Vegan Sleep Burger

November 22, 2019 by Joe Hehl

This next one is more of a “here’s how to make this vegan” as opposed to an actual recipe. You ever see the Kuma’s Corner burger of the month for November? It’s called the SLEEP burger and it is a Thanksgiving feast between two buns. Now you may follow the smoke to the plant based version…land. This is the Kuma’s concept, just veganized. So it’s more of a go-out-and-buy-these-items recipe than an actual recipe.

As always, if you dig this little tribute, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram and we can talk about dropping out of life, burger in hand.

The Vegan Sleep Burger. Follow the smoke to the plant-based land.

THE VEGAN SLEEP BURGER

prep time: 15 minutes
cook time: 45 minutes

Not only is it a reference to the band, but also what you will be doing shortly after consuming it.

First, I’m gonna just lay out what you’ll need for this recipe. I’ll post pictures below of which versions of each item I used and what you could also use.

What you’ll need:

vegan burger/ground
vegan stuffed turkey
olive oil
salt
pepper
garlic
onion
thyme/rosemary/sage
vegan butter
pretzel buns
vegan gravy (store bought works just fine)
cranberry sauce

You can use Beyond or really any type of plant based burger. These are personally my favorite.

These work best for the “stuffed turkey” aspect of the recipe. These also come with gravy so that saves you a step!

These 3-pack herb blends work like a charm. Especially because we’re trying to stuff this burger full of Thanksgiving flavors.

Now for the actual recipe —

Make sure your burgers are defrosted if need be. The ground stuff typically needs to be. So defrost it.

You’re going to start with the stuffed turkey things. Obviously vegan. I’m not gonna type the word vegan over and over.

Preheat your oven to 450°. You’re going to pretty much follow the directions on the package but with a few additions. The recipe on the package says to put the turkey things on a baking sheet, which is totally fine, but I used a small cast iron plate with the addition of butter, garlic and herbs.

While your oven is coming to temperature, peel up a bunch of garlic and chop down some onions. The onions will be for later but you can knock them out now.

Put some olive oil on the cast iron/sheet and coat the turkey things as evenly as possible. Add some vegan butter onto the cast iron/sheet along with some of your herbs and garlic. You really want it to taste like an entire Thanksgiving meal in your mouth.

Sacred Israel Holy Mountain Zion, that looks good!

Pop that whole thing into the oven for about 25 minutes. While this is cooking you can prepare the burger part of the recipe. I’ll have another reminder posted below somewhere that you will have to pop the turkey things out of the oven to flip them and remove the herbs. But here is reminder number one.

Next, you’re going to get your burger ready. Yes you are correct, you will be eating both of these items on one sandwich.

If you’re using a ground plant based burger, throw some of the onion and garlic in there along with a few thyme leaves. All of the flavors! Form them into patties. If you’re using a regular patty, cooking the burgers in the pan with those ingredients will be sufficient.

Herb bails retied onto the backs of beasts! In other words, your burger is gonna be loaded with herbs and garlic.

Next, you’re going to cook them burgers. You can use a non-stick or a cast iron. Personally, I used cast iron but again - either one will work fine.

Get your pan nice and hot and add olive oil. Then add butter. We’re not fucking around here. Then add some of your garlic and onion into the pan. Be careful not to burn that stuff because then your house will be filled with smoke. The wrong kind of smoke.

Bathe in the glow of sunlight’s beating rays! That’s how you could describe this photo probably.

Now add your patties into the pan and let them do their thing for a few minutes before flipping them.

One is never enough. Always get a second broth.

After a few minutes, flip the burgers so you get a nice crust on each side. This will come in handy for when you absolutely drench this suckers in gravy later. Add your herbs into the pan. More herbs!

Beautifully caramelized. Raise up seer’s holy prophecy.

Once the burgers are fully cooked, remove them from the pan to rest.

If it’s been 25 minutes, check on your turkey things in the oven!

Flip the turkey things and remove the herbs from the pan. Set them aside, don’t throw them out. Put them back in the oven while you prepare other stuff.

Next, it’s time to prepare the other stuff.

What you’ll need:

the gravy
pretzel buns
cranberry sauce

Follow the directions on the gravy you have. You can make your own if you want, but I’m going for convenience here.

Put the packages in warm water and then transfer into a stove-top friendly pouring type thing. Heat up the gravy on a low flame so you don’t reduce it and make your gravy disappear.

Open your can of cranberries. Like the weird jiggly tube shaped ones you remember from your childhood. Not fresh ones! Cut it down into smaller cylinders.

Wipe your pan from earlier down and toast your pretzel buns in there. You want them to be as crisp as possible so they may contain all of the stuff you put atop them.

Finally, that you’re done with all of that - get your turkey things out of the oven. Let them rest for a second. Cut them in half hamburger style. These will sit on top of the burger part of the burger.

The order from the ground up is

Bun, cranberry layer, burger patty, turkey thing.

After you have that much assembled, pour your gravy directly onto the burger and top with one of the pieces of fried sage you didn’t throw out from earlier.

The molten fire flowed up toward Zion! This is where having a crispy bun comes in handy.

Black Bean Tortilla Soup

November 19, 2019 by Joe Hehl

Soup is great because it’s a very passive cooking experience. Also it’s a good way to use up a bunch of ingredients you don’t know what to do with.

As always, if you dig the recipe, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram and we can talk about the pros and cons of soup.

Black Bean Tortilla Soup. I used garbanzo beans too but that’s too many words.

BLACK BEAN TORTILLA SOUP

prep time: 30 minutes
cook time: 60+ minutes

Disclaimer one: I used lots of garlic and lots of onion.
Disclaimer two: I didn’t take as many pictures because I didn’t initially plan on posting this one.

First, you’re going to prep the base of your soup. Feel free to swap out or alter things to your liking.

What you’ll need:

garlic
onion
olive oil
salt
pepper
chiles (I used de arbol)
fresh thyme & sage

Peel your garlic and chop it up. I used an entire bulb of garlic and an entire onion for this recipe. The idea was to clean the fridge out…deliciously. Chop down your onion and set half of it aside for topping later.

Remove the stems of your chiles and remove all the seeds. Keep a few of them in there if you prefer it spicier. I used about five chiles.

Trim the leaves off of your thyme and sage. You can sub out different herbs if you only have different herbs. If you don’t have herbs, you need to keep herbs on deck!

Get out a pot and add some olive oil and heat it up to a medium flame. Add all your stuff into there and toss your ingredients in there. Let them cook for a second, careful not to burn anything. Once you see your garlic start to brown, add a cup of water into the pot. Bring the pot up to a boil and add salt and pepper. Stir it up some and add your herbs in there too.

While that is boiling up, get out your blender cause all that stuff is going in there.

Next, you’re going to blend that stuff up and set it aside and get your actual broth started.

What you’ll need:

the contents of your blender
vegetable broth
black beans
garbanzo beans
whatever beans
salt
pepper
bay leaves

Add your broth into the pot. I used the kind pictured below. If you need to add water at any point for the sake of having more broth, that is a-okay. 32 ounces wasn’t particularly enough for me because I keep sneaking samples so I added water too. Bring the temperature up to boil and add salt.

Drain and rinse your beans. Two cans is perfect, whatever beans you may have chosen. Hopefully you do have black beans.

Once your broth is boiling, add the contents of your blender and the beans as well.

Toss a bay leaf in there. Fuck it, put two in there.

Drop the temperature all the way down and put a lid on the pot and let it simmer while you do other stuff.

Next, it’s time to prepare the other stuff. If you have tortilla chips you can use those. If you have tortillas, use those. If you have tostadas, guess what? You can use those too.

What you’ll need:

tortillas/chips/tostadas
salt
pepper
olive oil
avocado
lime
cilantro
the other half of that onion

Preheat your oven to 350°. On a baking sheet, add a whole layer of whichever kind of corn-derived item you have. If you have tortillas, cut them up first before putting them on the sheet.

Add olive oil, salt and pepper to all of the chips and pop the sheet into the oven for 15-20 minutes. 20 for tortillas and 15 for the other options.

I used el milagros because I buy so many of them!

And as you can see, I was also seasoning one of my cast irons.

While those are cooking, stir and sample the soup itself to see if needs any TLC. Just don’t eat it all like I did.

Cut up some avocado. Clean off your cilantro and trim the leaves off of that for toppings. Cut up a lime too for the same purpose.

You can let the soup simmer as long as you want but an hour will suffice. I did it for two because I was cleaning the house.

Once your soup is good to go, add it to a bowl. Pop your chips out of the oven and let them cool off for a moment. Add your toppings into the soup and your tortillas last. Now EAT!

You didn’t even realize I used parsley instead of cilantro. I ran out of cilantro. Radishes would have been cool for this too. Shit!

Shrimpless Fettuccine Alfredo

November 12, 2019 by Joe Hehl

You ever use vegan shrimp? They’re strange. But they’re kinda cool. You can get them at Asian supermarkets. If you pick some up, give this a shot.

As always, if you dig the recipe, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram and we can talk about getting lost in the sauce.

Shrimpless Fettuccine Alfredo. You can omit the shrimp completely if you want to. But still I think they’re cool.

SHRIMPLESS FETTUCCINE ALFREDO

prep time: 20 minutes
cook time: 40 minutes

How many words can you think of that rhyme with “roux”?

This recipe isn’t too difficult, but it requires a fair amount of multitasking. You’re going to start by cooking the vegan shrimp if you’ve got them, making a sauce, getting your pasta ready and then tying it all together.

First, you will cook the vegan shrimp that you found.

What you’ll need:

those vegan shrimp you found
olive oil
vegan butter
salt
pepper

Defrost those weird vegan shrimp if need be. Oil a pan and leave it on medium heat. Once the pan is at temperature, add the strange vegan shrimps into the pan. You don’t want to overcook them, just kinda soften them up.

