You're going to need
to be sitting down for this post because I have lots of great news. First of
all, a delicious dinner that is both easy and quick, and second, a must have
cookbook for your kitchen library (and doesn't that sound nice...a kitchen library!).
I recently received a review copy of Cooking
with Coffee, Brewing Up Sweet and Savory Everyday Dishes by Brandi Evans.
As you all know, I am a huge fan of both coffee and cooking with coffee. The
addition of this wonderful beverage can do some amazing things to dishes. It
truly enhances and brings out the flavor of nearly anything made with chocolate
(case in point Creole
Brownies), and makes a marvelous
addition to meats as in these Coffee-Chipotle Pork Chops and Coffee-Crusted
Filet Mignon. So when I was paging through the book and saw the recipe for
ham and redeye gravy, I had to make it. Wow. Was this good!
Let me set the scene. I had just come home from dad's where he and I had hauled
boxes and boxes of mother's Christmas decorations down from the attic. It is
less of a marvel that I did it than
that he did it, but nonetheless it
was done. The boxes were then hauled from the second floor of the house to the
main floor, out to my car, and then unloaded when I got home. I was exhausted,
hungry, and more interested in watching the football game than in cooking, so
decided to glaze some carrots, make use of a tub of Bob Evan's mashed potatoes
(Yes, I like them, so shoot me!), and fry up a slice of ham. Then I remembered
the recipe for ham and redeye gravy from this book.
While the ham was frying I made a single cup of coffee (I have one of those
Melitta one-cup pour-over filter things -- invaluable!), and was lucky to have
just made chicken stock the day before. Dicing the onion was really all that I
had to do to make this entire meal.
We could not believe how good it was. The ham was tender and flavorful, and the
redeye gravy was so good we could have eaten it with a spoon. Next time there
will be homemade biscuits for sopping up the tasty goodness.
Here is the recipe directly from the book (for all you grits lovers out there).
I did notice an error in that there is no mention of placing the ham slice back
into the gravy to heat through, I did that. I also preheated my saute pan and
used no shortening at all when frying the ham (that I cooked for 5 minutes per
side) in order to leave lots of great remnants in the pan to scrape up when
deglazing.
You must buy this one! It is the best book that I have seen
on the subject and is as much about savory as it is about sweet. The
coffee caramel ice cream topping is ambrosial, and the pork chops divine. In
fact, every recipe that I have tried so far has been a winner.
Imagine the great gift basket you could make up and give for the holidays using this book, a bag of
coffee beans, a small grinder, and coffee scoop. It's smaller in size than some
of those weighty tomes (7-1/2” x 7-1/2”) so won't take up too much space on shelves, but it is indeed mighty in all that it holds.
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