My Mama's Tomato Gravy...

Many of the great tastes of the south are the ones we grew up on. I am from the southern part of Mississippi with family members still throughout Ole Miss and Louisiana. Money was tight and food mostly came from the land or the sea. One of my Mom's and Grandmother's favorite ways of stretching a meal was to stir up some grits or biscuits and make gravy to top it with. If you had a bit of beef or pork sausage you would brown it up, make a white roux, add some milk and country gravy was ready to top anything. One of Mom's favorites and mine, still today, is Mama's Tomato Gravy. With tomatoes plentiful year round, fresh in the summer and canned in the winter, it is easy to throw together something delicious to feed your belly and your soul.

My favorite way to make it is to start with frying bacon and using the drippings, but if bacon is not available sausage with drippings are just fine. For those of you who would like to leave out the meat and drippings, just skip that part and use your favorite butter or margarine. A vegetable oil can be used but you miss a bit of the flavor. I normally start with frying up 6 or 8 slices of bacon crispy. Remove the bacon and leave about 1/4 cup of bacon drippings in the frying pan. Stir constantly in 3 tablespoons of all-purpose flour until the roux is lightly browned. You can use either chopped, bite sized, fresh tomatoes with its own juices, or canned chopped tomatoes in juice. With a total of at least 2 1/2 cups, stir into the roux the tomatoes, with liquid, until the mixture begins to thicken. Reduce the heat to low and simmer until thick, about 5 minutes. If you find it a little too thick for your liking stir in a little water or even milk for a thinner consistency. Season it with salt and, at our stove lots of, pepper. Serve it hot over buttered grits or buttermilk biscuits. Crumble the crispy bacon on top and settle in for the yummy memories.