Add a chunk of vegan butter to the pan along with salt and pepper. Don’t be conservative with the butter because this recipe is 3/4 butter.

Feel the shrimp things and see that they’re cooked but not burnt. Transfer them into a bowl for now and come back to them later.

Next, you’re going to put your sauce together and boil your fettuccine. You’re going to prepare a roux and then blend together some other stuff. There aren’t cashews in this recipe. To simplify, I’ll break it up into two sections of sauce.

Also, I’m gonna stop using the word vegan now.

What you’ll need:

a pot of boiling water
fettuccine
salt

Bring your pot of water to a boil and salt it. Add your fettuccine and allow it to cook while your make your sauce. The pasta should take about 13-15 minutes so check on it periodically to make sure you don’t overcook it.

If the fettuccine don’t fit, you must acquit!

Now for your sauce! First section will be your main ingredients and the second will be the cream.

What you’ll need:

olive oil
garlic
onion
butter
apple cider vinegar
lemon
vegan parm (fine, one more time)
dried basil
dried oregano
soy milk
salt
pepper
a blender

Mince up some garlic and dice down an onion. Wipe your pan from earlier and turn the flame back up to medium with some oil. Use lots of garlic. Garlic is good.

Add your garlic and onion into the pan and stir quickly to make sure nothing burns. Add another chunk of vegan butter into the pan. Then toss some salt and pepper in there too. Then add dried basil and dried oregano.

Take the contents of your pan and transfer it all into a blender.

Grate down a block of parm. Like the whole thing. I used the violife kind. Grate some lemon zest right in there with the parm. You can add lemon juice too for extra acidity. Add all of that to the blender too. Toss a little olive oil in there along with some butter and two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. This is so your blades don’t get caked with parm and other stuff. And to keep your acidity in check. Once that’s blended, set it aside for now.

This will eventually get added to the roux you’re going to make next.

Now you’re going to assemble your sauce, starting with the roux. Then you will add warm soy milk little by little and then finish by adding the contents of your blender.

What you’ll need:

the contents of your blender
butter
soy milk
oat flour (I’m sure other flours will suffice but this is what I had)
a microwave

Warm up your pan and throw a big thing of vegan butter in there. To reiterate, this recipe uses lots of butter. Get out your oat flour or whatever kind of bougie flour you have and sift it into a bowl. Always, always sift so if doesn’t get clumpy and difficult to break down.

While your butter is beginning to melt down, add some of your oat flour into the pan and stir. You will add the flour little by little to prevent clumping. Use about half of your flour and keep stirring. Once it blended nicely, up the flame to about medium high.

Now you have a roux!

Next, you’re going add warm soy milk to the pan and turn it into a white sauce. Or a béchamel if you want to keep using fancy words.

Put a cup of soy milk into a container and microwave it for 45 seconds. You’re going to warm it up and then add half of it into the pan, again so it doesn’t get clumpy. Keep stirring!

Now take the remainder of your flour and add that into the pan while stirring. Add the second half cup of soy milk into the pan. Take your blender contents from earlier and add that right into your new mixture. Stir that up and drop the flame low and let it simmer for a minute.

Béchamel - ooh la la! Your blender full of garlic, onion, parm and whatever else gets mixed right into the pan.

Check on your pasta again and see if it is cooked properly. If so, throw it in a strainer but save a little bit of that precious pasta water. Throw the pasta back into the pot you cooked it in and then add a little olive oil and the big ol’ sauce you just made. Give it a good stir so nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan. Let your pasta sit for a second and then the last step will be chopping down fresh herbs and adding your shrimp.

So creeeeeamy and THICC. — So creeeeeamy and **THICC**.

What you’ll need:

fresh parsley
fresh oregano
those weird shrimp things

You can use dried for either, but fresh is best.

Remove them from the stems and chop them both up super fine. Like real fine. Once you do that, add it right into your pasta and mix it up. Add your shrimp and mix that up too.

Putting the herb in herbivorous. — Putting the *herb* in *herbivorous*.

Now observe as those weird shrimp things get lost in the sauce.

Give it a good stir and kill the flame. Serve immediately! This will leave you with quite a bit of fettuccine alfredo. I hope you like carbs!

Chimichurri Tempeh

November 10, 2019 by Joe Hehl

Tempeh is weird. Here’s something fun you can do with it.

As always, if you dig the recipe, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram and we can discuss the differences between parsley and cilantro.

Blackened Chimichurri Tempeh. Crisp on the outside, tender on the inside. Just like you.

CHIMICHURRI TEMPEH

prep time: 30 minutes
cook time: 60 minutes

With lots and lots of garlic…and herbs.

If this recipe had a video, it would be one of those weird ASMR cooking videos where I make all the food outside and you wonder how I got all those dishes out there.

I’ll break this recipe up into four parts: the marinade, the chimichurri, the baking and searing of the tempeh.

First we’ll start with the marinade.

What you’ll need:

garlic
onion
olive oil
coconut aminos
liquid smoke (optional)
molasses
stone ground mustard
vegetable broth (or bouillon)
salt
pepper
sage
rosemary
thyme

Bust open a bulb of garlic. Peel and take the whole thing apart because this recipe uses lots of garlic. Some of it will go into the chimichurri later. Toss a chunk of onion in there too.

Once your garlic and onion browns a bit, add a quarter cup of vegetable stock and let it simmer for a second. Transfer the contents of your pan to a food processor and add salt, pepper, two tablespoons of molasses, lots of coconut aminos, sage, rosemary (off the stem) and a generous squirt of stone ground mustard. If you have liquid smoke, throw some of that in there too. The smokiness will shine through the marinade, so add however much you’d like. Also keep this pan handy for later.

Blend that mess up and add it all into a ziplock bag. Toss your brick of tempeh in there. Then toss some thyme right into the bag as well.

Now that your tempeh is in a bag with all that other stuff, throw it in the fridge for now and clean your food processor.

Next order of business will be putting your chimichurri together. It’s very easy, I promise.

What you’ll need:

parsley
oregano (leaves…but dried is fine)
garlic
red pepper flakes
salt
pepper
olive oil
apple cider vinegar
a clean food processor

Rinse off your parsley and separate the leaves from the stems. Little stems are okay but you don’t walk the big stems in there. Toss all of it and the remainder of your garlic from earlier into the processor. Add salt, pepper and a few hearty dashes of red pepper flakes in there too. Take a few leaves of oregano and toss them in there next. If you are using dried oregano, use about the same amount as you did for the red pepper flakes. Add a splash of apple cider vinegar for acidity and then finally add a quarter cup of olive oil.

This photo is sans vinegar and olive oil just so you can see the amount of greenery.

If your chimichurri ends up somewhat dry or clumpy, add more olive oil little by little until the consistency is runny but not overly watery. Pretty much just like pesto.

Take your finished chimichurri and put it in the fridge for now. Take your tempeh out of the fridge. You can marinate it longer if you wish, I did it for about 45 minutes.

Next you’re going to bake the tempeh to further soften it up and keep the flavor locked in before searing it. This part is flexible. You can use a baking sheet, a cast iron or any other oven-safe vessel you prefer. I used a cast iron to keep the tempeh marinaded.

What you’ll need:

your ziplock bag full of tempeh and other stuff
a cast iron (or something else)

Oil your cast iron and set your oven to 350°. Make sure your cast iron is evenly oiled to prevent your marinade from getting all weird. Add the contents of your tempeh bag into the pan. Marinade and all. If you’re using a baking sheet, add some of the marinade directly onto the tempeh and continue to add more every ten minutes or so.

Once your oven is at temperature, pop that sucker in for thirty minutes. After those thirty are up, flip the tempeh and cook it for ten more. Again, this is to ensure the tempeh is tender on the outside to mirror what will eventually be seared on the outside!

The marinade may clump or caramelize a little bit, if you’re able to baste some of it on top of the tempeh, do that.

Finally, you’re going to take your tempeh out of the oven and oil up a non-stick pan. Use the pan from step one. Oil it up and heat it up on a high flame. This part can be tricky so follow these directions carefully!!!

What you’ll need:

your non-stick pan with oil on a high flame
agility
a cutting board

Once your oil is smoking, add your tempeh to the pan. This will start cooking immediately and also somewhat loudly. Don’t move the tempeh in the pan or else you will lose the crust completely! Let it cook in the pan for about two and a half minutes, keep an eye to make sure a char is forming underneath.

Now you can flip the tempeh and cook the other side out, again leaving it in one spot to prevent the crust from getting stuck to the pan.

Here is a smoky picture of what it should look like after flipping it.

Once both sides are cooked out, carefully lift the tempeh out of the pan and set it on a cutting board. You’re going to have to let the tempeh rest for about ten minutes before cutting into it. This will keep the outside crisp and the inside tender.

After you’re tempeh is rested, cut into it and serve with your chimichurri. You can lay the chimichurri right on top or spoon it onto each individual piece. I wouldn’t recommend dipping directly into the chimichurri just so you don’t get char in there.

Now eat and go finish the rest of your dishes.

Vegan Chicken Noodle Soup

October 30, 2019 by Joe Hehl

It’s colder out and you want soup. Maybe you’re sick too. Luckily, chicken noodle soup is very simple to veganize.

As always, if you dig the recipe, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram so we can talk about pasta.

Vegan Chicken Noodle Soup…with a topo on the side.

VEGAN CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP

prep time: 15 minutes
cook time: 60 minutes

With a topo on the side.

This recipe is fairly simple. It’s a very passive recipe so you can clean up the huge mess you made while your soup cooks. First you’re going to prepare your seitan and start your vegetables. For the sake of breaking the recipe up, we’ll start with seitan.

What you’ll need:

seitan
salt
pepper
adobo
cumin
olive oil
garlic
shallot (or onion)

Open and drain your seitan if necessary. Press it with a towel to remove any excess moisture. Peel up a bunch garlic and cut down your onion. Oil a pan and heat that thang up on a medium flame. You’re going to save some of the garlic for later. Toss in your shallot (or onion) and garlic and stir frequently so you don’t burn it.

