I Can't Believe It's Vegan! Volume 4 – All American Comfort Food Truck Stop, Diner and Lunch Counter Classics: Our Top 10 All-Time Favorite Kitchen-Tested, Family-Feeding, Down Home Delicious American Road Food Recipes is copyright © 2013 by Felix Whelan and Carol Ann Whelan.
Published on Smashwords by NuEvan Press.
All Rights Reserved.
License Notes:
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Books by Felix and Carol Ann Whelan
I Can't Believe It's Vegan! Volume 1 – All American Crock Pot Classics
I Can't Believe It's Vegan! Volume 2 – All American Comfort Food Entrees
I Can't Believe It's Vegan! Volume 3 – All American Comfort Food Desserts
I Can't Believe It's Vegan! Volume 4 – All American Comfort Food Truck Stop, Diner and Lunch Counter Classics
I Can't Believe It's Not Tuna!: 55 Vegetarian Recipes for Mock Tuna Casseroles, Sandwiches, Melts, Burgers, Salads, Pasta Dishes, and More!
Preface: What Is "Comfort Food?"
Introduction: "Meatless" Does Not Equal "Boring"
Make Your Own 100% Vegan Mayo, Egg Replacer, Swiss Cheese, Ham and Bacon!
Classic Western Egg Sandwich
The Roadside Rueben
Woolworths Lunch Counter Ham Salad Sandwich
Bacon Mushroom Swiss Burger
Texas Hot Wieners
The All-American Blue Plate Special
Meatloaf and Brown Gravy
Easy Vegan Salisbury Steak
Chicken Fried Steak with Southern White Gravy
Meet the Whelans
A Big Thank You from Felix and Carol Ann!
The phrase "comfort food" gets bandied about a lot on TV cooking shows these days, graces the cover of many a bestselling cookbook, and even appears on restaurant menus... But what does it mean?
Webster's dictionary first included the term in 1977. Here's their definition:
food prepared in a traditional style having a usually nostalgic or sentimental appeal
I like this definition from Dictionary.com even better:
simple, home-style food that brings comforting thoughts of home or childhood.
I was born in 1962, and did the bulk of my "growing up" in the 1970s, in a Midwest, USA small town. It was a simpler time, and in many ways, a better time. There were only three channels on anybody's TV – NBC, CBS and ABC, and consequently, everybody watched the same shows. We all listened to the same music, went to the same movies (VCRs had not been invented yet, let alone DVDs and Blue Ray players), and to a remarkable degree, we all ate the same home cooked meals. And in that inexplicable way the smell of roses can carry you back to the night you first fell in love, or a picture from a childhood Christmas can reduce one to unexpected tears, the home cooked meals we remember from childhood have an almost magical power to transport us backward in time, to the happier, less complicated days of our youth.
That's comfort food. If you're an American Baby Boomer, chances are you and I are talking about the same dishes when we apply that term – pot roast, beef stew, chicken and dumplings, tuna casserole...
But wait! you might reasonably object at this point, this is a VEGAN cookbook! Those foods are all meat! Don't vegans and vegetarians have to swear off American cuisine forever? Is it even possible to live as a vegan in the USA, and still eat any of the foods we grew up with?
Yes it is! You did not exchange your credentials as an American for your "vegan ID." You can be both! This cookbook series will show you the way. "The way home" might be overstated... But the way, nonetheless. The foods you remember from childhood, especially if you grew up in the 1970s, are all here, recreated in a way that preserves their "comfort," but eliminates all animal products. This is guilt-free nostalgia at its best!
Volume One of the I Can't Believe It's Vegan series explored meals prepared in that 1970s kitchen standard, the Crock Pot. Volume Two focused on dinner main courses. Volume three featured vegan dessert favorites. This volume dives headlong, not just into "lunch," generically, but specifically into that staple of the American culinary landscape, truck stop/diner/lunch counter "road food" cuisine. Future volumes will explore outdoor cooking, holiday menus, and more.
To be notified when future volumes are released, visit www.FelixatFifty.com, and enter your email address in the sign-up box.
Probably the biggest obstacle preventing most Americans, even those who feel powerfully drawn to the ethics of a meat-free lifestyle, from going vegetarian or full vegan is fear of the unknown.
Will giving up meat mean I have to eat lettuce and bean sprouts all day? Isn't all vegan food super-expensive weird stuff you have to buy at a health food store? What about the meals I loved as a kid that I still love... Do I have to surrender everything...? I'll get bored! I can't do it!
With this cookbook (or any cookbook by Felix and Carol Ann Whelan) in your hands, yes you can!
Carol Ann and I grew up in the American Midwest during the 1970s, members of normal, Middle Class, meat-loving families, raised on a steady diet of good, old-fashioned all-American comfort food. "American cuisine" is in our genes, so when we first went vegetarian (each of us, individually, before we met) we had the same doubts any other red-blooded American would have at the thought of exchanging burgers and fried chicken, beef stew and pot roast, sloppy Joes and meatball sandwiches for "rabbit food"...
But, as it turns out, that wasn't the bargain at all. The truth is that you can, in fact, live life as a vegan, but still eat like an American! This book will prove it to you.
What Carol Ann and I have discovered over the years, and will be sharing with you in this series of cookbooks, is that we have yet to discover a single American Classic meal that can't be re-created vegan... and taste just as good, if not better, than the original.
Not one. We keep trying, and we keep... Well... succeeding. We hope that, once you try some of the amazing recipes in this cookbook, you'll agree.
If you're not already vegetarian, we hope these recipes inspire you to take the plunge. If you're already vegetarian or vegan, we hope you'll cook these dishes for your carnivorous friends, and let them experience first hand that going meatless requires no sacrifice of flavor or food favorites at all!
The Whelan family is vegetarian – technically lacto-ovo vegetarian – but we are not vegan. That means we do not eat any meat, fish or fowl, nor do we consume products with ingredients that require an animal's death to obtain, such as gelatin or beef or chicken stock. We do, however, eat eggs (from our own pampered 100% free range hens) and dairy products like cheese.
Someone following a vegan diet eschews all animal products, including eggs, milk and cheese, but also things like honey. Veganism is really a subset of vegetarianism (all vegans are vegetarian, but not all vegetarians are vegan... Remember sets and subsets from grade school?).
As we developed the recipes in this book for our family, our concern was making sure they were vegetarian. But having accomplished that goal, it only takes a little bit of research and experimentation to take them all the way to vegan, finding suitable substitutes for any eggs and dairy.
And out of love for our vegan brethren (and "sisteren," I suppose...), we have done just that for this series. Every recipe to follow is either full vegan as presented, or vegetarian with well-researched suggestions for "veganizing" specific ingredients.
