How Vegetarians Give Themselves Heart Attacks

1) Go to the store and wander the aisles until you find the "fake meat" section. (Hint: it's often by the produce, but in the old HP Produce it was above the yogurt.) Buy a package of fake breakfast sausage patties.

2) Go home, make biscuits. This step I contracted out to Kilt Boy, who gamely agreed to help with this experiment in the vegetarian recreation of an American diner dish he'd never had.

He did it like this:

Phillips Matriarch's Baking-Powder Biscuits
1 c Flour
2 T shortening (we use butter)
2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/3 c milk

Blend shortening with sifted dry ingredients. Stir milk quicly with flour. The dough should be soft but not sticky. Toss lightly on floured board and roll dough 1/2'' thick. Cut with a biscuit cutter or glass. Bake in a hot oven* for 12-15 minutes.

3) After your befuddled kitchen assistant has placed the biscuits in the oven, melt some butter in a skillet and heat four of the "sausage" patties. Cook until browned. You may hope that some little bits of the sausage will stick to the pan in shallow imitation of their models, but you will hope in vain. When cooked, place on a pan and try to keep them warm.

4) Now begin making a milk version of what I call "Dad's Emergency Gravy" because the basic recipe was explained to me as part of an "I have a kitchen emergency" phone call* as I stood in the aisle of the 53rd St Co-op.

Add 3 T butter, or thereabouts, to the same skillet. When it has melted, put in 2 T of flour. Enjoy the scent of toasty, beautiful, roux... I do every time. If it's too dry, add a bit more butter. When it's brown and lovely, add one cup milk while stirring briskly (I eventually ended up adding about 2 c milk, but that's because I started too early and had to keep it wet while the biscuits baked. Cut up one of the "sausages" into small bits and mix into the gravy. Add salt, pepper, and (because I am my father's daughter and the fake meat has less flavor), cayenne pepper to taste.

5) Split your freshly baked biscuits in half, and top with gravy. Serve remaining "sausages" on the side (hint: fake meat is always better with ketchup). Revel in having satisfied one of your few meat cravings. Wonder if it is appropriate to have done so on a Friday in Lent. Try not to think about the fact that the meal is, in fact, butter and flour topped with butter and flour. Serves 2-3, depending on size of biscuit, appetite, and whether or not you serve it with a side of fried eggs.

Especially good as a late dinner after a trip to see the dinosaur fossils at the Royal Ontario Museum.

(I'm recording this recipe not only for your entertainment, but because it keeps me from working on the conference abstract I have to do today. See how I love you?)
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*We often interpret this as 350 because we have a very sensitive smoke detector, but it's probably meant to be more around 400.
** Actually, it was Vee's kitchen emergency, but I didn't know how to make gravy, either. So we called Dad.