Roux the Day

Roux  is a cooked mixture of flour and fat. It's used to thicken stews and soups and gravy and all sorts of sauces. Roux makes the world a creamy saucy wonderland. Most importantly, roux is easy and requires nothing that you don't already have in the kitchen. Lets start with a cheese sauce, mostly because it's yummy and goes great on vegetables that small mouths might not otherwise want to eat. 

Sauce Mornay (Cheese Sauce) from Mastering the Art of French Cooking - Julia Child
(with slight modifications to make it cheesier)

2 Tbs butter
3 Tbs flour
2 cups warm milk (heat it in the microwave until it's warm)
1/4 tbs salt
1/2 - 1 1/2 cups grated cheese of your choice, the flavor and degree of cheesiness is up to you
garlic salt, pepper, nutmeg, whatever other spices sound good to you

Heat the milk so it's warm and ready. In a thick bottomed sauce pan heat the butter on medium heat until it's bubbling. Add the flour and mix until you have a bubbly paste. Keep mixing it around for 1-2 minutes. You don't want things so hot that the butter starts to brown, if it does then you're still fine, the flavor will just be a little different, but you do want it cooler next time. Add the warm milk all in one go. Stir, and bring the mixture to a boil. It will thicken. It's magic. Add the cheese slowly while stirring, taste as you go along, get it right where you want it. Now add any other spices. I like garlic salt and pepper. Julia recommends a pinch of nutmeg and a pinch of cayenne pepper.
Serve over anything that's good with cheese on it.

Once you've got this down, you're on your way to being the gravy guy at Thanksgiving, and a general master of thick hearty soups, stews and other stick to your ribs cold weather manly food. The only difference with gravy is that we'll shift from butter and milk, to the fat from the roasting, and the de-fatted drippings. Stay tuned, the next time I roast a chicken, I'll take that liquid that left in the bottom of the pan and turn it into a wonderful nap inducing gravy.