There is nothing in this book that cannot be enjoyed by every vegetarian everywhere, no matter how strict their observance! Everyone is welcome!
This is a cookbook series focused on American Cuisine. American Cuisine is, almost by definition, "meat heavy." You can't just leave the meat out of most classic American dishes and reach the same result. "Pot roast" without the "roast" is just vegetables. Tasty vegetables in gravy, but still just vegetables. If that had the power to win anybody over, the whole world would have gone vegetarian a long time ago...
So we turn to meat substitutes. All of the recipes in this cookbook call for one meat substitute or another, so as to keep them vegan, but still grant them their unique American appeal. Some recipes call for readily available commercial products, like Boca crumbles, Morningstar Chik'n Strips, or Soyrizo. Others tell you how to create your own meat substitutes using tofu, TVP, vital wheat gluten, etc.
It is a common vegan attitude (at least on the Internet!) to reject meat substitutes, following the reasoning that consuming vegetable products that are intentionally crafted to look and taste like animal products is hypocritical. If that is your opinion, I sincerely hope you will at least sample one or two of the recipes in this cookbook. We just might change your mind!
They way I see it, if people who think they can't live without the taste and texture of meat discover they can satisfy their cravings with plant-based substitutes, it makes embracing vegetarianism easier, and more and more people will do it. "Meat substitutes" will eventually become just "meat." In the future vegan world we are all working toward, no one will even remember that "meat" ever came from our animal friends. "Meat has always been a soy product, right...?"
That's the dream, anyway. Help me make it a reality!
Most cookbooks preface every recipe with an estimate of how long it'll take to prep and cook the dish, and how many people you can expect it to serve. Many also provide a nutritional breakdown, showing how many calories are in the finished product, how much fat, sodium, vitamin C, etc...
I don't do that. I reject the first two factors, prep/cook time and number of servings, because my long experience in the kitchen tells me both numbers are absolutely useless.
How long does it take to chop an onion? Depends on how fast you chop. Are you using a knife or a food processor?
Number of servings is even worse. Are you serving Prima ballerinas of NFL football players? Picky six year olds or ravenous teenagers? I don't think I've ever seen "serves 8" on a recipe and had it serve more than four.
Both of these are meaningless numbers, so I just don't go there...
Here's my suggestion: Prepare each recipe the first time, as written. Then you'll know how much it makes and how many of the real people in your real life it will serve. Next time you make it, double or halve the recipe, depending on your own clear observation.
Now let's talk nutritional breakdown. In this series of cookbooks, we're focusing on American food – American comfort food for the most part, at that. American comfort food is designed to taste good, take you back to your childhood, and to be soul-satisfying to folks like you and me who grew up in the USA. And I love that! So do you, or you would not have read this far...
But American comfort food is not "health food." An honest nutritional breakdown could only serve to discourage us from our pursuit of culinary pleasure. And who wants that?
Rest assured that these vegan versions of classic American dishes are a whole lot healthier than their carnivorous cousins... But let's not count calories, OK? Let's just agree to enjoy ourselves and be proud of our heritage!
God bless America! Let's eat!
This introduction, "Meatless" Does Not Equal "Boring," is a general introduction to the whole series of recipe collections Carol Ann and I plan to release in the months and years to follow. In the spirit of "reduce, reuse, recycle," these same first thousand words or so are going to open every volume, so folks discovering the series at any point along the way get to "start at the beginning," so to speak. No matter what door a new reader enters through, we all start on the same page!
Point being, next time you purchase a book in the I Can't Believe It's Vegan! series, feel free to skip the introduction and move straight to the recipes. Thanks!
And now, without further adieu...
In my experience, there are two kinds of vegans in the world – those who spend tons of money in places like Whole Foods stocking their larders with all manner of expensive, fancy gourmet vegan ingredients, and those, like Carol Ann and myself, who do our best with the basics we find at the "ordinary" corner grocer, and where that fails, we make our own (or do without)...
There are a number of ingredients used in the recipes to follow that you probably won't find at your local Wal Mart. Expensive specialty versions can, of course, be purchased off the shelf at Whole Foods and other health food markets. You can order them on the Internet as well (preferably through the Felix at Fifty Webstore)...
Or just make your own, for pennies on the dollar! Here are the recipes:
Ingredients:
10 ounces silken tofu (a little more than half a 16 oz block. Make sure you use silken, not firm, tofu)
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 Tablespoon white vinegar
5 teaspoons brown sugar
3 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon salt
A little water if needed to assist blending. Add no more than 1 Tablespoon at a time. Don't let the mix get too thin.
Directions:
1. Put everything together at once in a food processor. Blend until smooth and creamy.
2. Play with the ingredients until you get a flavor you love.
3. Store in the fridge for at least a couple of hours before use, so the flavors can blend.
4. Stores about 3 days in the fridge. After that, just make a new batch!
NOTE: There are plenty of non-tofu-based vegan mayo recipes available in cookbooks and on the Internet, so if you're avoiding soy, do a little web-surfing before you pay big bucks for the commercial stuff. I chose this recipe for this book because it's the one I use. I love the mayo it makes, and it's crazy-easy to make! Just know it's not your only option…
My local rural Wal Mart supercenter sells flax meal, so I'll bet yours does, too. Once upon a time, it might have been a "hard to find product," but no more!
If I seem to mention Wal Mart a lot, it's not because I own stock or anything, it's just the only grocery store we have out in the country where I live!
This recipe replaces one egg. Double, triple of quadruple as needed!
Ingredients:
3 Tablespoons water
Mayonnaise
1 Tablespoon flax meal
Directions:
1. If you can only find flax seed instead of prepared flax meal, just grind the seeds into a meal in a blender or spice grinder.
2. Put the 3 Tablespoons water into a small bowl or cup. Add the flax meal and mix together with a fork.
3. Let the mixture sit for about 10 minutes until it develops a gelatinous, "raw egg" texture.
This is actually a Swiss cheese sauce, so don't expect it to harden up like deli cheese slices. It's fabulous on Rueben's or other "melty" sandwiches, though, with darned near exactly the right flavor!
Ingredients:
1/2 cup raw Cashews, soaked in water for 30 minutes. Salted Cashews will work, too, but expect the finished product to be a bit "saltier..." I kind of like it that way, but you be the judge!
1 Tablespoon white or yellow Miso (don't use red Miso, as it will turn your cheese an unappetizing dark color).
1 Tablespoon Tahini
1/3 cup Nutritional Yeast
1 Tablespoon Dijon Mustard
1 teaspoon Onion Powder
1 teaspoon Garlic Salt
3 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
1/4 cup Water
NOTE: If you can't find Miso where you live, just leave it out of the recipe. Use salted Cashews to make up for the Miso's "saltiness," and add an extra Tablespoon of Tahini. It should turn out fine!