Add your seitan once your garlic and onion starts to brown some. Add a little extra oil and season it with salt, pepper, cumin and adobo. Stir it up so your onion and garlic don’t burn (again) and let it cook for a second. Once your seitan is cooked, transfer it from a pan to a bowl for now.

Now you can start your vegetables. Everything will cook out right in the broth so no extra boiling water required.

What you’ll need:

potatoes
celery
carrots
garlic
shallot
olive oil
a peeler
two containers of veggie broth

Peel three medium sized potatoes. Or two large ones. Or four small ones. Then peel three carrots. Rinse your celery off because it’s probably gross. Dice your potato down into small chunks. Dice the carrot and celery down too.

This picture is cropped, there are more carrots and celery. Potatoes too.

Hopefully you have garlic from earlier still. If you don’t, dice some more down as well as some onion. These are going to be the first two ingredients in your soup.

Get out your big pot and toss some oil in there. Once it’s hot, add your onion and garlic, again careful not to burn your garlic.

Once those things caramelize a little bit, add your two containers of veggie broth. Bring the flame up to the boil so that you can add your potatoes, carrots and celery.

Once your broth is boiling, do the aforementioned. You can keep the flame high for a minute.

To the broth with you! (Add your celery and carrots too.)

Now that your soup is starting to cook, clean up that huge mess you made. Also you can get your seasonings and noodles ready for the next part.

What you’ll need:

salt
pepper
pasta (I used rigatoni)
bay leaves
water
bouillon
the seitan you made a few minutes ago

Add salt and pepper into the boiling broth. Add two bay leaves in there too. Don’t eat the bay leaves. Add the seitan into the broth and stir it up. Add your pasta into the broth. I used rigatoni because it’s all we had. And it looks kinda hilarious in the soup. If there isn’t enough broth to accommodate all of your ingredients, add a cup of water and some bouillon. Keep the flame high because you want to boil those noodles and you just added extra water. Once your broth is boiling, drop the flame to low and cover the pot for 25-30 minutes. Now you can simmer the broth and check instagram or clean the rest of your kitchen or something.

After that time has gone by, turn the flame off and give the broth a stir. I think your soup is ready.

Now that’s pretty much it. Eat your soup and be careful not to burn your mouth like I did. Serve with soup or saltines or whatever you wanna eat your soup with.

I mean look how hilariously cartoony those noodles look.

Cast Iron Breakfast Tacos

October 28, 2019 by Joe Hehl

This recipe combines the two major food groups: breakfast and tacos. End of intro.

As always, if you dig the recipe, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram so we can talk about our cast iron skillets.

Cast Iron Breakfast Tacos, part of any balanced breakfast

IMG_1553 2.jpg — CAST IRON BREAKFAST TACOS

prep time: 20 minutes
cook time: 60 minutes

To reiterate, the two greatest food groups are breakfast and tacos.

First you’re going to boil some potatoes. So get out some potatoes and boil them.

What you’ll need:

potatoes
boiling water

Next, you’re going to make a scramble. You can use tofu or Just Egg. For this recipe, I used Just Egg. I’ll add the tofu recipe at the bottom of the page.

What you’ll need:

just egg
vegan butter
olive oil
vegan cheese shreds
kala namak (black salt)
salt
pepper
nutritional yeast

The things you’re preparing will be transferred to a cast iron, so for now have a regular non-stick pan ready. Heat up some oil in there and shake up your Just Egg. Pour it into the pan and let it cook for a solid 45 seconds before spatula-ing it. Once you do, drop some vegan butter and a generous amount of cheese into the pan. This will help your Just Egg get nice and fluffy. Add salt and pepper and stir. Add kala namak and a big spoonful of nutritional yeast and stir some more.

After your scramble looks like scramble, remove it from the pan and set it aside in a bowl for now. Now you can get your other scramble stuff ready.

What you’ll need

onion
bell pepper (I used orange)
spinach
black beans
vegan bacon (I used sweet earth)
maple syrup
salt
pepper
garlic powder
your potatoes from earlier

Starting with your black beans, open them, drain them and rinse them. Set them aside.

Chop up your onion and bell pepper. Set them aside.

Wipe your pan from earlier and add a little bit of oil. Throw the vegan bacon in the pan and cook evenly. Add a little bit of maple syrup and pepper and let them cook for an extra 30 seconds.

Once your bacon is cooked, set aside.

Assuming your potatoes are cooked, remove them from the water and put them on your cutting board. Chop them up into small chunks. The potatoes will function as the base of your skillet and everything else will be added on top of them.

Add oil to your pan (again) and add your potatoes. Add salt and pepper. Make sure you let them cook thoroughly so they remain crispy when you add other stuff to them later.

Once your potatoes are nice and crispy, preheat your oven to 400°. Get your cast iron ready with a little bit of oil. Wipe the whole inside of the pan with oil. Not too much though otherwise your potatoes will be swimming. I used a 6.5” skillet for this recipe.

Now that your oven is preheated, throw your cast iron full of potatoes into the oven for now. In the non-stick pan from earlier, you can cook your onions and peppers really quick.

Add oil into your pan and add your onion and red pepper on a medium flame. Add salt and pepper and then add a big fistful of spinach. You’re going to use a good amount of spinach because it will cook out and become tiny spinach.

Once your vegetables are cooked, drop the flame and add your bacon and black beans from earlier. Stir them up.

You don’t have to cook it anymore because the beans will warm up in the cast iron and the bacon is cooked.

Now pop your cast iron out of the oven and add the contents of your pan right on top of the potatoes. You can add extra cheese too if you wish.

It looks like the same picture but now it’s on top of potatoes! And also very blurry!

Now atop this layer, throw your egg right on top of the other stuff.

This picture is much nicer than the other one!

Now throw the whole thing back into the oven for about 20 minutes. Check on it every here and there to make sure nothing is burning.

Finally, you’re going to get your tortillas ready. Obviously you could just eat right out of the skillet but tortillas make everything better.

What you’ll need:

more olive oil
tortillas
avocado
hot sauce (optional)

Add oil to your pan and cook your tortillas in there. This recipe yields about six generous sized tacos.

Once your tortillas are cooked and your cast iron is ready, throw its contents into tortillas and eat! Garnish with avocado and hot sauce. (well, not really optional)

Now indulge in the wonderful texture of breakfast tacos.

If you use tofu instead of Just Egg,

Press your tofu to drain it of all liquid. Heat up oil in a pan and crumble tofu into the pan. Add vegan butter and cheese and stir, stir, stir! It’s pretty much the same process. Just with a somewhat different texture. Add salt, pepper, nutritional yeast and kala namak the same way you would with Just Egg.

Love you,
Joe

Jackfruit Chilaquiles

October 20, 2019 by Joe Hehl

Chilaquiles are a top-tier breakfast dish. I would eat them every day if I could. The trick to leveling up your vegan chilaquiles is scrambling up tofu as an egg substitute instead of just omitting it.

As always, if you dig the recipe, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram so I can personally tell you I love and respect you.

Jackfruit chilaquiles. They are crispy, smoky, gooey and at least six other adjectives.

JACKFRUIT CHILAQUILES

prep time: 20 minutes
cook time: 30 minutes

Chilaquiles are the perfect breakfast food but you’re an adult, you pay taxes and you can eat breakfast whenever you damn well please.

First order of business is pressing your tofu and jackfruit. In due time, I’ll put together a little blurb on basic stuff like prepping tofu and jackfruit, that would be kinda cool.

What you’ll need:

extra firm tofu
jackfruit (canned)
some towels
a cast iron or some kind of heavy object

Drain your tofu and wrap it in paper towels. Put a cast iron (or something else) on top to drain it of liquid.

Open your jackfruit, rinse them off in a strainer and then add them to another paper towel. Wrap that paper towel in a regular towel and press down and try to shred the jackfruit to the best of your ability. Remove the seeds if you want.

While those two things dry off, you can prepare your salsa.

What you’ll need:

dried chilies (ancho, guajillo and de arbol)
garlic
onion
lime
salt
pepper
cumin
olive oil
vinegar

Remove the seeds from your dried chiles. You can cut the stems off with scissors and they usually fall right out pretty easily. I leave a couple of the seeds just for heat sake but that’s entirely up to you.

Cut up an onion and some garlic. You don’t have to mince them because they’re eventually getting blended. Use as much garlic as you want too. I always use a lethal amount of garlic, but you can add as much as you’d like.

In a small pot, heat up some oil on a medium flame and add your salsa ingredients. Stir them and add salt, pepper, cumin and the juice of half a lime. Then add a splash of vinegar.

Once your kitchen smells like chiles and garlic, add half a cup of water to the pot and bring the temperature up a little more. Turn off the flame after simmering the pot for a few minutes and transfer the contents to a blender. Blend until smooth and let it cool down a little bit. If it’s too thick and getting caked on the blades, add a little bit more water.

Take your jackfruit from earlier and put it into a container and add the salsa directly onto the jackfruit.

Now that your prep is done, we can get into the main components of the dish. First you will start with the tofu. The tofu will function as a scrambled egg.

What you’ll need

pressed tofu
vegan butter
salt
pepper
kala namak (black salt)
nutritional yeast
vegan cheese shreds
olive oil

Oil a pan and bring it up to medium heat. Crumble your tofu directly into the pan.

Add salt, pepper and a big ol’ heaping scoop of nutritional yeast to your tofu. Stir, stir, stir.

Add a tablespoon of vegan butter into the pan along with a fistful of vegan cheese shreds. These two items will bring on more of a scramble-like consistency and alter the color some. Add a big pinch of kala namak to the tofu. This adds a sulfuric element to the tofu to give it more of an egg-like taste.

