Tag: Comfort food

Main

Loaded Breakfast Fries

His Bite, Her BiteLeave a comment

Nora: I’ve always loved breakfast food, but I’ve never been much of a fan of eggs. Growing up, the only way I’d eat them would be “dippy eggs” (aka over-easy). I would make my parents crazy because after dipping toast in the yolks, I’d never eat the whites. These fries are topped with a delicious “eggy sauce” that reminds me of rich silky egg yolk… without the egg!

Josh: Everything we eat eventually ends up on a pizza or as loaded fries. One day we were thinking loving thoughts about brunch and decided in a burst of inspiration that we could have breakfast for dinner. All plant-based and shamelessly indulgent. We swapped hashbrowns for waffle fries and viola!

Breakfast sausage, bacon, and pepperjack cheese baked up onto crispy waffle fries, topped with an eggy, pseudo hollandaise sauce that just seals the deal. This dinn is one of those meals that we usually find ourselves in the “clean plate club” afterward.

Foil boats
Loaded Breakfast Fries
Source: His Bite Her Bite
Serves: 2, heartily
Time: 25 minutes
Ingredients:
For fries:
1 bag frozen waffle fries or tots
8 oz breakfast sausage
4 strips bacon (or some bac’n bits)
1/2 c pepperjack shredded cheese
green onions, for topping

Eggy Sauce:
1c water
4 tsp corn starch
2 tsp nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp turmeric
Directions:
1. Bake fries according to package directions.
2. While fries are baking, cook sausage according to package directions (we use the microwave). Crumble or roughly chop into small bits.
3. In a small pot, whisk together water and corn starch, then whisk in everything else.
4. Cook over med-high heat, whisking as it cooks. Simmer 3-5 minutes until sauce coats the back of a spoon.
5. During the last 5 minutes of baking the fries, slide a few fries over and add the bacon, cook until crisp.
6. Make two tin foil boats, place on the baking sheets used for the fries. Add cooked fries, crumbled sausage, top with cheese. Broil until cheese is melted. Remove from oven.
7. Move foil boats to individual plates. Using a small, sharp knife, slit the underside of the boats in an x-shape. Pull foil apart, leaving the fry pile on the plate.
8. Top the fries-sausage-cheese with eggy sauce, crumbled bacon and green onion.
For the dinner pictured here, we used the following:

Lightlife bacon
Lightlife breakfast sausage
Daiya pepperjack
Kroger brand frozen waffle fries
Closing Arguments
Nora: Normally I don’t finish a full plate of loaded fries, but with these I’m in the Clean Plate Club every time!
Josh: You bet your ass I’m munching these fries.
Main

Cheeseburger Soup

His Bite, Her Bite3 Comments

Nora: Are there carrots in cheeseburgers? Don’t be ridiculous. But there are carrots in this soup. Why be predictable? Let’s get cooking!

Josh: Let’s get something straight right now. This soup is ridiculously tasty. It is creamy, meaty, and indulgent, though note it is also pretty quick and easy to make. The ingredient list is relatively short for this kind of hearty and satisfying dinner and the specialty ingredient requirement (you know how vegan recipes can be) is relatively low. There is some prep involved – those veggies need dicing – but after that the soup comes together naturally and without much pomp or circumstance.

These leftovers are awesome! This is one of those recipes that starts out great and gets better when it sits overnight to really flavor up. I spend the next couple days being the envy of the office come lunchtime. In winter this soup gives you solace, in summer you don’t care if it’s hot because goddamn is it delicious. This is a great meal to make when you want to eat well without occasion, but also perfect for when you’re entertaining guests because everyone enjoys it and even your avid meat-eaters will be satisfied.

Cheeseburger Soup
Makes: Dinner for two, lunches for two for two days (or leftovers for two for one day… this soup is really good)
Adapted from: Namely Marly
Time: 20 minutes prep, 20 minutes cook
Omnivore Index: Dads don’t know it’s not meat
Ingredients

For the soup:
1 onion, diced
5 large waxy potatoes, diced
8oz mushrooms, diced (optional actually mandatory)
1 cup carrots, diced
1 bay leaf
4 cups vegetable broth
8-10 oz frozen meatless crumbles (we use Simple Truth or Gardein often)
1 cup nondairy cheese (Daiya Pepperjack is a nice touch)
1 tsp salt
Pepper, to taste
Green onions and bac’n bits for serving

For the cream:
1/2 cup plain nondairy milk
1 cup (4.5oz) raw cashews
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp garlic powder
1 cup water
Directions:

Saute onions until tender.
Add carrots and potatoes, cook for a few minutes.
Next add bay leaf, mushrooms, broth, salt, and pepper. Simmer.

Meanwhile combine cream ingredients in a high speed blender. (If you don’t have a high speed blender, simmer the cashews in the 1 cup of water about 5 minutes and then add cashews AND remaining water to food processor with garlic powder and nootch.)