Directions:
1. Drain the cashews. Put them in a food processor and pulse just a few times.
2. Add the remaining ingredients except for the water. Pulse until well combined.
3. Add the water a little bit at a time, while pulsing, until a "soft cheese" consistency is attained. The less water the better. You do not have to use the full 1/4 cup.
You can slice this vegan ham deli-thin or chunky-style for sandwiches, add it to pizzas as "Canadian Bacon," even serve it as a loaf on holidays. The more I work with seitan, the more impressed I become with its near-magical properties as a culinary chameleon. This stuff is amazing!
Ingredients:
12 oz firm tofu. An equivalent amount of white cannellini beans mashed into a paste should work, as well, for folks avoiding soy products. I haven't tried it that way, but I see no reason that it wouldn't work…
3 1/4 cups vital wheat gluten
1 3/4 cups water
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 Tablespoon salt
2 Tablespoons hickory liquid smoke
2 Tablespoons maple syrup
Red food coloring
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine everything except the vital wheat gluten in a blender. Puree until very smooth. Add red food coloring just a drop or two at a time as you blend, until you achieve a pinkish hue that looks like "ham" to you.
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine the contents of the blender with the vital wheat gluten. Mix with your hands until it forms a nice dough. Knead vigorously for at least 5 minutes. If you have a mixer with a dough-hook that can knead the dough for you, even better. Let it go at least 5 minutes on the highest speed until the dough is smooth. Then let the dough rest for about 10 minutes before moving on.
4. Divide the dough into two equal pieces. Roll each piece into a log, and then wrap it in heavy duty foil. Twist the ends like a tootsie roll. A short, thick log is better than a long thin one – you're making a "loaf" here, not a sausage!
5. Now steam for one hour. How you steam your logs is up to you and the equipment at your disposal. Some folks have big fancy steamers made just for this purpose, and that works great… I don't own special equipment, so I steam seitan using a large stockpot with a few of inches of water in the bottom. I have a stainless steel colander that is just the right size to slide down into the pot and catch on the rim, hovering over the water quite stably. The stockpot lid fits right on top. Turn up the heat and steam away!
6. Move the logs from the steamer to a cookie sheet. DO NOT REMOVE THE FOIL! Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. The seitan will swell and press against the foil as it bakes. That's good, you want that!
7. Let cool to room temperature before handling. This recipe makes a lot, so unless you plan to serve your vegan ham in whole logs for a main course meal, divide it into segments, and keep one in the fridge for immediate use. Put the rest in freezer bags or containers and freeze till you need them!
I know a lot of grocery stores now regularly stock Morningstar and other brands of "fakin' bacon," but it's expensive, and to my tastes, leaves a lot to be desired, flavorwise. This recipe is so easy to make, and comes out so "bacony" that, once you taste it, you'll never settle for the processed stuff again! And you'll save a bundle, too!
Ingredients:
4 Tablespoons soy sauce
2 Tablespoons maple syrup
1 Tablespoon liquid smoke
1 Tablespoon nutritional yeast
2 cups unsweetened shredded coconut flakes
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a medium-sized mixing bowl stir together the soy sauce, maple syrup, liquid smoke and nutritional yeast.
3. Add the coconut and stir until thoroughly coated.
4. Spread the mixture across the bottom of a Pyrex baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Keep a close eye out that it doesn't burn. After 10 minutes, stir everything up and return to oven for approximately 3 minutes. Repeat this stirring then 3 minute baking routine until your "fakin' bacon" starts to get crispy and to darken up just a bit. Don't burn it though. It's kind of tricky, but so very worth the effort!
5. When you're satisfied more heat would be a bad thing (trust your instincts), remove from oven and set out to cool. Amazingly, the cooling process is as much a part of this recipe as was baking. As your "fakin' bacon" cools, it will crisp up all by itself to bacony perfection!
NOTE: This vegan bacon smells like bacon, tastes like bacon, but looks... well, like shredded coconut. But remember, it's not your eyes you're trying to fool – it's your taste buds! And for flavor and "mouth feel," especially when served on sandwiches, burgers, crumbled into salads, etc., this recipe can't be beat! What you don't use immediately, just freeze in baggies for later use.
It's 10:00 AM. You've been driving all night. Too late for breakfast, too early for lunch, and you're starving for both… Oh, look! There's an exit ahead, with a Flying J truck stop on the right and a non-descript diner on the left whose sign just says FOOD … Either direction you turn, you're saved! For breakfast, lunch, or both at once, nothing beats a roadside egg sandwich, served with piping hot home fries! Mmm-Mmm-Good!
NOTE: Growing up in the Midwest, when I think "egg sandwich," I picture one built around two pan-fried eggs, their whites charred crispy around the edges… Yum! However, I have yet to create an even acceptable (let alone appetizing) vegan "fried egg." I've seen versions on the Internet and in the books of famous author and, while I'm sure they all taste great, let's be honest – they look awful!
But, luckily for us starving all night vegan drivers, not all egg sandwiches call for fried eggs. Diners down west offer their own amazing delicacy, the "Western Egg Sandwich," consisting of scrambled eggs, which are easy to convincingly recreate vegan, served on toast, with onions, peppers and ham. This recipe combines that "best of the west" recipe with all the artery-clogging pleasure of a traditional Midwest fried egg sandwich… OMG, are you in for a treat!
Ingredients:
2/3 block silken tofu (about 10 oz)
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons nutritional yeast
Salt and pepper to taste
Vegan margarine (just keep the tub out – you're gonna need it!)
Half a small, yellow onion, sliced into thin rings
Half a bell pepper (green or red, your choice!), cored, seeded, and diced
Your favorite sandwich bread, toasted
Directions:
1. In a small bowl, combine tofu, turmeric, vinegar, nutritional yeast, salt and pepper. Mash gently with a fork. Don't go crazy on it – you're aiming for a "scrambled eggs" texture, not anything pureed looking. Chunky is good!
2. Melt some vegan margarine in a large skillet. Sauté the onions until they soften, then add the diced bell pepper and cook a few minutes more. Remove to a plate and set aside. Leave the buttery-oniony juices in the pan! If the skillet looks dry, melt some more vegan margarine in there. If not, don't… Folks have differing opinions on how "greasy" is good and how much is too much… You be the judge!
3. Add the tofu mixture to the skillet and scramble gently amongst the hot margarine and onion juice until it starts to look and smell like real scrambled eggs.
4. Toast your bread. Once toasted, generously coat one side of each slice (the side that will be inside the sandwich) with a generous layer of vegan margarine, followed by an equally generous layer of vegan mayo.
5. Assemble the sandwiches: Toast (buttered side up), "eggs," onion/bell pepper mix, a thick slice of vegan ham, toast (buttered side down).
