TOMATO GRAVY:

Every year you discover a few new things to cook, if you’re lucky. The past few months I’ve been pretty singlemindedly exploring Greek food, but 2004 will go down in my memory as the year in which I found out about tomato gravy.

I first read about tomato gravy last winter in a biography of the Carter Family. The career of the original trio ended in the 1940s because Sara Carter, the vocal genius of the group (as distinct from instrumental genius Maybelle Carter and song-appropriating/rewriting genius A.P. Carter), divorced A.P. and retired to California, where she remarried and spent the rest of her life as the domestic homebody she apparently wanted to be. And one of Sara’s favorite things to cook, I learned from Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone?: The Carter Family and Their Legacy in American Music, was biscuits with tomato gravy.

Well, I’m no Southerner, not even an American, so maybe it’s not surprising I’d never heard of tomato gravy. And since the book was about music, it offered no details, just left me feeling hungry for something I couldn’t quite imagine (gravy has a special place in the hearts of the English, too, in whose cuisine it covers a multitude of sins).

It wasn’t hard to turn up any number of recipes for tomato gravy online, though, and there’s little variation. It’s easy to prepare -- and it tastes fabulous.

TOMATO GRAVY
3 tbs. peanut oil
3 tbs. flour
1 cup water or stock
2 cups grated fresh tomatoes or 1 can chopped or crushed tomatoes with their juice
salt and pepper
soy sauce (optional)

Heat oil in a skillet or small saucepan over medium heat. Add flour and stir until flour browns (approx. 5 minutes), then add the water or stock and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly (add a little extra water if the mixture is too thick to stir easily). Then add tomatoes and cook until gravy thickens again. Add salt and pepper to taste, or if you prefer a slightly darker color, use 1/2 to 1 tbs. soy sauce instead of the salt.

I started making this in the late summer, when I had lots of fresh tomatoes, and grated the tomatoes, holding the stem end (so that when you’ve finished grating you’re left with the skin in your hand and nothing else). Now that winter’s here, canned tomatoes are a fine substitute (Muir Glen ones taste best).

Tomato gravy is perfect for giving additional flavor and sauciness to a simple dinner of baked potatoes and steamed green beans, or as a topping for baked winter squash with garlic mashed potatoes and stewed greens, and any kind of crispy-coated protein-rich patty on the side (Quorn and Morningstar both make good ones; I made my own on this occasion).

BAKED WINTER SQUASH
Heat oven to 375F. Line a shallow baking pan with foil. Cut squash in half and scoop out seeds and pulp (I save them for making stock). Spray cut surfaces lightly with olive oil, sprinkle with sage, salt and pepper, and place face down in foil-lined pan. Bake 45 to 75 minutes (depending on size) until fork-tender.

I used an organic Kabocha squash (dark green skin, deep orange flesh, very flavorful), but there are so many great varieties, and they're at their best right now: one of greatest eating pleasures of late fall and early winter.

SAVORY BEAN PATTIES
1 can red kidney beans, roughly mashed
1/4 cup minced onion
1 bell pepper, minced
1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1 tbs. parsley, minced
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients together and add just enough olive oil to bind the ingredients. form into 1/2-inch thick patties, coat with cornmeal, and bake in 400F oven on a lightly greased nonstick cookie sheet until browned, approx. 30 minutes.

Obviously this recipe can be varied in many ways -- different beans, different seasonings, different kinds of peppers -- but kidney beans work really well here when they're mashed, because of their more solid texture (exactly what makes them hard going for many people when served whole).

Incidentally, the pepper I used was the last green one from my California Wonder plant -- freshly picked and still firm and juicy in mid-November.