You don’t have to be a church goer to regard Sunday as a day of repose and hardy food. As a general vegan feminist renegade, my every day existence hardly resembles any kind of June and Ward Cleaver wholesomeness. However, that does not preclude me from enjoying a hot meal that is heavy on carbs and served on that day of rest when the malls close at 6:00pm sharp.

This past Sunday I made two recipes from Dreena Burton’s book Eat, Drink & Be Vegan: Everyday Vegan Recipes Worth Celebrating. We capped off our week with the Chickpea Sensation Patties and the Thick ‘n’ Rich Gravy. I also steamed some broccoli and mashed up some potatoes to go along with it.

By now one would hope that I might anticipate the making-a-new-recipe phenomenon where you look at the recipe and think, “Oh I should have dinner on the table by 7:00pm.” Then recipe prep rages out of control and you find yourself sweating profusely and barking out orders to anyone within shouting distance —even if the only creature within range is your cat staring at you from the top of the refrigerator.

So goes the reality of those sunday night suppers. You imagine yourself enjoying a hearty meal with your loved one, with the matching plates and the card table freshly wiped. In the end, what you get is a very dirty kitchen and dinner served on the couch at 9:00pm while watching Arrested Development on Netflix.

Do not let this scene of domestic chaos discourage you from trying out these two recipes from Dreena Burton’s book. They are worth the effort. Surprisingly, the gravy recipe is gluten free, so file that away for the next time you entertain a GF friend. Since the patties do not call for vital wheat gluten flour, they could be made gluten free with few minor adjustments.

The chickpea patties consist of an oat and rice base and call for plenty of delicious ingredients like vegan worcestershire sauce and capers. Those imaginative additions are what make the end result so delicious and save the recipe from banishment to the much maligned 1970′s style vegetarian food graveyard. The recipe officially serves 4, but I think we’ll wind up getting closer to 7 servings from it. The patties are versatile and could be used as a veggie burger, broken up into pasta, sliced for tacos, or frozen for a future quick meal. We ate them smothered in Dreena’s delicious Thick ‘n’ Rich Gravy.

This unexpectedly gluten free gravy recipe is a real gem. The only floury bits are nutritional yeast and arrowroot powder. (I substituted arrowroot for cornstarch, and it came out fine.) In reality, it is a fancied up tahini sauce, which is a point worth celebrating for tahini freaks such as myself. Ingredients like red wine vinegar and miso give this gravy a substantial tang. This recipe comes together very quickly, but make sure you don’t neglect to stir as my gravy wanted to stick to the pan a bit —but maybe a little gravy stuck to the pan is okay, because then you will have more scrape up and lick from your index finger.

I definitely want to make these recipes again. The Thick ‘n’ Rich Gravy is straight up delicious, and now that I have completed the inaugural batch of Chikpea Sensation Patties I will be spared from future, “Oh-shit-I-should-have-started-cooking-the-rice-earlier” moments. These are not the only good recipes from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan either, so I definitely recommend picking up a copy of the book for yourself.