6. For a truly decadent experience, top the vegan ham with a sprinkling of vegan fakin' bacon before closing up the sandwich.
7. Savor the flavor! Serve with home fries.
Those of you who spent time as lacto-ovo vegetarians before you went full vegan (to explain the Swiss cheese in this story), give me a show of hands if something like this has ever happened to you…
You're travelling, you're hungry, it's late… Up ahead is any classic American roadside chain restaurant manned by teenagers earning about half the minimum wage – Denny's, Applebee's, back in the day, maybe even a Howard Johnson's or a Stuckey's… You pull off the highway, settle into a booth, and order what looks best on the menu, a hot, juicy Rueben sandwich, with just one tiny special request – leave off the corned beef!
The waiter looks at you like you just placed your order in Swahili. "Excuse me?"
"I'd like a Rueben, hold the corned beef."
"Would you like a different kind of beef? There's no real corn in corned beef, you know…"
"No, I'm vegetarian. I'd be okay with corn, just not the beef."
"You want me to put corn on it?"
"No. That was a metaphor. Please bring me a regular Rueben sandwich. Just don't put the meat on it."
"Do you want the meat on the side, like in a bowl, or something?"
A vision of Jack Nicholson clearing the table in "Five Easy Pieces" leaps into your mind…
"No, seriously," you say, "I don't want the meat at all. You can have it."
The waiter frowns. "So, do you want the sauerkraut?"
"Yes."
"The Swiss cheese?"
"Yes."
"The Thousand Island?"
"Yes."
"But not the corned beef?"
"Exactly. I don't want any meat of any kind on my sandwich. I do want the bread, though, you forgot to mention that."
"The bread. Right."
"Lightly toasted, please."
"Toasted. Right…" He is scribbling in his order pad, backing slowly away...
When your order finally arrives, at least twenty minutes later than it should have taken, considering the small crowd, it's a standard Roadside Rueben sandwich, piled high with corned beef. Your waiter's shift has ended and he is nowhere to be seen.
Is that snickering you hear coming from the kitchen?
You slide out of the booth, on out to the car, and back onto the dark, hungry highway, whispering a curse beneath your breath on all the rubes out there who still think "vegetarian" is something you become after a traumatic brain injury…
OK, back to the present. That teenaged waiter is surely a grown-up by now, and I want you to invite him over this weekend. I want you to feed him this Rueben sandwich. Don't tell him its vegan. After all these years, he'll be so happy. He'll think he won the argument. He'll think he converted you to his carnivorous ways. He'll think, "This is the best corned beef I've ever tasted…"
Is that you, snickering in the kitchen?
The corned beef:
Ingredients:
1/2 cup chickpeas
1 Tablespoon oil
1 cup water
2 teaspoons seasoned salt
1 teaspoon regular salt
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon dried mustard
1 1/4 cups vital wheat gluten
Directions:
1. Puree the chick peas in a food processor until smooth. Add all remaining ingredients except the vital wheat gluten and blend.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the chick pea mixture and the vital wheat gluten. Work into a dough with your hands. Knead for 5 minutes by hand to get everything mixed.
3. Shape the dough into a rectangular loaf and wrap tightly in heavy duty foil, double folding the seams for proper steaming.
4. Using the steaming method from the vegan ham recipe, steam the wrapped dough for 45-60 minutes. The seitan will swell against the foil, so don't freak out when that happens. It's part of the process. If your seitan doesn't swell, keep steaming until it does.
5. Remove from the steamer, and let cool. Remove foil. Slice into razor thin slices, just like restaurant corned beef!
For the sandwich:
Ingredients:
Vegan corned beef
Sauerkraut sufficient for the number of sandwiches you are making, squeezed dry
Thousand Island dressing, which you can make by combining 1/4 cup vegan mayo with 1 Tablespoon ketchup and 2 Tablespoons pickle relish
Rye bread. I prefer dark pumpernickel for Ruebens, but use light rye if you prefer.
Vegan margarine
Directions:
Note: You're going to build these sandwiches right on the griddle or in the skillet, so have everything ready and within reach before you begin this final stage.
1. Get the griddle or a large skillet good and hot on the stovetop.
1. Slather two slices of bread with vegan margarine. Put these on the griddle butter side down, like with grilled cheese. Spoon some Thousand Island on top and spread evenly with the back of the spoon. Pile on the vegan corned beef. Add sauerkraut, then a generous helping of vegan Swiss cheese. Top with more vegan corned beef, a splash of Thousand Island. Slather margarine on one side of the top pieces of bread and apply, butter side up.
2. Cook several minutes per side, flipping the sandwiches with a spatula, until nicely browned.
3. Serve immediately!
I grew up in a small town barely 30 miles outside the St. Louis city limit, but for all intents and purposes, the "Gateway to the West" might as well have been a million miles away. If we twisted the rabbit ears just right, we could get four St. Louis stations on our 19" black & white TV – the three major networks, plus one UHF station we loved for playing "The Rifleman," "Fury" and "The Lone Ranger" reruns early weekday mornings, and "Creature Feature" monster flicks on Sunday afternoons. But visiting, as a rule, was right out. Mom considered the city "dangerous," and, in her opinion, there was nothing there worth risking life and limb to see…
Except once a year, at Christmas, when Mom screwed up her courage, bundled up her kids (Gramma usually came along to ride a heroic shotgun in the front passenger seat), packed us into the Rambler, and set out bravely across the snowy landscape on our annual holiday pilgrimage to St. Louis's legendary Downtown Famous Barr, to view the blocks-long, animated Christmas window display.
Being poor, we never actually entered Famous Barr to shop, but after a glorious hour on the sidewalk, ogling their mechanical Santa's and reindeer and angels and elves hawking every imaginable hot toy for rich kids that year, we would trundle off, elated, to stretch our hard-earned, small town holiday dollars at that equally famous Downtown St. Louis retail anchor – Woolworths.
Woolworths invented the five and dime store concept, and to my mind, did it best, even well into the Eighties. In 1970, a small town kid at Woolworths with five dollars in his pocket could find Christmas-worthy gifts for every member of his family and still leave change sufficient to procure a little treat for himself… Oh, the anticipation!
And then there was the world famous Woolworth's lunch counter, where the most expensive item was the full "Roast Beef Dinner" at $1.10, with everything else under a buck, including a fifty cent white bread, diagonal-cut sandwich smothered in glorious, chunky-pink, pickley-sweet Ham Salad...
There was nothing else like it anywhere on Earth. I looked forward to that heavenly ham salad lunch as the glowing pink center of the holiday season. To this day, I can see and taste it in my mind as clearly as I can picture the plastic needles of Mom's first artificial Christmas tree, or remember every word to every song on Perry Como's 1968 classic "The Perry Como Christmas Album"…
Here's the recipe, done, of course, 100% vegan. It's my gift to you! Merry Christmas! Enjoy!