Now your tofu has more of a gooey, eggy consistency rather than being dry and crumbly.

Once your tofu is cooked, set it aside for now. Next you will get your tortillas ready and toppings ready. When your pan isn’t so hot, give it a quick wipe.

What you’ll need:

corn tortillas
olive oil
red onion
cilantro
vegan sour cream
vegan block of cheese (I used violife parm)
avocado (optional)
salt
adobo

Stack your tortillas up and cut them into quarters.

Don’t be tempted to eat them dry. Maybe just one. It’s not gonna be great though.

Heat up some oil and throw in a few tortillas at a time so they can cook. Flip them and continue to add more. Once they are cooked, set them on a paper towel on a plate to dry. I used about six tortillas for this part.

While your tortillas cool off, rinse off some cilantro and chop it up. Use some of your red onion and chop that up too. Diced this time unlike the salsa. Put some vegan sour cream into a dish. Vegan sour cream has a weird consistency but I’ve found if you take some in a dish and microwave it for ten seconds, it becomes much easier to whip. Cut up some limes and get out your block of vegan cheese. I used the brick of violife parm. I don’t know if vegan cojita exists yet.

Grate down the cheese into another dish.

Now that everything for your chilaquiles is ready to go, bring it all together. Take your jackfruit/marinade and toss it into the pan with a little bit of olive oil. Season with a little bit of salt and adobo.

Let the jackfruit cook more a little bit. You want a little bit of char.

When your jackfruit is cooked, add your tortillas directly into the pan. Mix them up evenly with the jackfruit until everything in the pan is red.

Now add all your tofu into the pan. Stir everything up evenly!

Let those things cook in the pan together for a minute and then you can transfer to a plate. Garnish with the toppings from earlier and EAT!

You earned every last bite of these chilaquiles.

Tofu Jibarito

October 18, 2019 by Joe Hehl

Plantains are like bananas’ super cool cousin you only see on holidays. I love you bananas, but today plantains are in town.

As always, if you dig the recipe, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram so I can personally tell you I think that you are as cool as plantains are.

Tofu Jibarito. It’s nothing like banana bread!

TOFU JIBARITO

prep time: 15 minutes
cook time: 30 minutes

Plantains and bread are like super distant cousins I guess.

Get out a brick of tofu and drain it. Press it with some towels with a cast iron skillet on top to drain it of excess liquid.

Then you’ll start with your plantains. You’re going to fry them twice. I’ll explain.

What you'‘ll need:

olive oil
green plantains
garlic powder
salt

Chop the two ends off of your plantains. Use your knife and slice them long way and butterfly them open.

Once you’ve done that cut them in half. And then cut them long ways as pictured below.

Put a lot of oil into a pan and get it hot. Once your oil is hot, using tongs, drop each plantain into the oil. Cook them on both sides. You want them to get a golden, brown color. This should take about five minutes.

I did a couple of extras in case I messed up.

Once your plantains look golden, put them on a plate with paper towel to drain them of excess oil. When they are dry, use your cast iron skillet from pressing the tofu earlier and smash them down so they flatten. Do this without breaking them. This is so your plantain will hold more of a bread-like shape.

If you do it right, they will look something like this.

Add a little more oil back into the pan. Once your plantains have cooled a little bit, add them back into the oil for five more minutes. This, again, will function as the bread of your sandwich. While they’re in the oil, season them with a little bit of salt and garlic powder.

Once they’re cooked, remove the plantains from the oil and put onto another paper towel-ed plate to dry and rid of excess oil.

Get some of the excess oil out of the pan, next you’re going to cook your tofu in it. Cut your tofu into even rectangles that resemble a thick piece of lunch meat or something. While you’re doing this, you can also cut your onion down.

What you’ll need:

drained tofu from earlier
onions
salt
pepper
cumin
chili powder
garlic powder

Add them to the oil carefully and season with salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder and garlic powder. Cook them evenly on each side without them getting too crispy. Cut down an onion into long pieces, not dicing it. Add your onion right in with the tofu.

Once your onions are caramelized and your tofu is cooked but still somewhat tender, throw them all onto another paper towel to drain of oil.

Next you can prepare your toppings.

What you’ll need

vegan mayo
sriracha
chili powder
lettuce
tomato
vegan cheese slices
cilantro (optional)
avocado (optional)

Mix one part sriracha to two parts vegan mayo. Add a little chili powder and mix.

Cut a tomato and some lettuce down. Cilantro and avocado too if you chose to include them.

Cut your slices of vegan cheese to size with the tofu and add to each of them. To help melt it down a little bit, you can microwave them all for about 30 seconds.

Now using your plantains as bread, assemble a sandwich using your tomato, lettuce, caramelized onion, tofu/cheese, cilantro and onion. On the top plantain that would function as the top slice of bread, apply the sriracha mayo.

You can serve the sandwich with rice and beans. I used rice spiced with sazon goya and added black beans and cilantro.

Black Garlic Mozz Lasagna

October 16, 2019 by Joe Hehl

Lasagna takes time. But that time is well spent because the reward is lasagna.

Hunt down @cheezeandthankyou and buy her black garlic mozz. I used that and kite hill ricotta. You can use other vegan mozz, but it probably won’t be as good. But if you’re located elsewhere, you are forgiven. A link to her page is listed below.

As always, if you dig the recipe, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram so I can personally tell you I think that you are doing a great job.

Black Garlic Mozzarella Lasagna. I require lasagna, Jon.

BLACK GARLIC MOZZ LASAGNA

prep time: 30 minutes
cook time: 70 minutes

Layers upon layers of delicious carbs and other things.

Get out your meat substitute and let it defrost. Because first, you gotta make a sauce.

What you'‘ll need:

olive oil
vegan butter
shallot (or red onion)
garlic
salt
pepper
oregano
tomato (beefsteak preferably)
arrabbiata sauce
tomato paste
patience

Dice up your shallot and mind your eyes. Onion works fine too. Mince up some garlic too. As much as you want. The more the better. Don’t add all of it to the pot because some of it will be utilized later.

Get out a big pot and toss about three tablespoons of vegan butter in there. Normally I use miyoko’s but she still hasn’t hooked me up with a sponsorship so today it’s earth balance w/ olive oil. Keep the flame below medium so you don’t burn your garlic or your shallot…or onion. Throw a nice pull of olive oil in there too and mix it around. Add salt, pepper and about two teaspoons of oregano.

Here are those things again, but in a pot!

Let it simmer some and then add tomato paste and Arrabbiata sauce. Then dice up your tomato and throw that in there too. Bring the flame up a little bit after you add these things and throw a lid on the pot. While your sauce cooks out, you can prepare the other layers of your lasagna.

Here are the kinds of saucy stuff I used.

Now that your sauce is cooking, we can start with your protein. Any type of ground substitute works fine. I really like the Meatless Farm brand. Beyond works too.

What you’ll need:

the remaining garlic and shallot from earlier
plant-based protein
salt
pepper
olive oil
vegan butter
cumin
coconut aminos
oregano
black garlic mozz (via @cheezeandthankyou. or just black garlic and vegan mozz)

Assuming your protein is defrosted, oil a pan and keep the heat low. add your garlic and shallot (or onion) from earlier. Add your protein into the pan and mix it with the garlic and shallot as best as you can.

Turn up the heat and then add vegan butter. Season with salt, pepper, cumin and oregano. Add about two tablespoons of coconut aminos. Let it cook out and prepare your vegan mozz. Again, I sourced mine from @cheezeandthankyou but if you cannot, mince down some black garlic and combine it with vegan mozz. To soften the cheese a little bit, put it in a container and microwave for about 15-20 seconds.

Once your protein is all cooked, transfer three fourths of it into a bowl. The remaining fourth will go right into your sauce you are currently simmering. Let the protein rest in the bowl for a minute and then throw half of your mozz into there and mix it up. If you have gloves on hand, use gloves and mix it with your hands.

The protein mixture with a some of the cheese mixture

Your next layer is easy. Spinach and ricotta.

What you’ll need

spinach
ricotta

Rip up a bunch of spinach and mix it with vegan ricotta. I used kite hill. And again, if you have gloves to use, use them and it will make your life easier.

Now finally, we can assemble your lasagna in whole. This part also requires patience. But again, in the end, you are awarded with lasagna. Preheat your oven to 350°.

What you’ll need:

the aforementioned mixtures
lasagne
olive oil
butter
a casserole dish
tin foil

Take your casserole dish and put some olive oil in it. Coat the inside of the dish as much as humanly possible. Add some vegan butter and do the same thing. This is so your lasagna won’t get stuck to the sides and get all gross.

In a strainer, put your lasagne pasta in it and run hot water on it. You’re using the no-boil method because you want the lasagne to cook out within the sauce itself. Once your pasta is less starchy, add them to the bottom of your casserole dish to create a layer. If you need to trim the pasta down a little bit, that’s fine. I used scissors.

Now upon your first layer of pasta, add your mozz. This will function as a delicious adhesive for the above layers.

Next, turn the flame off your sauce and add that right atop your mozz layer.

Quick disclaimer: if your sauce seems too runny, even after adding the protein to it, sift a little bit of flour into there. Oat flour would be my call.

Then atop your saucy layer, add your spinach ricotta mix.

Now add one more layer of lasagne as pictured above.

After that, add your protein/mozz mixture and then add more sauce. You can add a little more cheese if you would like.

Cover it with foil and pop it in the oven for an hour.

Disclaimer Two: If after an hour, the lasagna is still soupy, let it rest in the fridge overnight and it will be perfect the next day. Just have snacks ready in the meantime.

After an hour, remove the foil and switch the oven setting to broil and let it cook for a few more minutes.

Let the lasagna rest, whether for thirty minutes or overnight if you have to.

I went this entire recipe without saying the word “Garfield.”

Did I crack in because I was impatient? Or was it so I could showcase the layers?

Here’s a link to @cheezeandthankyou. Go get some vegan cheese from her.

