Product Review - Nate's Meatless Meatballs

I haven't often tried to imitate omni food with vegan faux-meats, but I have one major exception. I have yet to find a recipe for the perfect meatless meatball.

I know a great vegan meatless meatball exists. It's called Nate's Zesty Italian Meatless Meatballs. It looks and tastes like the omni version and has a gentle texture when heated in spaghetti sauce as I did the photo above.

That one used whole wheat spaghetti with sliced zucchini also cooked into the sauce and topped with vegan parmesan.

I always dump my pasta into the sauce when it's finished cooking (the Italian way as in my photo) as opposed to spooning sauce over plain spaghetti (the American way as in the Nate's package photo). The flavor is much more saturated when going traditional.

Nate's Meatballs are a little too delicate to mix up with the spaghetti and sauce so they must be spooned on after. That's OK though because it allows other uses for the meatballs besides the pasta meal - like meatball sammiches, for instance.

Nate's is pretty healthy, too. Three meatballs have 90 calories, 9 grams of protein, and 2 grams of fiber.

The ingredients list textured soy protein, water, wheat gluten, pressed canola oil, bread crumbs, Italian spices, evaporated cane juice, garlic, celery, and parsley. That shouldn't be too difficult to duplicate, but I haven't seen a recipe doing it yet.

I admit it - I'm too lazy to figure out the right proportions. I'm hoping someone will read this and try it for themselves.

Then let us all know, OK?

Until then, we have...

NATE'S ZESTY ITALIAN MEATLESS MEATBALLS RATING - 10!

Tempeh Shepherdess Pie

And hey, speaking of comfort foods, which I was in my last post a couple of weeks ago...

Note - sorry about the delay in posting, but meals have been really routine lately - beans and rice, stir-fry with store-bought stir-fry sauce featuring a tofu attempt that didn't work out right, and baked potatoes with peas and carrots cooked in a ginger-sesame sauce (oops - I suppose I should have blogged and photo'd that last one).

... here's a veganized old favorite that I found when looking up tempeh recipes in my favorite cookbook - Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero's Veganomicon.

Who doesn't like Shepherd's Pie - mashed potatoes with good fillings? And who doesn't like one-dish casseroles? I don't see any hands raised, so I must be right.

Put those two ideas together and you've got an oldie, but a goodie. Veganize it and the fillings include cremini mushrooms, tempeh simmered in a soy sauce, peas, corn and spices.

Being a casserole, the recipe makes its own mushroom gravy. I used yellow mashed taters - my favorite being Klondike Gold. Talk about a creamy tater - even when just baked plain - wow!

This one was another creative winner from Veganomicon. I'll definitely be making it again.

TEMPEH SHEPHERDESS PIE RATING - 8

Black Bean, Mushroom, and Quinoa-Stuffed Peppers

Every now and then I think about my pregan (pre-vegan) days, or more accurately in this case, my pre-vegetarian days and the foods I ate.

Not that I miss any of it, but that's been over 10 years now and a lot of foods I don't eat anymore are because I haven't thought to veganize them.

Skimming through Isa Chandra Moskowitz' Vegan With A Vengeance got me to thinking of Stuffed Bell Peppers when coming across this Black Bean, Mushroom, and Quinoa-Stuffed Peppers recipe (note: the picture they put on that website appears to be for a completely different rice-based stuffed pepper dish. Weird, huh?!).

I don't use a lot of faux-meats anymore, but it would be easy to veganize stuffed peppers by using faux-ground meat in the usual recipe. This one doesn't go that route.

Instead, Moskowitz created a truly different dish that uses chopped mushrooms instead of meat. Quinoa is the grain that substitutes for oatmeal or breadcrumbs, and black beans fills out the insides about as well could be done.

Vegans often get asked the where-do-you-get-your-protein-from question. Quinoa is a grain very high in protein, as are the black beans so there's no faux meat needed here.

I chopped the 'shrooms in a food processor to make it quick and easy. 5 minutes of sauteeing with onions and garlic released any moisture they had.

As you can see in the recipe, just add in some spices, the quinoa, some tomato sauce and black beans and you're ready to stuff.

Blanched red bell peppers are a nice mild touch instead of the spicier green ones. I've done this recipe with both, and the green ones are cheaper and just as fine. Topped off with tomato sauce and they're ready for baking.