Ingredients:
1 healthy slice vegan ham, diced into tiny cubes. It's important to dice the ham. Chop or grind it and you'll wind up with ham salad, alright, but not Woolworths ham salad! When recreating an American classic, authenticity matters!
1/4 cup celery, finely diced
3 Tablespoons sweet pickle relish
2 Tablespoons pimentos
1/2 cup vegan mayo
1/4 cup pineapple juice
Salt and pepper to taste
Your favorite sandwich bread
Directions:
1. In a large mixing bowl, combine everything except the pineapple juice, salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly.
2. Add the pineapple juice one Tablespoon at a time until you reach a sweetness you like. You do not necessarily need to use the whole 1/4 cup. Woolworths original ham salad was made with salad dressing (like Miracle Whip) instead of mayo. The pineapple juice is just to sweeten things up the way those high sugar content commercial salad dressings would have. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
3. Spread on bread. Add lettuce if you like. Be sure to cut your sandwiches diagonally (again, for authenticity…). Serve with chips and Coca-cola… Yum!
A vegetarian version of this recipe appeared in our first cookbook, I Can't Believe It's Not Tuna: 55 Vegetarian Recipes for Mock Tuna Casseroles, Sandwiches, Melts, Burgers, Salads, Pasta Dishes, and More! Here, it has been fully veganized! I've never been to New Jersey, so I don't have a long, chatty intro for this recipe. I got the carnivorous "bones" of it from a college professor who loved to wax eloquent on the pleasures of growing up in Jersey during the '50s. These tuna melts left a lasting impression on him, and I hope they will on you as well!
Ingredients:
1 16 oz can chick peas
4 good sized baby portabella mushrooms, chopped fine
1/2 cup vegan mayo
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 Tablespoon (about four healthy "pinches") granulated kelp
1/4 cup finely chopped celery
1 1/2 Tablespoons finely chopped onion
1 Tablespoon chopped parsley
3/4 teaspoon red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
Your favorite bread
Tomato slices
Vegan Swiss cheese, or any commercially available vegan cheese substitute you prefer (cheddar works fine, so long as it melts)
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven broiler.
2. Pour the chick peas into a large mixing bowl. Mash them gently by hand with the tines of a fork until there are no whole round ones left. Your end result is going to look a whole lot like flaky tuna from a can – that’s what you want!
3. Add the finely chopped portabella mushrooms, and mix thoroughly.
4. Add the vegan mayo and Dijon mustard. Mix thoroughly.
5. Add the granulated kelp and mix thoroughly. I have found that grinding the granules between two spoons (or in a mortar & pestle, if you have one) prior to adding helps release the "oceany" aroma and flavor of this versatile seaweed.
6. Stir in the celery, onion, parsley, and vinegar. Season with salt and pepper.
7. Place bread slices on a baking sheet and broil 1 minute in the preheated oven, until lightly toasted.
8. Remove the bread from the broiler, and spread with the Mock tuna mixture.
9. Top with vegan Swiss cheese or 1 slice of the vegan cheese substitute you prefer. Layer with a tomato slice, and top with more cheese.
10. Return to oven, and broil 3 to 5 minutes, until cheese is melted.
11. Serve hot.
Though I doubt many carnivores have thought this through, the truth about the traditional Bacon Mushroom Swiss Burger – the hands-down favorite on every "slow-food" (as opposed to "fast food") burger joint menu in America – is that the burger itself is the least important ingredient. What makes a BMS such an unforgettable culinary experience is biting down "to" the burger through that squishy-savory layer of melted cheese, sautéed mushrooms, caramelized onions, and the smoky maple decadence of the bacon... MMMmmm... Bacon...
Truth be told, in a traditional Bacon Mushroom Swiss Burger the toppings ARE the flavor. And in this amazing 100% vegan version, the toppings literally ARE the burger. The whole thing is made, bun to bun, from "the good stuff," with no flavor-killing, artery clogging, soul- staining anything to get in your way. All the good flavor without the bad karma... Bring it on!
Ingredients:
Olive oil (just keep the bottle handy)
1 1/2 lb. baby portabella mushrooms, roughly chopped
1/2 a sweet yellow onion, finely chopped
1/2 a sweet yellow onion (the other half of the same onion, obviously), sliced into very thin rings
3 cloves garlic, minced
2/3 cup rolled oats (old fashioned oats will work, but I recommend quick oats for the finer texture)
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
3/4 cup bread crumbs (if using a commercial brand, make sure they're vegan)
2 Tablespoons flour (for thickening)
1 Tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Flax seed egg replacer equal to 2 eggs
Burger buns, toasted
Directions:
1. Heat some olive oil in large saucepan. Sauté the chopped onions (NOT the sliced ones!) and the minced garlic together over medium heat about 10 minutes, until the onions are translucent. Add the chopped mushrooms and sauté until the mushrooms reduce. Cook off as much of the liquid they produce as you can, but don't overcook them. Move to a colander and set aside to drain and cool.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the oats, nutritional yeast, bread crumbs, flour, cilantro, salt and pepper. Mix well. Add egg replacer, and then the cooled mushrooms. Work everything together into nice dough. Allow to sit for 15 minutes to develop the flavors.
3. Shape into patties. For best results, wrap each patty individually in plastic wrap and freeze overnight before moving on to step 4. That's not absolutely required, but it sure helps the burgers hold together while cooking.
4. Heat some olive oil over medium-low heat in large non-stick skillet. Add the sliced onions and let them cook for 30 minutes or so. Too much heat will brown them instead of caramelizing them, so keep it low. If they start to brown, turn it down! When the onions have sufficiently caramelized, remove them to a plate and set aside.
5. In the same skillet, turn up the heat to medium-high, add some more olive oil if needed, and fry the patties, cooking about 5 minutes on each side, or until golden brown.
NOTE: While it is technically possible to bake these instead of frying them, the flavor will be significantly diminished if you go that route. I strongly recommend the fry pan! Come on, it's mushrooms and olive oil... Where's the harm?
6. Build your burgers: bottom bun, patty, vegan bacon, vegan Swiss cheese, caramelized onions, top bun. I recommend this order because the vegan Swiss will "trap" and soften the flakey vegan bacon so that it adds bacony flavor without distracting coconutty texture.
7. Enjoy! You might want to give each burger 40 seconds or so in the microwave just before serving to ensure hot, melty goodness throughout.