Eggless Pad Thai

October 06, 2019 by Joe Hehl

Pad Thai is an awesome dish. In making it vegan of course, you omit the egg. But my trick for taking vegan Pad Thai to the next level is using a vegan egg substitute. Makes sense right? I’ve never seen it done in a recipe before, so I’ll show you how to take that shit to 11. Get one block of tofu, use half for your protein and the second half gets scrambled and mixed with the noodles.

As always, if you dig the recipe, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram so I can personally tell you I am very proud of you.

Eggless Pad Thai. Double Tofu Pad Thai just sounds like paying an extra $2.50 at Noodles & Company.

EGGLESS
PAD THAI

prep time: 30 minutes
cook time: 35 minutes

I promise you won’t die from eating soy.

First, we’re going to take your block of tofu and use half of it for an egg substitute. You can use Just Egg for this part if you really want to, but now your another eight dollars in the hole. Don’t cut the tofu up yet, keep reading.

What you'‘ll need:

tofu
olive oil
salt
pepper
nutritional yeast
kala namak
vegan butter
garlic powder

Press your block of tofu and drain it of all liquid. Afterwards, cut your block of tofu right down the middle. You’re essentially going to be making a scramble with the first half of the tofu. Oil a pan and crumble your tofu in there. Add salt, pepper, a little bit of garlic powder and half a tablespoon of kala namak. Kala Namak is also called “black salt” and will add a sulfuric element to your tofu egg. Add two tablespoons of vegan butter right into the pan. You want the scramble to be on the creamier side.

The vegan butter will keep the tofu on the softer side.

Now optional, you can add a little bit of vegan cheese or turmeric to the tofu egg if you want. Don’t worry, your tofu won’t taste cheesy once it’s mixed in, it’s more to achieve texture than anything.

Once your tofu egg is cooked, set it aside on a plate. Turn off your flame and let the pan cool for a second. Once it’s safe, give it a wipe and a quick rinse if necessary. The less dishes we use, the better.

Now to prepare the second half of the tofu, cut it down into cubes. Or any shape you want. Cubes are easy but if you can carve out little hearts, that would be badass

Now oil your pan again and we’re gonna cook these thangs.

What you’ll need:

tofu cubes
garlic
salt
pepper
red pepper flakes
coconut aminos (or soy sauce)

Cut up some garlic and mince it down as finely as you can. You don’t absolutely need to, but everything is better with garlic. Add the cubes and let them cook out. You want them to be firm and somewhat crispy. Once they are added to the noodles, you want them to keep their texture and not get all mushy.

Add your seasonings and add a generous amount of coconut aminos. Lots of coconut aminos will be used so apologies in advance if you drain your entire bottle.

Keep cooking for a little bit after they look like this, you do kinda want to burn them.

Once your tofu cubes are cooked, set those aside too. You can put them on the same plate as the other tofu if you want. Next, you will add vegetables to your dish. I used broccoli and I forgot to buy red cabbage.

What you’ll need:

broccoli
red cabbage (optional I guess)

Using the same pan, toss your broccoli in there and cook it for a little bit until it starts to brown a little bit. You can add any of the previous seasonings if you want. Once the broccoli looks desirable, add red cabbage (if you remembered to buy it) and toss it a little bit then remove them both and set aside.

Now you’re going to get your rice noodles ready. This part doesn’t take that much time because you want the noodles to remain somewhat firm and not get all coagulated.

Follow the directions on your noodles. They only took about 6-7 minutes for mine to cook out. First, we will start with the noodles and then work our way into the garnishes.

What you’ll need:

rice noodles
olive oil (or sesame oil/peanut oil)
coconut aminos
garlic
teriyaki sauce (or a homemade sauce, which I will list below)
sriracha paste
peanut butter
limes

Here is a picture of the noodles cooking. Not much to see here.

Boil some water in a pot. Add salt to the water and cook the noodles as stated previously. Once they are cooked but still firm, set them aside. Eventually everything will come together in the pan that we started with.

Now in that same pan I keep talking about, add a little olive oil (or sesame oil/peanut oil) and add lots of coconut aminos. You probably went through most of the bottle by now. Add about a little less than a cup of teriyaki sauce right into the pan on a low flame.

If you want to make the sauce yourself — vinegar, coconut aminos, brown sugar, sriracha, peanut butter, garlic, ginger, lime. If you can’t summon your sauce directly from hell, store-bought is fine.

Once your sauce is simmering some, stir frequently and add peanut butter. About a tablespoon and a half. Mixing the peanut butter kinda sucks so just keep stirring. You can add a little oil to help break the peanut butter down. Add half a tablespoon of sriracha paste and a squeeze of lime juice into the mix. Keep stirring! Regular sriracha is fine if you don’t have the pasty stuff. Once your sauce is nice and smooth, toss your noodles right into the pan. Have your flame as low as possible.

Coat your noodles with the sauce to the best of your ability. After your noodles are evenly mixed in, toss in your tofu egg from earlier. The tofu may be somewhat dry but the sauce in the pan will help rehydrate it. After your tofu egg is mixed in, add your broccoli and whatever other vegetables you want to add.

Now you can add the tofu cubes directly into the mix or toss them on top. I did the latter so you could see them in the picture. Whether you did or not, leave your noodles in the pan and you can get your garnishes ready. Toppings. Whatever.

What you’ll need:

crushed peanuts
bean sprouts
lime
cilantro
sriracha
tofu cubes (if you didn’t mix them in)

Rinse and dice up your cilantro. Prepare your bean sprouts. I wanted fresh ones but couldn’t find any. I bought canned ones in the same aisle the rice noodles and teriyaki were in. So like anything else that comes in a can, drain and rinse them and set aside for now. Cut up some limes. Get your crushed peanuts out from wherever you keep your crushed peanuts in the house. If you don’t have crushed peanuts, put regular peanuts in a bag and crush them yourself. No need to get your food processor dirty.

Now that your toppings are ready, plate (bowl) your noodles. Add your tofu cubes if you haven’t already, toss some cilantro, crushed peanuts, bean sprouts and sriracha right on top.

Make sure you wipe the sides of the bowl with a paper towel if you want those instagram likes.

Lentil Liver with Fava Beans (and a nice Chianti)

October 03, 2019 by Joe Hehl

Would you eat this? I’d eat this. I’d eat this so hard. It looks less than charming but I promise it is very tasty. Also good luck finding fava beans. I got the canned red ones at the grocery store after looking for thirty minutes. Also lots of Chiantis are not vegan so use Barnivore to cross-reference. Castello Di Albolda is vegan.

Lentil Liver with some Fava Beans and a nice Chianti…without drinking blood or eating flesh.

LENTIL LIVER WITH SOME FAVA BEANS AND A NICE CHIANTI

prep time: 20 minutes
cook time: 25 minutes

First order of business will be cooking the lentils. Cooking this requires one pot and one pan. And then a food processor. But we’ll start with the lentils.

What you'‘ll need:

lentils
boiling water
fava beans (canned)

Cook your lentils according to the directions on the package. One cup of lentils per two cups of water. After you cook them, strain the lentils and set them aside for now. Drain and rinse your fava beans off. Fill the pot with water again and bring it back to a boil. Put your fava beans in there on a medium flame. The goal is to soften them up so the outer skin comes off the beans nice and easily.

Next we are going to construct the “liver.” It’s more of a pâté than anything but I don’t want to have to type those symbols over and over again.

What you’ll need:

garlic
olive oil
onion
coconut amios
baby bella mushrooms
lemon
apple cider vinegar
walnuts (one cup)
eventually, the lentils
a food processor
parsley
crackers

Dice up your onion into chunks along with your garlic. They don’t have to be fine because they’re going into the food processor. Rinse and dice your mushrooms too. Oil your pan and put your garlic and onion in there. After they start to caramelize a little bit, add your mushrooms. Once the mushrooms start to soften and brown some, add your walnuts into the mix. Bring the flame up a little bit and toss everything around in the pan.

Walnuts added once the onion and garlic cook out alongside the mushrooms.

After the walnuts cook a little bit, throw your lentils right into the pan. Add a splash of apple cider vinegar, a bit of lemon juice and a good couple of shakes of coconut aminos. Soy sauce works fine. Bring your flame back down a little so your lentils don’t get all weird.

Way more appetizing than having an old friend over for dinner….sorta?

Now it puts the mixture in the food processor or else it gets the hose again.

For real though, put all of that stuff into your food processor and pulse until smooth. Not like hummus-smooth but still pretty smooth. Add a little olive oil and coconut aminos if your mixture is too solid.

Scrape the mixture into a bowl for now and let it cool down for a second. Now we’re going to revisit those pesky fava beans. Remove the skins from each one. Some of them will be easier than others. But for the most part, the skin should just slip right off. tftftftftftftftftftf.

The right sides are the skin. The left are the beans. Quid pro quo or something.

Once you have that completed, plate your ugly, brown chopped liver lentil thing with your fava beans. Dice up what’s left of your onion along with some parsley. Garnish the weird pile of brown stuff with the onion and parsley. Serve with crackers. Now open up that nice Chianti.

Please don’t invite over the census taker.

Seitan Tacos Al Pastor

October 01, 2019 by Joe Hehl

Pineapple on pizza is a touchy subject. Pineapple on tacos al pastor: no brainer. For the record, I don’t mind having pineapple on pizza because I’m an adult and I pay taxes and have bigger issues. If you like what you see, follow along on instagram — @draggedthroughthegarden.

Tacos al pastor. But with seitan. Smoky, tangy, dense with flavor and textures. Hold onto your guajillos.

SEITAN TACOS
AL PASTOR

prep time: 50 minutes
cook time: 20 minutes

First order of business, constructing a marinade.

