Red Eye Jedi

I think I've been pretty clear about my love — um, obsession —with coffee. I must have my morning joe to make it through the day lest I turn into an evil troll. But I also love coffee in sweets, in my chili, and in my bowl of mornin' red-eye gravy. In the South, folks combine ham or bacon fat with strong black coffee and salt to make a thin red-eye gravy for ham biscuit-dippin'.

My vegan version of Red-Eye Gravy subs a little bit of olive oil for the pork fat, and it's so delicious served with my fluffy Whole Wheat Butter-Soymilk Biscuits and sweet 'n' savory Brown Sugar Baked Tofu Ham:

All the recipes will be featured in my cookbook, which I promise will be out one day! For those who've asked, I don't have a publisher yet. And I'm still wrapping up recipe development, but it's getting much closer.

Anyone who has been following my blog for some time may remember my previous post about this delicious Southern breakfast. I made it again this week to test the recipes, and I'm very pleased with the results. I ended up splitting the biscuit, stuffing it with tofu ham, and dipping each bite into the hot, thin coffee gravy. It's a little like a French dip sub — only not French and not a sub.

Here's a close-up of the Brown Sugar Baked Tofu Ham:

And a neat shot of the of reflection of bare winter trees in my gravy:

I was out on the porch, trying to get some natural light for my shot. When I attempted to focus on the little round bits of olive oil (the red eyes!) in the gravy, my camera went all rogue on me and centered in on the tree's reflection.