4 tablespoons cocoa (slightly heaped)

1 can evaporated milk

1/2 cup water (half the evaporated milk can)

1 teaspoon butter

butter or margarine to taste

Pour the milk into a pot and cook until heated (be careful not to burn it). Whisk the flour, sugar, and cocoa together into the milk and keep whisking as it cooks to avoid lumps.  Cook until thickened to a gravy-like consistency then add the vanilla.   

Pour chocolate gravy over your favorite biscuits and add a spoon or tab of butter on top and watch it melt over the chocolate.  You can pour the gravy over the biscuits or dip your biscuit into the gravy.  Either way it's terrific.  Adding the butter at the end makes the gravy shiny too. Eat it warm and chocolatey and buttery. Not so good for your waistline, but num!

It brings back fond memories of my mom cooking this for us for breakfast before school :)  Thanks mom!!