What you’ll need:

onion (white or red)
dried guajillo peppers
achiote powder
garlic
cumin
oregano
salt
pineapple
lime
apple cider vinegar
a blender

The marinade is going to eventually make its way into the blender so you don’t have to mince your garlic down or chop the onions super fine.

Take four or five of your dried guajillo peppers and cut the stems off. Scissors work fine. Remove all the seeds from the inside. You can butterfly the pepper open, that way works fairly easily.

Grab a pot and toss some oil in there. Add your onion and garlic chunks in there and let them do their thing for a minute. Put your deseeded guajillos in there and a fistful of pineapple chunks. I bought them pre-cut because time. Add lime juice and a splash of vinegar into the pot. Once it starts to cook a little bit, add about a half cup of water and turn the flame up. Add achiote powder (or paste) as well as a tablespoon of oregano and cumin. Salt to taste.

Once everything in your pot is soft and your kitchen smells like garlic, onion and peppers, turn off your flame and transfer your mixture into a blender. Pulse until smooth and add a little more water if it’s too thick.

Here is a pot full of soft, smelly ingredients. The achiote will give it that orangey red color.

Get a load of that consistency! It looks hot but it’s pretty mild.

Let your mixture sit for a second and you can get your seitan ready. You’re only gonna add salt and lime directly to the seitan because the marinade will carry all of the flavor anywho.

What you’ll need:

seitan
salt
lime
a ziplock bag

This is the brand I used. You can use whatever you like.

Drain and rinse your seitan off. Get It as dry as humanly possible so it soaks up all of the marinade when its marinading time. Then toss some salt and lime on there.

Cut down all the obnoxious chunks if need be. You can do that later too if you want.

Now that your seitan is dry, throw it in a ziplock and pour the marinade directly in there too. You’re going to let it sit in the fridge for an hour. You can marinade it longer if you want, I did it for two while I ran errands.

Now that your seitan is marinaded…..prep your garnishes.

What you’ll need:

more pineapple
cilantro
onion (whatever you started with)
lime
salt

Oil a pan and add pineapple. I cooked them as rings and cut them down afterwards. Whatever you wanna do is fine. Give them a nice char on each side and then remove them from the pan and set aside.

Dice up some onion into finer chunks than you did for the marinade. Rinse and dice up some cilantro as fine as you can too. Cut up some limes.

Put each of your garnishes aside for now. You can put them in the fridge if you’d like.

Now to cook the seitan and bring it all home.

What you’ll need:

your marinaded seitan
salt
oil
tortillas
an appetite

Using the same pan you cooked the pineapple in, add some more oil and then slowly add your seitan into the pan on a medium high flame. The sauce will reduce down a little bit as you continue to sear. Stir it around and cook evenly.

After your seitan looks like al pastor, set it aside on a plate to rest. Or a cutting board from earlier. Less dishes the better.

Cook your tortillas with oil in the same pan. This recipe yields five tacos. Hearty tacos. There’s only four in the picture because I got hungry.

Now put your seitan in a tortilla with the garnishes from earlier and sulk in the fruits of your labor.

Lobster-less Rolls

September 30, 2019 by Joe Hehl

Lobster Rolls are like New Englander hot dogs. That’s about as close an analogy I can get. Omit the crustacean aspect, and now you have a cruelty-free, delicious kind of weird sandwich hot dog thing.

Lobster Rolls, sans lobster: Jackfruit is versatile and you don’t have to source it from a coastal state. But you do have to buy nori.

LOBSTER-LESS ROLLS

prep time: 25 minutes
cook time: 25 minutes

Before jumping right into the jackfruit, we’re gonna lay a saucy foundation.

What you’ll need:

red onion
chives
parsley
dill
celery
apple cider vinegar
smoke paprika
old bay
lemon
vegan mayo

Rinse off all of your ingredients that need rinsing. Particularly that celery. Trim your parsley off the stems and dice it down as fine as you can. Dice the chives down too. And then the red onion. Then dice the dill down too. Again, as fine as you can get it. Now take your presumably clean celery and slice it down as thinly as possible. You can use a mandolin too if you have one but be careful!

Once all that stuff is chopped up, toss it into a bowl. Add about two tablespoons of smoked paprika and two tablespoons of old bay right into your dry mixture. Add one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and then add a generous squeeze of lemon juice into there. Mix it up a little bit and then toss in three tablespoons of vegan mayo. And as always, I’m going to stop using the word vegan now and all the ingredients will be implied vegan.

Dry mixture without the aforementioned fix-ins.

Once your mixture is ….mixed, put it in the fridge for now so it can solidify a little bit.

Now, you can prep your jackfruit.

What you’ll need:

two cans of jackfruit
olive oil
garlic
nori
smoked paprika again
salt + pepa

Drain the two cans of jackfruit, rinse them and dry them off. Try to break them down as much as you can but without getting them mushy and weird.

Pulled apart but still with some texture to it. Remove the seeds if they bother you. They don’t bother me.

Mince up some garlic and oil a pan on a medium flame. Put the garlic into the pan and let it cook out a little bit. Add the jackfruit from the pan and toss it around with the garlic. Then comes the weird part. Take a sheet of nori and break a piece off. Chop it down as fine as you can. This part sucks because the nori is sticky. But it will add a “seafood” like taste to the dish. Add it to the jackfruit and then add salt and pepper. And then smoked paprika. As much as you want, you earned it.

After your jackfruit is cooked, turn off the flame and let it rest in the pan. Once it cools, you can add it directly into your cold mixture from earlier.

Add your chocolate to the peanut butter. Wait!

Put your wet jackfruit mixture in the freezer for the duration of the next part. The next part is prepping the bread.

When you remove it from the freezer, it’ll look like this.

For the bread, you can use a soft roll / hot dog bun / potato roll / sub roll. The sub roll was the best choice in my opinion. Just make sure there aren’t any pesky dairy ingredients all up in there.

What you’ll need:

sub rolls (or any of the aforementioned)
butter
an oven set to 350°
a brush

Preheat your oven to 350°. Use a knife and cut a slit in the top of the roll. Melt down your butter and apply it very generously to the entire roll. Inside and outside. Repeat that process for as many rolls as you want to use. This recipe yields about four rolls. Probably more if you use hot dogs buns.

Bake them in the oven for 10 minutes. While they are baking, take your jackfruit out of the freezer because you are going to apply the cold mixture to a hot bun.

Optional side dish: You can serve these vegan lobster rolls with fries, chips, or some kind of slaw. I chose some kind of slaw and if you are interested, it’s a bag of slaw from the grocery store with mayo, lemon, old bay and chickpeas.

Assuming you cut up too much parsley, throw some of them shits on top for garnish and eat! Also there’s that slaw back there. Slawing it up.

Vegan Gouda Mac

September 24, 2019 by Joe Hehl

Do you like mac & cheese? Do you really like gouda mac & cheese? Do you wish you could make it vegan? Do you live in Chicago or the Chicagoland area? If you answered yes to these questions, you are in luck. This is a non-difficult recipe because I’ll pretty much be walking you through how to make vegan mac & cheese without the box.

Hunt down @cheezeandthankyou and buy her smoked ground mustard vegan gouda. I used that and exclusively that for this recipe. You can use other vegan cheese, but it probably won’t be as good. But if you’re located elsewhere, you are forgiven.

(Gouda) Vegan Mac & Cheese: twangy, funky and dairy-free.

VEGAN GOUDA MAC

prep time: 10 minutes
cook time: 30 minutes

Check out @cheezeandthankyou and see when/where she is setting up shop at different events in and around Chicago.

Now disclaimer for this recipe, I prepared buffalo fried oyster mushrooms as the side, exactly like the ones from the chicken & waffle recipe. If you are interested in preparing that as well, the link to that recipe is at the bottom of this page.

What you’ll need:

vegan smoked gouda (via @cheezeandthankyou ….or a different kind if you’re elsewhere)
cavatappi (other pasta works fine but cavatappi is king)
vegan butter
vegan unsweetened creamer
shallot
olive oil
smoked paprika
green onion
bread crumbs

Get out a pot and put some water in it. Bring it to a boil and toss some salt in there. After your water is boiling, add the appropriate amount of pasta to the water. You know, one part pasta :: two parts water. Stir frequently to make sure it doesn’t get all clumpy and weird. Lower the flame a little bit too.

Take your good knife and dice up half of a shallot. And some green onion too for later. Throw your diced shallot into a pan with olive oil. You can use an onion too if you don’t have a shallot. After the shallot looks caramelized, toss it all into a small bowl for later.

Have your vegan cheese ready. The vegan gouda I used was a brick, so grate it down so it will be easier to stir in. If you have shreds or slices, cut them down and set them into another small bowl. Add a little bit of vegan butter to the bowl and microwave it very briefly. This will help stir it as well.

Delicious hunk of vegan gouda, diced shallots and green onions.

After your pasta is cooked, put it in a strainer to drain it but save a little bit of that precious pasta water for later.

Lower the flame again. In your now-dry pot of pasta, start to stir in your vegan cheese little by little. I’m also going to stop saying the word vegan every time I say the word cheese/butter/etc, because you get it. Start to mix a generous chunk of butter into your pasta. Add about a cup of unsweetened creamer into the mix too. Add that little bit of pasta water. You want your pasta to be very creamy. Keep adding your cheese until you run out and keep on stirring. Now take those shallots you forgot about and work them into the mix as well. STIR!

Preheat your oven to 315°. After your mac & cheese looks appealing and has the appropriate texture, transfer it into some sort of casserole dish. You’re going to keep it in the oven at a low temperature so it doesn’t lose its creaminess. Add a tablespoon or so of bread crumbs and smoked paprika right onto the top of the mac. Toss that baby in the oven for about 15 minutes and finish off with a quick 3 minute broil.

After that, garnish your mac with green onion and you are good to go.

A little crust on top from the bread crumbs + broil combo, but beneath lies sweet, creamy goodness.