Once carrots and potatoes are tender, remove bay leaf, turn off the heat, and add cream, meatless crumbles, and cheese. Stir to combine.

Serve with bacon bits (check your local grocery store brand, many brands are vegan) and diced green onion.
Even obligate carnivores love Cheeseburger Soup!
Closing Arguments
Nora: You won’t miss the bun!
Josh: Finally, a burger as it was always meant to be eaten – with a spoon.
Main

Baked Seitan Ribs

His Bite, Her BiteLeave a comment

Nora: Ribs were one of my absolute favorite restaurant splurge meals. Since I’m new to the veggie lifestyle I still have deeply-ingrained taste preferences for certain foods and these meatless Ribs totally hit the spot for me. (Veggie crumbles as taco meat is another Craving Buster, but that’s another post.) This recipe is insanely delicious and even has the fun “pull apart” quality meat ribs have. I was honestly shocked at how good these are and other than the lack of bones, they are completely realistic feeling/tasting. We’ve made these three times in three weeks.

Don’t be alarmed by the word seitan. It’s just wheat meat. You probably don’t have to go to the fancy grocery store since our Kroger carries it alongside all the Bob’s Red Mill fancy grain flours. If you are familiar with seitan, you’ll be happy to know this recipe does not require the long kneading and boiling/steaming/baking which usually produces seitan. Yes, this is weeknight friendly wheat meat! Rejoice!!! Also, this recipe PERFECTLY bakes half a bag of freezer fries simultaneously. This is the kind of high quality vegan content we have all been searching for!

The only negative to this recipe is it only makes two slabs (enough for two hungry people or maybe four with lots of sides). If you need more or want leftovers (you do) you will need to prepare this in two pans. The key to the meaty texture is contact with the pan edges and larger slabs will have mushy middles. We don’t have two small pans the same size, so currently we are doomed to eat all our ribs in one sitting.

Josh: Ribs are a weird thing to eat when you stop and think about it. Like… ribs, though? I digress. I never had ribs as a real boy, we didn’t have money for splurges like that and the idea of seeking ribs out was not on my radar. Then I joined the dark side of the force and began growing my incredible vegan super powers, so there was no going back. I would have never come up with the idea of eating ribs, would have never bothered with it. But Nora gets this idea to make ribs and so we cobble this together.

Wow. Just wow. We’ve made these ribs three times in less than a month. They’re ridiculously good. Firm and tough, tangy, sticky, actual finger licking good. The recipe is really easy to make thanks to our kitchen aid mixer. Mostly the recipe is waiting for the cook time to expire, which is useful when you have other things to accomplish in the evening but know you’re just going to hit the sofa after dinner no matter what.

In addition to being quick and easy and tasty, these ribs are affordable. Buy yourself some vital wheat gluten (seriously, if you don’t have this already GET IT TOGETHER because homemade seitan is delicious, versatile, and easy), some soy sauce, some nooch (read: nutritional yeast – we read the Thug Kitchen cookbook once and can’t think of Nooch any other way), and you’re already most of the way to cooking countless meaty vegan meals without breaking the bank. If nothing else, do it just to make these ribs. They’re spectacular.

Baked Seitan Ribs
Makes: Two slabs of ribs
Slightly adapted from Fat Free Vegan
Time: 5 minutes prep, 45 minutes to cook
Omnivore Index: slap it on a bun and Ronald McDonald himself would call it a McRib
Ingredients:
– 1c vital wheat gluten
– 2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
– 2 tsp paprika
– 2 tsp onion powder
– 1 tsp garlic powder
– 3/4c water
– 2 Tbsp almond butter
– 1 Tbsp soy sauce
– 1 tsp liquid smoke
– 1c (ish) BBQ sauce (we use Sweet Baby Ray’s)
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375F. Spray grease a 9×9 metal pan.
2. Mix all ingredients except BBQ sauce and knead 60 seconds. I do it in the stand mixer but it wouldn’t be hard by hand.
3. Spread into the prepared pan, using the “kitty paws” technique with your fingertips as needed.
4. Using a small, sharp knife, cut dough down the middle. Turn pan 90 degrees and cut across 8 times to make 16 “riblets.”
5. Bake 25 minutes. Pull out of oven, baste with half the BBQ sauce. Using a spatula, flip each quarter of the ribs, taking care to flip “corner to corner,” with the crispy outer corners all swapped to the center of the pan and the soft inner edges all against the sides of the pan.
6. Baste with the other half of the BBQ sauce and bake 15-25 more minutes or until sauce is starting to caramelize and ribs are firm.
Closing Arguments
Nora: Make these ribs and eat them. Soon.
Josh: Holy shit these ribs are good. Sinfully good. They’ll make you think you accidentally broke vegan edge.