Bread and Gravy

Now those are a couple of my favorite things.  As I kid I preferred that store bought stuff they called bread.  I prefer more grown up breads now.

And gravy?  Surefire way to make nearly any meal 1000 times better.

When I was a little girl my grandparents often joined us for Sunday dinner.  Nana played organ for a church downtown so we'd drive down and leave a note on their car inviting them to dinner.  We didn't always get a chance to talk to them.  We just left a note and waited dinner until they could get there.

My papa loved bread and gravy as much as I did.  My mom made some amazing tomato soup gravy.  sounds icky but it wasn't.  Whatever meat she was cooking (usually a swiss steak) would go in the pressure cooker with a can of Campbell's tomato soup and a can of water.  When the meat was done, she used that tomato soup/water/juice from the meat as the base for the gravy--just add the four/water mixture and whip into gravy.

My paper would start the meal with meat, potatoes, vegetables and gravy.  Toward the end of the meal he'd look up and say, "Looks like I have a problem.  Can I get some bread to sop up the gravy?"  And from there the (potentially endless) cycle began.  He needed bread for the gravy but then dry bread wasn't as good as bread with gravy so pour a little more gravy in the plate and then oops, not enough bread so repeat cycle.

Those were the days.

For those of you more interested in the gravy recipe, it went roughly like this:
1 can tomato soup
1 can of water
cook with meat (pressure cooker, crock pot or dutch oven)

Remove the meat to a platter.  Keep the soup/water/juice in the pan over low heat.  

In a measuring cup mix 1-2 Tablespoons of flour and 1/2-3/4 cup of water.  Mix thoroughly so you do not have lumps.  Add this mixture to the soup/water/meat juice, stirring constantly so lumps do not form.  Stirring with a wire whisk helps keep the gravy smooth.  It will take a few minutes for the gravy to thicken.