Hot Damn!

I finally ordered my copy of The Dirty South Cookbook/Hot Damn and Hell Yeah: Recipes for Hungry Banditos a few weeks ago. I don't know what took me so long considering that I am, in fact, a "Dirty South Vegan."

This book, published by Microcosm, is really two cookzines bound together. One half of the book is The Dirty South Cookbook, with Southern favorites like Yvette's Aunt Cathy's Potato Salad and Almost Paula Dee's Blueberry Buckle (the "n" is left off of "Deen" for some reason). Flip the book over and it's Hot Damn with mostly South-of-the-Border inspired dishes (i.e. Chili Con Non-Carne, homemade corn tortillas, etc.).

Flipping through the pages, I noticed a recipe for Vegetable Mountain with Gravy, which sounded intriguing. Honestly, anything with gravy sounds intriguing. So I made it for dinner last night:

It's a little hard to tell in the picture, but it's a pile of mashed potatoes loaded high with sauteed spinach, red bell pepper, carrots, mushroom, and onions. And then it's all doused in a healthy portion of gravy (note: I put way more gravy on this after snapping the photo ... just didn't want it to look like a gravy blob in the photo).

Though the book includes an easy gravy recipe, I used the packet of Road's End Organics Savory Herb Gravy that Lindsay sent me in her vegan care package. I'd tried the mushroom gravy flavor before, but never this one. It reminded me of steak sauce, like an A-1 taste. Definitely hearty and the perfect topping for this savory pile of taters.