The debate still rages in road food circles as to whether the Texas Hot Wiener and the Coney Island Chili Dog are one and the same thing, whether one is just a sad impersonator of the other, or whether they bear no relation to one another whatsoever. But there is one thing (besides the hot dog, of course) that everyone agrees they have in common – deceptive labeling!
The Texas Hot Wiener originated in Patterson, New Jersey, and you'd be hard pressed to find a stand selling them anywhere in the actual State of Texas even to this day. Not "real" Texas Hot Wieners, anyway! And the famous Coney Island Chili Dog (or just "Coney dog," as my mother called them) originated in Michigan, nowhere near Coney Island, New York.
For my mom, serving "Coney dogs" was a clever way of recycling leftovers. As beans were cheaper than meat, even back in the '70s, my mom's chili was always thick with them, usually a mix of dark and light red kidney beans swimming in under-spiced tomato sauce... After a couple of days sitting cold in the fridge, they could always be counted on to find their way back to the table, heated through and poured over boiled hot dogs cradled in squooshy buns, topped with plenty of diced hot white onions…
Now, a real Coney Island wouldn't be caught dead dressed in beans, kidney or otherwise, and you sure as heck wouldn't just boil the dog… But we were small town kids growing up in the Midwest – what did we know? My siblings and I loved Mom's Coney's, and the memory of those hot white onions still haunts me (in a good way) to this day...
I have followed the trail of that delectable memory across literal decades of time and diverse cultural and culinary landscapes in search of Nature's perfect dog-chili-white onion combo. That trail led me from the relatively low rent "Chili Dogs" of my youth (which is a truer description of my mom's espoused "Coney"), to the genuine Coney Island, served with creamy/meaty chili sauce, two hidden stripes of mustard, and, of course, heaps of hot white onions, to the crowning jewel of American hot dog cuisine, the Texas Hot Wiener…
Served here 100% vegan! Enjoy!
Ingredients:
1 package Yves brand "Good Dogs." Yves makes many styles of veggie dog, and they are all vegan, so use what you like the best. The "Good Dogs" are what they sell where I live, and they work great. Any brand of vegan dog should be fine. I just think the flavor of Yves is the best.
3 Tablespoons canola oil
1 12 oz. package Boca burger crumbles
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cups water
1 6 oz. can tomato paste
2 teaspoons chili powder
2 teaspoons paprika
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon all spice
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
Salt and pepper to taste
Hot dog buns, lightly toasted
Yellow mustard (see note in the directions, step #10)
1 medium hot white onion, diced
Directions:
1. Heat 2 Tablespoons of the canola oil over medium heat in a large skillet with a lid. Sauté the chopped yellow onion and the minced garlic together, until the onion is translucent, about 10 minutes.
2. Add the Boca crumbles and continue cooking until the crumbles begin to brown.
3. Add the water and tomato paste. Bring to boil.
4. Add the chili powder, paprika, cumin, oregano, cinnamon, all spice, cayenne, and salt and pepper. Cover, lower the heat, and simmer for one hour. Then remove from heat and let cool to a temperature you're comfortable putting in your food processer.
5. Once the sauce has cooled, move it to a blender or food processor, and pulse until the Boca crumbles are broken up into tiny chunks. The goal here is not to puree things, but just to break up the crumbles into very small pieces. No blending leaves an inauthentic chunky chili sauce. Too much blending creates soup. Find the balance! I trust your judgment!
7. Toast the buns and get them ready on plates.
8. With a sharp knife, split the "Good Dogs" lengthwise, being careful not to cut them all the way through. You want to be able to open them along the "hinge" like a book, not create two halves that actually separate.
9. Heat the remaining Tablespoon of canola oil over medium heat in the same skillet you made the sauce in. A little leftover sauce in the bottom is a good thing! Open the hot dogs and fry them flat in the pan, until they begin to brown. Flip them and brown the backsides, too. I find this "flipping" is more easily accomplished using a fork than a spatula, but use what you have. Once cooked, close the dogs and move them to the waiting toasted buns.
10. Pour the chili sauce back into the hot skillet or sauce pan. Crank the burner to high and heat the sauce through as quickly as you can. It's almost time to eat!
10. It is traditional to lay down a fat stripe of yellow mustard on each dog before applying the chili sauce. I recently learned, however, that at least some brands of yellow mustard are not vegan, or even vegetarian (French's in particular)! If you're sure your brand is vegan, then I absolutely recommend following this step. If you're not sure, skip the mustard for now and do some research (and shopping) before you make this recipe again. You won't be disappointed either way. Texas Hot Wieners are fantastic with or without the yellow stuff!
11. Smother the dogs (and the buns, too) with heated chili sauce. Top with a heaping mound of diced, raw hot white onions.
12. Serve with plenty of napkins and a fork for each diner so not a single bite goes to waste. A traditional all-American decadently amazing side to serve with Texas Hot Wieners is "Gravy Fries." I recommend a big plate of Ore Ida brand "fast food fries." Just heat up a can of Campbell's Mushroom Gravy (100% vegan!), and pour on top. YUM!
"There's no pick and choose with a blue-plate."
"No pick and choose?"
"You eat what you're given. That's democracy, man."
-- From "Our Man in Havana," by Graham Greene
The origins of the All-American Blue Plate Special are to some degree shrouded in the mists of time, but the consensus seems to be that the phrase first entered common usage during (or just prior to) the Great Depression, a time when a hot lunch consisting of "a meat and three sides," served up on a single segmented plate (presumably blue) made good sense for both low-paid workers and for restaurants.
For workers, the blue plate was a generously refueling mound of hot food in the middle of the day, costing as little as 50 cents. For the restaurants, who changed up which "meats" and "sides" filled the plate on a daily basis based on what was getting old in the kitchen, the blue plate offered a golden opportunity to get paid for food on the edge of going bad. Plus, the day's blue plates could be pre-loaded in the morning and kept warm under heat lamps, to be served up fast with a single trip to the table by a waitress, simultaneously speeding up service and reducing labor costs (shades of "fast food" to come).
A real "win-win…" if you disregard the salmonella risk of serving Monday's unsold burgers as Friday's goulash…
Of course, one great way to recapture the charm of this All-American diner classic without risking an expensive ER visit would be to simply recreate it vegan… Which I have done below! Enjoy!
NOTE: As mentioned, back in the day, you never knew what was going to be on the blue plate when it arrived at your table. "You eat what you're given…" And NO SUBSTITUTIONS!
But that rule applies only to the customer. You're the chef, so you get to change things as much and often as you please. I designed the blue plate special recipe below to be both delicious and somewhat generic, just like the original. Serve this one as-is, or change any or all parts of it based on what's in your fridge. Just maintain the "a meat and three sides" concept, and you should be good to go!