Now again, completely optional, I prepared buffalo fried oyster mushrooms as a side exactly the way I did it in the vegan chicken & waffles recipe from a few weeks ago. Click the button below for that.

Click here for that!

BBQ Tempeh Plate

September 20, 2019 by Joe Hehl

Does everything taste better slathered in barbecue sauce? Yes. Is everything bigger in Texas? Probably, I don’t know. I’m going to break down how to prepare this vegan BBQ plate. The focal point is the BBQ tempeh, but I’ll briefly go over the other stuff too. I didn’t have any pickled red onion or refried beans ready, forgive me. I also didn’t have one of those cool serving trays, but I did drink a lone star!

Tempeh is strange. But it’s cool, especially slathered in BBQ sauce.

BBQ TEMPEH PLATE

prep time: 15 minutes
cook time: 55 minutes

If you don’t have Lone Star on deck, Shiner makes just as fine a substitute.

What you’ll need:

one brick of tempeh (as pictured below)
olive oil
salt, pepper, nutmeg, cumin, garlic powder, paprika
dry rub (I used Trader Joe’s coffee/garlic rub)
liquid smoke
barbecue sauce (again, I used Trader Joe’s)

The goal is to take this goofy looking thing and make it look like the picture up there!

Preheat your oven to 315°. Grab a plate and lay that brick of tempeh down on it. Toss a little olive oil on it and coat it as evenly as possible. We’re gonna rub this baby down with all kinds of spices and then toss it in the oven.

After you’ve moistened your tempeh with olive oil, add a little bit of liquid smoke to it too. These will both help your dry rub stick to the tempeh. Moist. You can mix your spices in a bowl and then rub the tempeh down or apply directly. I applied directly. Add around a teaspoon of everything except the dry rub.

Now you’re going to add a generous amount of dry rub to the tempeh. Eventually you will sear your cooked tempeh in the pan and this will make it nice and crisp on the outside.

I wasn’t kidding, you really wanna lay the rub on thick.

After your tempeh is completely coated and your oven is at temperature, throw it onto a slightly oiled baking pan for 45 minutes.

This is a weird picture. See you in 45 minutes!

While your tempeh is cooking, you can clean up and prepare your sides. I used spicy pickles, seared kale and broccoli, and mac & cheese. Vegan cheese.

Obviously the focal point here is the tempeh and you can prepare whatever sides you would like, but I had 45 minutes to kill while the tempeh cooked so here’s what I came up with.

What you’ll need (for the mac):

mac & cheese
bread crumbs
paprika
vegan butter
some kind of milk
nutritional yeast

Get a pot out and boil some water. You’re going to make your mac in there. Follow the directions on whatever mac you’re using. I’ll do a for-realsies mac recipe eventually but until then, for this I used Annie’s.

What you’ll need (for the other stuff)

pickles
kale
maple syrup
cayenne pepper
olive oil
broccoli
liquid smoke

For the kale, toss it in an oiled pan with a little bit of maple and cayenne pepper. After it’s slightly crispy, put it in a dish. Hopefully your mac is cooked by now. I added miyoko’s butter and nutritional yeast into the mix. Once your mac is finished, put it in some kind of oven-safe pot. You can keep it warm in the 315° temperature oven while we move on. I didn’t include pictures of the sides process because OPTIONAL!

In the same pan you made your kale in, throw broccoli in there. I sauced it with a little bit of the liquid smoke from earlier. Once that’s done, add it to another dish.

Then take some pickles and put those in another dish.

Assuming it’s been around 45 minutes, your tempeh should be nice and baked.

Wipe out the pan you’ve been using. Without burning yourself. Add a tablespoon of olive oil into the pan and turn the flame up to medium high. This next part is tricky because you want to sear but without burning the living shit out of the tempeh.

Apply your barbecue sauce directly onto the tempeh. Take a brush and spread it on there as evenly as you can. The dry rub should stay put.

Put the tempeh into the pan and it should start to sear fairly immediately. Continue to apply barbecue sauce as it dries out. Flip it and repeat the process. You don’t want the crust of the tempeh to get stuck to the pan!

Keep a close eye so you don’t lose your crust.

Do this a couple of times until your brick of tempeh looks charred on the outside. Using preferably a metal spatula, get that thing out of the pan and put it back on the baking sheet to rest for a second.

While your tempeh is wondering what hit it, your mac is still in the oven. Again, it’s optional but I like to add a little bit of bread crumbs, miyoko’s butter and paprika directly on top and toss it back in the oven for a quick 3-4 minute broil. Keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t burn.

Now you can put your optional mac in a dish and put it with the kale, broccoli and pickles.

I put the tempeh right onto a cutting board to serve because I didn’t have one of those cool serving trays.

Feel free to add more barbecue sauce and have some paper towels ready.

Now cut the brick down into even strips and open another Lone Star.

Fried Potato Tacos

September 18, 2019 by Joe Hehl

These were supposed to be flautas but I ripped the tortillas. So now they’re fried tacos!

Do you ever think to yourself, “I wish this taco were fried”? Well perfect, because this recipe is just that, and probably far from healthy! But I mean, I did chicken and waffles a few weeks ago for christ sakes.

FRIED POTATO TACOS

prep time: 20 minutes
cook time: 20 minutes

There’s spinach and black beans in there too! And those are healthy!

What you’ll need:

two large potatoes (or a bunch of little ones)
black beans
onion
spinach
salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika
tortillas
dipping sauces (optional)
olive oil

Go ahead and peel yourself those potatoes and bring a pot of water to a boil. Toss them in and salt the water once your water is boiling. While those cook, drain a can of black beans and dice up some onion.

In a separate pan, add olive oil and cook the onions and then toss the black beans in there too. After your onions look caramelized, toss in a good fistful or two of spinach and continue to stir everything in your pan.

If you did it right, your pan looks like this. Please tell me you did it right.

Assuming the potatoes aren’t ready yet, turn off the flame on the pan so you don’t burn any of your beans/spinach/onion. Once the potatoes are ready, transfer into a bowl and mash them with olive oil to soften them up. Or you can use vegan butter, whichever you feel. Once you have a smooth consistency and you haven’t yet skipped past the part where I tell you how to mash potatoes, add in your black beans/onion/spinach. Mix them up nicely. I said nicely! Add salt, pepper, garlic powder and paprika right into the mix. The paprika will give it a subtle smokiness.

Here is a horrible, blurry picture of your brand new mixture.

Get your tortillas out and place your new mixture onto one half of each tortilla. It helps to warm them up a little bit so they don’t tear when you roll them. Your potato mixture will act as an adhesive to glue the tortilla shut.

If the tortilla does rip, just add a second tortilla because you probably aren’t concerned with your carbs if you’re making this too.

I heard you like carbs, so we put carbs inside your carbs!

Now in that same pan from earlier, give it a wipe clean and add fresh olive oil. A nice amount. Once your oil is hot, gently lay your taco shaped tortilla thing into the oil and let it cook until golden brown. Be careful flipping it because it may unravel. I used a spatula to pin it down while it cooked out on each side.

Continue this process until you are out of ingredients. Place your finished products on a plate with a paper towel to dry them of excess oil.

As you can see, I doubled down on tortillas because I messed up.

But if you followed directions, they should look like this

Have a couple paper towels ready! The salsas were easy too. The green one is avocado, lime and vegan sour cream. The red one is vegan sour cream and some red taco sauce I bought at Trader Joe’s. If you’re able to roll your tortillas, these can also be flautas! But like, I said - I messed that up.

Pozole Rojo

September 10, 2019 by Joe Hehl

Pozole Rojo is a delicious, hearty, rich, moderately time-consuming dish. It’s perfect for colder months or any month if you don’t let outside temperatures determine your meals. I’m going to use the word simmer a lot so prepare yourself for that. You’re going to be on a low flame most of the time, so here is the word simmer again.

Pozole Rojo with jackfruit instead of chicken. Make sure you use the big pot.

POZOLE ROJO

prep time: 30 minutes
cook time: 90 minutes

The weather said it was supposed to be 67º but it ended up being 77º today. I already bought all the ingredients so I’m making pozole, goddamnit.

Before we jump in, I’m going to show you how I prepare jackfruit no matter what the dish is. I buy the jackfruit-in-a-can from Trader Joe’s. It’s $4 for two of them and it’s way less tedious than prepping an actual jackfruit. If you want to do it that way, more power to you.

What you’ll need:

canned jackfruit (2)
a strainer and a towel (or paper towels)

Open your cans of jackfruit, and toss the contents into a strainer. Rinse them off and start to pull them apart so they look reminiscent of pulled chicken. After you’ve ravaged your jackfruit, put them in a towel and press them as dry as you can.

Rinsed and pulled jackfruit in the strainer. I don’t mind the seeds, you can pick them out if you do.

Now put them into a bowl and toss them in whatever seasoning (or sauce) tailored to the appropriate dish, In this case, I doused the jackfruit in salt, pepper, lime, chipotle and adobo seasoning.

What you’ll need:

salt, pepper, lime, adobo, chipotle seasoning
olive oil

Add a dab of olive oil and dust the jackfruit in the aforementioned seasonings. Now that your jackfruit is dusted in the aforementioned seasonings, you’re going to make a rojo sauce. This sounds intimidating but it’s not so bad. Again, I’ll be breaking this up bit by bit per section of the recipe. Also rojo means red.

What you’ll need:

dried chiles (chile de arbol / chile ancho)
garlic
onion
a blender
some bowls

Take five of your ancho chilies, cut the stems off and remove the seeds inside. They typically fall out pretty easily. This is so you don’t burn your mouth later. Do the same to about seven or eight of the arbol chilies, depending on the size. Put both gutted chilies into a small bowl. Then you’re going to take your garlic apart and add that to the bowl too. Finally, take half of your white onion, dice that up and put it in there too.

I emphasize “half” because the other half will be used as topping later. Or maybe you have more than one onion.

