Dottie Calvert’s Cookbook

If you’ve read Loved in Las Vegas, you know that Regi’s favorite food is her mother’s chocolate gravy on biscuits in the morning.

Someone asked me if that’s a real food, and the answer is yes. I thought I would also give you the recipe to celebrate the release of Turkey in Tennessee this month! Then…I was like, “Why not make a Kindle Vella of Dottie’s recipes with some of the foods mentioned in the series?” (Dottie’s cranberry conserve, a chili recipe from Peyton’s Chili Shack manager, a few of Dottie’s favorite “tipple” drinks.) You’ll get a weekly recipe on Vella with a little side of life advice from my favorite matriarch.

You can read Dottie Calvert’s Cookbook here. There are 4 episodes available as I write this. The first three episodes, including the chocolate gravy recipe, are free.

Here’s the recipe for chocolate gravy below. I hope you’re happy because it’s my own grandmother’s recipe, and I had to find it and test it. (My grandmother was notorious for leaving out an ingredient that only she knew or not telling you something you need to know when she gave a recipe. Our hypothesis was that she never wanted your food to taste as good as hers.) I tested it. This one works.

What you need to know…(because I’m not like my grandmother.)

#1- You cannot make this without stirring it constantly. Have a two-year-old that keeps your attention? Nope. Don’t try it. Have a partner that can’t keep their hands off you and wants to “put you on the counter” all the time? Don’t try it.

Stir. It. Constantly.

#2- This will either be overly thick or overly runny, depending on which way the wind blows. I’m not even kidding. If you make it to recipe once, it will have a different texture the next time you follow the exact same recipe. Does it have to do with humidity? Barometric pressure? Unknown. Even when it turns out thin, it’s pretty good, though.

And save the leftovers and put them in the fridge. Instant fudge! In fact, I may have used this to make Christmas fudge.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 cup cocoa

3 tablespoons flour

2 cups milk

1 tablespoon butter (should be slightly softened -not melted)

Directions: Combine cocoa, flour, and sugar in a bowl. Pour in milk (slowly) and stir until no lumps.

Cook mixture over medium heat until it thickens to desired consistency. (Personal preference. Some like it thin, others like it thick. If it doesn’t thicken up by 15 minutes of heat, it’s probably not going to thicken.)

Stir in butter or vanilla and serve

Again, this is a tempermental bastard of a recipe, but when you get it right…oh so good.

You can pour over biscuits, dip pieces of biscuits into it, or half biscuits and then cover. Personally, I’m a dipper.

Anyway, enjoy! Oh, and Peyton’s story, Turkey in Tennessee, is out on all retailers here.

Happy reading!