The Blue Plate Conundrum… Also note that the original blue plate special plates were uniformly round and divided into three sections, like a Chinette paper plate. But the very definition of a blue plate special calls for "a meat and three sides…," which is four elements… for three segments – how does that work?
The Solution… Serve the meat atop a steaming bed of mashed potatoes! Two for one! Yum!
Ingredients:
The "meat":
2 Tablespoons Canola oil
1 12 oz package Boca Burger crumbles
1 small yellow onion, chopped
The gravy:
1 "No Beef" vegan bouillon cube (available through the Felix at Fifty Webstore)
2 cups water
1 1/2 teaspoons Kitchen Bouquet
1 1/2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons vegan Worcestershire sauce (see Carol Ann's recipe for homemade vegan Worcestershire sauce under "vegetarian recipes" on www.FelixatFifty.com)
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1 large Bay leaf
Salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoon red wine (optional... But recommended!)
1 Tablespoon corn starch
1/4 cup instant mashed potato flakes
The mashed potatoes:
6 russet potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 cup plain unsweetened soymilk
4 to 6 Tablespoons vegan margarine (I use Blue Bonnet Light because it's vegan, cheap, and available everywhere. Earth Balance costs more, but is better for you…)
Salt and pepper to taste
Two more sides:
Any two frozen or canned vegetables you like, preferable contrasting in color, such as peas and diced carrots, green beans and corn, etc.
Directions:
I recommend making the mashed potatoes first, so they'll be ready and waiting when the hot "meat" is ready to pour over them.
The mashed potatoes:
1. Put the cubed potatoes, the crushed garlic, and a pinch or two of salt in a large pot. Fill with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil and cook for about 10-15 minutes, until the potatoes are tender.
2. Drain the potatoes and mash with salt, pepper, soy milk and vegan margarine. Add more seasonings or margarine if needed to reach the flavor and consistency you want.
The "meat":
3. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat, and sauté the chopped onion until translucent, about 10 minutes.
4. Add the Boca Burger crumbles and continue cooking until they begin to brown. Break up the crumbles as finely as you can as they cook. Move to a colander to drain off any liquid the crumbles may have created, and set aside.
The gravy:
5. In the same skillet you just took the meat out of, combine all the gravy ingredients EXCEPT the corn starch and potato flakes. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 10 minutes.
6. Put the corn starch in a small container and add 2 to 3 teaspoons of COLD water. While the sauce is boiling, stream in the corn starch water while stirring continuously. Allow the liquid to return to a boil.
7. Add the potato flakes just one Tablespoon at a time, stirring continuously to prevent lumps of from forming. Repeat until the full 1/4 cup of potato flakes have been added and thoroughly dissolved. Remove from heat. Remove the Bay leaf.
Finishing the plate:
8. Add the drained cooked "meat" back to the skillet with the gravy. Mix thoroughly, and cook a few minutes more until everything is warmed through.
9. Prepare your veggie sides however you prefer.
10. Dollop a hefty pile of mashed potatoes onto each plate. Smother with "meat"/gravy. Add a generous helping of both side veggies. Serve and enjoy!
In the kitchens of most American carnivores, there are essentially two ways to make meatloaf – with a stripe of ketchup down the center, or smothered in brown gravy. There are probably a hundred ways to make a vegan/vegetarian meatloaf, since we not only need to decide how to serve the "meat," we have to figure out how to create it in the first place!
We featured a "stripe of ketchup" vegan meatloaf recipe in our previous cookbook, I Can't Believe It's Vegan! Volume 2 – All American Comfort Food Entrees. Here's one that's "smothered in brown gravy..." And the loaf itself is completely different. too! Enjoy!
Ingredients:
1 15 oz can black beans, drained and thoroughly rinsed. I pour mine into a colander and rinse them under plenty of cold running water. There's a lot of gooey "gack" in a can of black beans... Get rid of it!
1 cup quinoa, already cooked according to basic package directions
1 cup dry quick oats
1 yellow onion, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 large carrot, peeled and shredded
2 celery stalks, shredded
1 cup finely chopped baby portabella mushrooms
1 Tablespoon Italian seasoning
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
2 egg's worth of vegan egg replacer
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large mixing bowl, thoroughly mash the black beans with a potato masher. Add all the remaining ingredients and kneed together by hand until everything is evenly combined.
3. Transfer to an 8" non-stick loaf pan. Pat the loaf firmly and tightly into the pan. It’s important that you chop everything fine and pack it down tight if you want your loaf to hold together after baking.
4. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour, until the loaf is firm, and brown on top.
5. Let cool 15 to 20 minutes before serving. This will allow the loaf to firm up some in the pan.
6. Place the serving plate over the loaf pan and turn it upside down, to flip the loaf out onto the plate.
7. Cut the loaf into thick slices. Serve slices smothered in the awesome brown gravy below. My favorite way to serve this meatloaf is next to a big pile of mashed potatoes, also smothered in the same gravy! Serve veggie sides in separate small bowls.
The gravy:
Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons canola oil
3 cups vegetable broth. You can use commercial pre-made veggie broth, or dissolve 3 "no beef" vegan bouillon cubes in 3 cups water
1 cup chopped white onion
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 - 8 oz package baby portabella mushrooms, very finely chopped
2 Tablespoons fresh thyme, finely chopped
1 Tablespoon fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1/4 cup Merlot wine (optional, but highly recommended)
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
3 Tablespoons nutritional yeast
2 Tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Directions:
1. In a large skillet, heat the canola oil over medium heat. Sautee the onion and garlic together until the onion is translucent.
2. Stir in the chopped mushroom, rosemary and thyme, and cook until the mushrooms release their liquid and start to become tender, about 2 minutes.
3. Add the wine and cook 1 minute more, stirring constantly. Stir in the veggie broth and bring to a simmer.
4. In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, nutritional yeast and flour to form a thick paste. Add to the simmering skillet a little bit at a time, whisking constantly to make sure the paste dissolves.
5. Bring to a boil and cook, stirring constantly, until gravy thickens, about 1 minute should do it.
6. Add the pepper.
The only experience I have of Salisbury Steak is the unnaturally perfect disks floating in dark brown gravy they used to serve next to a still slightly powdery ice cream scoop of instant whipped potatoes every Wednesday in the grade school cafeteria, circa 1973 or so… Oddly, those identically round, cookie-cutter burgers – presumably made out of beef (that was the claim, anyway, though we kids doubted it) – bore a striking resemblance to Boca's Original Vegan Burger Patties, the earliest of which (marketed as the "Sun Burger") would not be released commercially until 1979 or so. Maybe they were test-marketing a prototype on us?
To which, if true, I can only say "yeah!" Boca Burgers taste great, hold up well to cooking, are more nutritious (physically and Karmicly) than any real beef patty, and are available just about everywhere. That's a win-win-win-win to my mind!