I've made this recipe several times now. You have to be a mushroom fan to love it, but I think it's my favorite recipe I've tried so far from this book.

BLACK BEAN, MUSHROOM, AND QUINOA-STUFFED PEPPERS RATING - 9

...and now a note for you healthy recipe creators!!!

One of my favorite blogs is Foods that Fit from a fellow marathon runner and almost-vegan named Abbie in Maryland (soon to be Utah). You can see it in my blog roll on the right.

Abbie is putting together a healthy, almost-vegan e-cookbook and will give a copy free to anyone who gives her five healthy recipes by March 15, 2009 and posts a link to it from their blog. I sent my five (Homemade Soy Milk, Mocha Ice Cream, Easy Spinach Enchiladas, Cajun Hummus and Okara/Bean Burgers) and here's the link with the details!

Wrap Artist

I think wraps are the best sandwiches you can make. They’re easy to hold, fun to eat, and don’t spill their contents easily.

You can make them with cold ingredients, like the Curried Chickenless Salad Sandwiches I recently made, or they can be hot like these Enchiladas pictured here (before the extra sauce was poured on top).

OK, technically Enchiladas aren’t wraps because you eat them with a fork, but as hot burritos the concept is similar. Like all wraps, Enchiladas are especially great for improvisation because they are so capable of handling whatever you have on hand.

Dona Z. Meilach's Wraps and Roll-Ups (non-vegan) names four components needed to make the perfect wrap: filling, binder, flavoring, and crunch.

One ingredient can cover more than one component and one component can be covered by more than one ingredient. Here’s how it breaks down.

Filling - This is the main component. In my Enchiladas, this was covered by spinach. I used a 10.5 ounce frozen chopped spinach, squeezed of all water, as the main ingredient for this one. In Veganland, this is generally covered by the main vegetable, but can also be beans or tofu.

Binder - This holds everything together. I usually use grains or beans, but even soft potato or pumpkin could work. In my Enchiladas, I used brown rice. I didn’t measure how much. It was whatever was left over.

Flavoring - This is usually covered by a sauce. It can be enchilada sauce, soy sauce, chili sauce, chutney, guacamole, peanut sauce, BBQ sauce, you name it. In my Enchiladas, I used leftover cheesy sauce. Again, I didn’t measure how much. I just added to taste.

Crunch - This is most overlooked component of wraps. Crunch adds texture, which prevents your wrap from being another mushy bean burrito. In my Enchiladas, I added some chopped celery. Nuts (I like slivered almonds for Asian wraps) and fresh vegetables (especially chopped, sliced, or matchstick carrots) are my favorite addition for crunch. Others include broccoli, cabbage, sunflower seeds or even thick potato chips if they don’t get dampened by the sauce.

As I mentioned, some ingredients can be used for several components. Tofu can be a binder and a filling. Raw carrots can be a filling and a crunch. Cooked carrots can be a filling and a binder. Thick sauces can be a binder and a flavoring. Peanut butter can be a binder, a filling, and a flavoring, though not all three at once. Add jelly as the flavoring and you’ve got it made.

SPINACH ENCHILADAS RATING - 8

Throwing Stuff Together

One of the fun things about browsing through cookbooks - new ones, especially - is picking out things you want to try even if you don't want to do them in the combinations they suggest.

For instance, one recent dinner (pictured above) had Baked Tofu, which I adapted from a different recipe in Isa Chandra Moskwitz and Terry Hope Romero's Veganomicon, Mushroom Gravy from Joanna Vaught's Yellow Rose Recipes, and a Cheesy Sauce from here (which is also somewhat similar to Gee Whiz Spread from Jo Stepaniak's The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook).

The brown basmati rice and the sauteed squash were pretty straightforward.

It was mix and match, but still came together great. The Mushroom Gravy was savory and marsala-like. This must be one of her favorite flavors because she has another recipe in the book specified as a marsala sauce, which I haven't yet tried.

The cheesy sauce was like a mild queso. The baked tofu was chewy without any of the stereotypical jelliness, and it turned out to be a knockout dinner.

I'm going to be trying more from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook, including the Gee Whiz Spread. Cheese is hard to duplicate when going vegan, but this book even shows to make hard cheeses.