Boil a small pot of water and add your bowl of chilies, garlic and onion into the boiling water. You want to soften them and then blend them into a sauce.

All of the chilies, onion and garlic in hot water. Don’t breathe this in please.

While your soon-to-be rojo sauce is in boiling water, you’re going to get a much larger pot ready, for this is where the entirety of the dish will end up. Once your mixture is soft, strain and toss your chilies, garlic and onion into a blender. Add most of the water from the boil. Add more if needed as you blend the mixture into your sauce.

Scary red death sauce. Pulse until smooth. Again, add water if mixture is too thick.

Now you’re going to get your hominy ready. This will be in a large pot and is where the majority of the pozole preparation will take place.

What you’ll need:

a large pot, like the one I keep talking about
canned white hominy (2)
vegetable broth (2)
salt, pepper, lime, oregano

The hominy portion of the dish is the most time consuming because you will be simmering most of the time. But while the broth is being simmered, you can get a bunch of other stuff done.

Put both containers of vegetable broth into your large pot. Start with a medium flame. Drain and rinse your hominy off and add it to the broth. Bring the flame down to a little less than you have it now. Add salt, pepper, oregano and a nice squeeze of lime.

Now that you have broth warming up and rojo sauce prepped, you’re going to cook your jackfruit.

Oil a pan and add your jackfruit in. Cook thoroughly and add salt and pepper to taste. Adobo too if you want. Once your jackfruit is cooked out, add your rojo sauce directly into the pan and allow that to simmer just like your big pot of broth. So much simmering!

Now the toppings for pozole are just as important as its contents. While your jackfruit (in rojo) are simmering alongside your broth (with hominy) you can begin to prepare the toppings for your pozole.

What you’ll need:

radishes
onion (the other half from earlier)
cilantro
cabbage
avocado & sour cream (optional but you’d be missing out)
tostadas

Clean all of the things that need cleaning. Especially that cilantro. Dice your radishes thin and your onion moderately fine. Trim the cilantro off the stems. Cut the cabbage however you cut cabbage.

I waited til the end to open the avocados so they didn’t turn to mush. Cut up some limes.

I used one of the limes for a beer I was drinking

Now you have your toppings ready to go for after the master simmer is complete. Take the jackfruit (in rojo) and add it directly into the large pot. Give it a good stir, turn up the flame a tiny bit and simmer (this time with a lid.)

Adding the jackfruit will add a nice color to your broth. Careful not to splash yourself! Add a lid and let this do its thing for an hour (or so)

Now you have time to knock out some of your dishes or check your instagram. Let the large pot simmer for about an hour or so. You want the flavors to mesh and for the contents to become dense and tender. Also the color of the broth is now red! Also I’m sorry for using the word “simmer” so often, I can’t think of a better word.

Now that it’s been an hour or so,

Serve the pozole into a bowl and garnish with the toppings from earlier. You should have quite a bit of pozole and it freezes quite nicely, whatever you don’t finish. Assuming you used your time wisely and cleaned up some dishes, you can go to sleep on the couch now.

Now I dare you to go back and eat some of those chile seeds

Vegan Chicken & Waffles

September 04, 2019 by Joe Hehl

For my second trick, I will show you how to make vegan chicken and waffles out of some weird shit. There are oyster mushrooms and applesauce in this recipe. There is thyme in the waffle batter because it is always thyme for the percolator.

Vegan Chicken and Waffles. Because “Fried Oyster Mushrooms and Waffles” sounds kinda dumb.

IMG_8505 copy.jpg — VEGAN CHICKEN AND WAFFLES

prep time: 45 minutes
cook time: 20 minutes

Which came first, the “chicken” or the waffle?
In this case, it’s the “chicken.”

What you’ll need:

oyster mushrooms
oat flour
miyoko’s butter
almond milk
salt, pepper, cayenne, garlic powder, cumin, nutmeg
frank’s red hot
bread crumbs
patience
a couple of nice bowls to mix stuff in
olive oil

First you’re gonna make a dry season. Use a little more than a tablespoon of each, but you’re going to put salt, pepper, cayenne, garlic powder, cumin and nutmeg into a bowl. Mix it up a little bit and then sift some oat flour into there. Always, always sift so you don’t get clumps. Toss the flour around with the seasonings.

Then you’re gonna make a batter. The batter is the exact stuff from the dry seasoning but now we’re gonna add two cups of almond milk (or a little more if the batter is thicc) with a few healthy dashes of frank’s. In a separate vessel, melt some miyoko’s butter in there so you can easily add it to your batter. You don’t have to use miyoko’s but it’s my vegan butter of choice.

If you did the math correctly, you should have two bowls full of stuff. Not counting the butter vessel. Now get a third bowl out of your cabinet because you’re going to fill that one with bread crumbs.

Keep the crumbs handy because you will be adding more to the bowl as you continue to batter your “chicken.”

Now you should have three bowls.

Flour and seasonings
Batter
Bread Crumbs

Have a plate ready. Take your oyster mushrooms and dip them in the same order as bulleted. Dry, Wet, Crumbs. Coat them nice and evenly in the dry flour and then transfer to the batter. Drip off any excess so you don’t get your bread crumbs all gross. Roll the battered oyster mushroom in the crumbs evenly and set on the plate.

In a moderately deep pan, heat up some oil and get a baking rack ready to put the cooked mushrooms on. I keep mine on the grates of the stove I’m not using to minimize mess.

Cook and turn until the oyster mushrooms are nice and crispy. The crispiness will help them maintain a bit of sauce without getting soggy.

Once the mushrooms are cooked out, set them on a rack to drip out and cool off. After that, throw them in a bowl with some frank’s and toss them around for a second.

This concludes the “chicken” part of the recipe.

The second part of the recipe concerns the waffles.

What you’ll need

oat flour
baking powder
pastry flour
flax seed
applesauce (for real)
salt
thyme
almond milk
miyoko’s butter

Now you’re going to use more bowls and make a bigger mess.

Add four tablespoons of flax seed to a bowl. Add water and whip that mixture up until it has an egg-like consistency. Now to that, add half a cup of almond milk. Using the same method of heating up some butter separately, heat up some butter separately. Again, this will make it easier to mix in with other stuff.

Now you have a mixture of flax seed, almond milk, miyoko’s butter and water. Set that aside as you prepare your flour mixture.

Sift out a cup and a half of oat flour into another bowl. but one of those bowls that has a spout on it, because this will contain your finished batter and it will be easier to transfer it into a waffle iron. In that same bowl, add half a cup of pastry flour. Then add a tablespoon of baking powder and a healthy pinch of salt. Mix that up a little bit and then you are going to add your flax mixture to your flour. Keep whipping it and continue to add almond milk as it thickens up. I got about 3/4 of a cup of almond milk in there during the process. Then add one generous tablespoon of applesauce, because vegans add weird shit to everything.

The last piece of the waffle batter puzzle is thyme. Do that cool thing where you run the thyme through a strainer like they do in those Tasty videos. That will keep stems out of your batter.

Thyme adds a savory aspect to the waffle and you gotta trust me on this!

After you mix up the thyme into the batter, heat up your waffle iron. And I certainly hope you have one because you made it this far. Spray the inside of it with olive oil. Now get that thing preheated and pour your batter in there and follow whatever directions your waffle iron has.

They should come out something like this. You can hardly see the applesauce!

Now that you’ve completed your waffles, plate those suckers with some butter and maple syrup. Toss your oyster mushroom “chicken” on there with a little extra frank’s for measure. Now hurry up and eat because you have a lot of dishes to do.

I added thyme to the plate for extra Instagram likes. Works like a charm.

Nashville Hot Tofu

August 28, 2019 by Joe Hehl

This is my first published recipe and I’m not going to post a five paragraph preamble about how I went on a vacation to Nashville in 2013 and it changed my outlook on life forever because I’ve never been to Nashville. And I don't like lengthy preambles.

That being said, I’m still figuring out all the bells and whistles of this website. I’ll probably edit it one thousand times a day. So forgive my wonky line breaks and formatting. Recipes will be updated with exact amounts of spices, et cetera, when I go back and trial each of these again. This is new to me.

Christening this new website with a recipe on Nashville Hot Tofu. It’s not very difficult and it is delicious.

IMG_1527 2.jpg — NASHVILLE HOT TOFU

prep time: 20 minutes
cook time: 40-42 minutes

What you’ll need:

extra firm tofu
cashew milk
miyoko’s butter
salt, pepper, cayenne, garlic powder, cumin, oregano, nutmeg, cinnamon, brown sugar, smoked paprika, more cayenne
frank’s red hot
potato starch

First and foremost, preheat your oven to 400º and press your block of tofu.

Then you’re gonna make a batter. The batter is cashew milk, miyokos, salt & pepper, frank’s, a dash of cayenne, cumin and a little bit of (sifted) potato starch.

Mix all of that stuff up so it’s nice and even.

Second and foremost, the dry rub, the most important aspect of the recipe is — a lot of cayenne pepper. Like, a lot. Then garlic powder, salt & pepper, cumin, oregano, nutmeg, cinnamon, smoked paprika and a little bit more cayenne.

Get that dry mixture tossed evenly and add a heaping amount of brown sugar. This will offset the heat and help your taste buds from falling off. It helps to sift the brown sugar too to prevent clumps.

After your tofu is pressed and drained of all liquid, cut it rectangularly as pictured below. Coat each piece in the batter and then shake off any excess.

Toss the battered tofu square into the dry rub and coat as evenly as possible. Repeat this process until you can’t anymore. Lay down some parchment paper on a baking sheet and bake them @ 400º for 30 minutes, flip them and bake for 10 more minutes.

*I always end my baking endeavors with a quick 2 minute broil to get a little char on top.*

After that 40-42 minutes have gone by, toast some bread, throw some vegan mayo on there with red onion, sautéed kale and pickles. Add tofu.

There you have a Nashville Hot Tofu.