Just so's you know, this is NOT the grade school cafeteria Salisbury Steak recipe! It's a traditional diner/truck stop version – fully veganized, of course! Enjoy!
Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons canola oil
1 small yellow onion, sliced very thin
1 8 oz package of fresh button mushrooms, sliced thin
1 4-patty box Boca brand Original Vegan burgers, thawed to room temperature
1 can Campbell's Mushroom Gravy (which is 100% vegan, believe it or not!).
1/4 cup water
2 teaspoons Kitchen Bouquet
2 teaspoons prepared white horseradish
Directions:
1. Heat the canola oil in a skillet on a medium heat. Sauté the sliced onions and mushrooms together until the onion is translucent.
2. Add the Boca patties and cook approximately 4 minutes per side, until browned.
3. Add the mushroom gravy, the water, the Kitchen Bouquet and the horseradish. Stir to combine. Cook another 4 to 5 minutes until everything is well heated through.
4. Serve hot, with mashed potatoes and a veggie side.
Chicken fried steak is a ubiquitous road food everywhere down South, but they say the folks in Texas take it most seriously. In the Lone Star State, you'll find CFS featured on most breakfast, lunch and dinner menus, and diners happily order it for all three meals. Two Texas towns, Lamesa and Bandera, both claim to have originated the dish, though Lamesa's claim gets the most traction in light of their annual Chicken Fried Steak Cook-off, festival and balloon rally, drawing over 7,000 attendees each year.
There is no "chicken" in a chicken fried steak. At its most basic, CFS is a tenderized beef cube steak coated in seasoned batter and pan fried, much they way you'd fry chicken (if you did such things, which of course we vegans and vegetarians don't...), thus the moniker "chicken fried..." Southern white gravy (and lots of it!) completes the dish...
This 100% vegan chicken fried steak not only contains no "chicken," it is "steak"-free as well, and (oh, the sacrilege!) it is not fried... But it could fool a Texas trucker, guaranteed!
The "steak":
Ingredients:
About 1/3 of a 15 oz can of chick peas
1 cup vital wheat gluten
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
3 Tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke
1/4 cup soy milk
1/4 cup water
The coating:
Ingredients:
1/3 cup flour
3 Tablespoons nutritional yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 cup soy milk
You will also need:
1 spray bottle filled with water
parchment paper
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Thoroughly puree the chick peas in a food processor.
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine the pureed chick peas, vital wheat gluten and onion powder. Mix thoroughly.
4. Add the water, soy milk, liquid smoke, and soy sauce. Knead by hand for a few minutes until a nice dough is formed. If you have a kitchen mixer with a dough hook (I use a Bosch), put the dough in there and let the machine knead it on the highest setting for an additional 5 minutes or so. Then let the dough rest for 10 minutes.
5. Cut the dough into 4 roughly equal portions and stretch each into a thin cutlet shape. A rolling pin might be helpful here as well. A traditional CFS cutlet is rarely more than one inch thick. They're huge in area, though, generally covering half a dinner plate.
6. In a large mixing bowl, combine all of the coating ingredients except the soy milk. Put the coating on a plate and your soy milk in a bowl large enough that you'll be able to dip the cutlets in there.
7. Dredge both sides of each cutlet through the soy milk, then in the coating. Make sure they are thoroughly coated all over. Shake off any excess coating and place the cutlets on the parchment lined baking sheet.
8. Turn the spray bottle to the "mist" setting and gently spray the tops of the cutlets. You want to get the coating wet, but don't make it soggy.
9. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes. Then turn the cutlets over, mist again with the water bottle, and return the baking sheets to the oven for an additional 20 minutes, until lightly browned and crispy.
10. Remove from heat, and let the cutlets rest for 5 minutes. Top with Southern White Gravy and serve!
Ingredients:
4 Tablespoons vegan margarine
4 Tablespoons flour
2 cups water in which 2 "no chicken" vegan bouillon cubes have been thoroughly dissolved
2 cups unflavored, unsweetened almond milk
2 teaspoons black pepper
1 teaspoon sea salt
Directions:
1. In a large sauce pan, melt the vegan margarine. Whisk in the flour.
2. Add the “no chicken” broth and almond milk very slowly, stirring continuously. Cook another minute or two, until gravy thickens.
3. Stir in the black pepper and salt.
Felix and Carol Ann Whelan live in rural Missouri with their 17 year old daughter, Kathryn (Kate), their 11 year old son, Conner, and (at last count) twenty or so dogs, cats, chickens, sheep and goats overgrowing their one acre hobby farm. They are vegetarians surrounded by cattle farmers, Catholics surrounded by Protestants, and ex-city slickers transplanted to a town that will never completely trust anyone whose great grandparents weren’t born there…
But most of all, they are very, very happy!
“Felix at Fifty” is a blog about food, faith, family and finding fulfillment at (and after) fifty. It’s about discovering that, despite past wrong turns and missed opportunities, the road ahead looks amazing… It’s about waking at the milestone of your fiftieth birthday to find that somehow, in spite of it all, you’ve managed to build an awesome family, you’re surrounded by people you love, you’re grounded in devout Faith, and feel alive with passions that inspire you. It’s about gratitude for a very good life. It’s about accepting the wisdom and authority of your years. It’s about counting blessings in the present while relishing, and working hard to fulfill, the bright promise of the next fifty years.
Join Felix and Carol Ann as they journey together through their fifties, experiencing the inevitable highs and lows of aging, but celebrating at every stage their passion for faith and family, friends, food and fun.
The URL is www.FelixatFifty.com. We post frequent vegetarian recipes, articles about vegetarian living, essays on Catholic belief, life, parenting, and more. Plus, every single day, we review one Kindle eBook that is available that day for FREE, along with a link to go grab your own copy. Most of our "daily freebies" are vegetarian/vegan cookbooks, though many also address the Catholic Faith, parenting, gardening, frugal living, and other home and family-centered topics. Subscribe to "Felix at Fifty" (free) and you will receive these daily freebie posts (and every other post, besides) right in your email inbox.
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Thank you!
Felix and Carol Ann Whelan
Books by Felix and Carol Ann Whelan
I Can't Believe It's Vegan! Volume 1 – All American Crock Pot Classics
I Can't Believe It's Vegan! Volume 2 – All American Comfort Food Entrees
I Can't Believe It's Vegan! Volume 3 – All American Comfort Food Desserts
I Can't Believe It's Vegan! Volume 4 – All American Comfort Food Truck Stop, Diner and Lunch Counter Classics
I Can't Believe It's Not Tuna!: 55 Vegetarian Recipes for Mock Tuna Casseroles, Sandwiches, Melts, Burgers, Salads, Pasta Dishes, and More!