I've found several uses throughout the week for this generic cheese sauce besides just topping on the rice, and I'm going to blog about my favorite one next.

MUSHROOM GRAVY RATING - 8
CHEESY SAUCE RATING (not Gee Whiz Spread) - 7

A Couple of Vegan Burgers

A vegan burger is a great thing, a quick thing, and, at times, the only thing that can quickly satisfy hunger when it's meal time and there's nothing else ready to eat.

When you do have time to cook, though, there are some amazing recipes that really make it something special. One of the classic "burger" sandwiches involve portobello mushrooms. These big 'shrooms have a naturally chewy texture and can be plain old grilled, or made fancy like I did recently.

The picture above is Roasted Portobellos from Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero's Veganomicon, my favorite cookbook. Anyone can grill a portobello sprayed with oil and dusted with salt and pepper, but this recipe involves a wonderful marinade the 'shrooms stay seated in while roasting in the oven.

Note the Veganaise on the buns. Besides adding a nice touch, it also provides a layer of fat that protects the bun from sogginess that could result from the juicy, marinated 'shrooms.

In this version I added some lettuce and red onion, but another nice touch is wasabi mustard that makes a nice compliment to the soy sauce flavor in the marinade.

One drawback I noticed in preparing this recipe is that the portobellos shrunk a little when roasting to make for a smallish "burger", albeit one still full of flavor.

If you had some bland store-bought burger, you could add a roasted protobello to upgrade it into something really special.

Of course, you don't have to buy some pre-fab burger by Boca, Amy's or one of the other companies who put frozen veggie burgers in a box. After all, they're expensive and usually don't have just what you want in a burger.

By making it yourself ahead of time, you get a burger that's cheap, delicious, and you can make it taste exactly how you like it.

Here are some that I made recently.

They are made from okara, the remnants from soybeans after you've squeezed out the soy milk from them. They have kind of a mashed potato consistency. See my blog list for "Okara Mountain", a website dedicated to finding uses for the okara left after making soy milk.

Mashed or blended white beans would be even better than okara because they would contain their full nutrient base whereas okara has had some of it steeped out for soy milk.

I usually grate some carrots and other veggies into the okara, but a recent juicing of carrots, apples, and celery left pulp in my juicer very similar in texture to okara.

I mixed by hand (and I mean literally squeezing it between my fingers for a couple of minutes) 1 cup of okara, 1 cup of carrot, apple, and celery mush, 1 cup of gluten flour, 3/4 cup of bread crumbs, and 2.5 t of Tony Chacherie's Creole Seasoning. After forming patties I baked them at 375F for 25 minutes, flipping them after 15 minutes.

I used to include more flour or oats instead of bread crumbs in the mix and then simply dipped to coat them in bread crumbs, but I like the texture better this way.

With less seasoning in the okara burgers, those roasted portobellos would be a great way to combine them into Deluxe Portobello Okara Burgers.

ROASTED PORTOBELLO RATING - 8
CREOLE OKARA BURGER RATING - 7

Curried Chickenless Salad Sandwiches

One of my new cookbooks (thank you, holiday gift cards) is Vegan Planet by Robin Robertson. After reading the recommendation of my good friend, Pixiepine (see her "Palace" on my Blog List at right), I chose Curried Chickenless Salad Sandwiches as my first recipe to try.

This has two ingredients that are considered totally love or totally hate - curry powder and tempeh. I'm fine with both of them.

Curry powder is the essence of Indian food and tempeh, which is a chewy, fermented soy product, can be bitter if not poached or steamed a bit. After 10 minutes in simmering water tempeh is much better.

I don't see the recipe posted online so you'll have to get the book for this one, but what I especially like about it is the contrasts of both flavors and textures.

The flavors combine savory ones like tempeh and curry with sweet ones like golden raisins and sweet pickle relish. The textures include chewy ones like tempeh, red peppers, and scallions with crunchy ones like chopped celery and slivered almonds.

After making the sandwich as pictured above, I realized this followed one of my own guidelines for perfect wraps (a future blog post) for having multiple textures.

Although the recipe just says to put it on bread, I say roll that baby up in a large tortilla and you'll enjoy one incredible wrap.

CURRIED CHICKENLESS SALAD SANDWICHES RATING - 8