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The Spicy Meatless Thread... (ya I went there)

I know going into this that this thread is going to get meat bombed... but there's gotta be at least a couple other people on this forum that have herbivore tendencies.  Lately almost everything I have been cooking has been meat-free unless its for the dogs.  I've been toying with recipes and finding ways to get the flavors of dishes that usually have animal muscle as the main feature.  Hopefully some of y'all do the same from time to time and we can swap and share some spicy veggie recipes. I've held off on making this thread for a while because I know the ridicule that will inevitably come, but I guess its better to clog my own thread with my hippy food rather than all the other cooking threads. 
 
So here goes, last night per request I made some arroz congri and tostones.  
 
For the rice and beans, I chop up a green and red bell pepper, 2 onions and about 4-5 cloves of garlic. Cook up that in the pot before adding the rice and beans and sufficient water.  Season it up, and pretty much just leave it on the stove for a while.  I don't have any fresh pods yet so I seasoned my batch up with some smoked naga powder for good measure.  The tostones start by cooking them a bit on each side before pulling them from the pan.
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After the tostones are cooked and pulled from the pan you gotta squish em dip em in cold water and throw em back in the pan, for the second round of frying. When you pull them out you can season them with whatever you want, I like to make a garlicky spicy sauce concoction to dip them in.  Also, make yourself a guava-lime rum drink for good measure. 
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Eventually, after a long long time (especially if you use brown rice), your arroz congri will be ready.  
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Happy vegetarian eating! (I also ate left overs this morning covered in cheese and a fried egg)
 
Let's see what you got....
 
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I'm a vegetarian (Katie), so most of our meals are normally veggie, with the occasional bit of chicken or bacon added in for Lewis. We still make everything spicy though! Lots of things here I want to try soon, thanks for all the great suggestions!
 
If you're growing zucchini, julienne the zucchini and toss the pesto over that!  I've been using raw zucchini in place of noodles for a minute now and I like it better than pasta! I toss it in a pan to warm it a bit other than that its perfect.
 
Maybe i could try that next time i'll have zucchini since i hate them. Can't be worse than zucchini alone.
Pesto + potatoes for pasta is excellent. And fagiolini (Phaseolus vulgaris) is often used though i'm not a fan of them.
One of the best use of pesto is in pizza (or still pasta) with stracchino and pomodorini.
 
Essigi stracchino is damn near impossible to find in the States.  I've found it a couple of times but it is no where near the stracchino there.  Its unfortunate.  I've made pesto lasagne before, its really tasty if you use goat milk for the bechemal and layer in some porcini :) 
 
Never thought about pesto + porcini. I must try this!
Btw once i ate a porcini pasticcio (lasagne) made with fresh wild porcini from Alto Adige from some relatives from Emilia Romagna (that region people really knows how to cook). Awesome.
 
I've got all these pictures on my phone of prep, but I always forget to take the shot before I nom up what I've made.  This time I sort of remembered.  I made some vegan "sausage".  I only really prepped the "sausages" because I plan on grilling them on Sunday, but I pan fried one up just to make sure the tastes were there and oh boy were they there. 
 
So I made a bean and vital wheat gluten sausage... I loosely followed this recipe http://www.theppk.com/2012/01/vegan_sausage/ the changes I made were mostly to the seasoning and I used red kidney beans because that's what I had on hand.  I added basil to mine, smoked paprika instead of sweet, and smoked naga powder and smoked serrano powder instead of the flakes.  I also didn't have fennel on hand so I used anise extract.  
 
Here's the "dough":
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Then the steaming
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And finally this slightly fecal looking pan fried log of vegan sausage...
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Like I said, on Sunday I plan on firing up the grill for these bad boys.  I'll also be getting the roasted bell peppers and giardiniera into the mix. Hopefully I remember to take a picture!
 
Wow, posting in the meatless thread...and with a gluten free meal to boot. :tear:
 
This one was for the wife.
 
I stumbled on this recipe here . The link has pretty good photos. Like any good recipe, I changed it to make it better, notably, more cumin, more chili powder, garlic and the peppers I had on hand. Actual ingredients I used are below.
 
2 onions,
red pepper,
poblano
thick cayenne
black beans
corn
corn tortillas- torn into pieces
enchilada sauce
copious amounts of cheese.
Cumin
chili powder
salt
garlic
anything else that sounds good
 
Prep per the recipe- Basically just pan roast all veggies with no oil until cooked and lightly browned.
 
Assembled just like lasagna. Actually, this recipe is kind of a blend of enchiladas made like you would make lasagna. Baked for about 1/2 hour at 375. Last 1/2 uncovered and on the top rack to get the cheese a bit crispy. 
 
No before shots since everyone was too hungry, you can check the link I posted for that. After photo is below.
 
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I pan fried up some fish to go with the enchilada/lasagna. These vegetarian meals just don't stick to your ribs very long.
 
Nice Jeff, I recent had a chile relleno casserole and it was so good.  I didn't make it, my sister did.  Wasn't the prettiest thing to look at but I would have eaten the whole tray if no one else was around.... 
 
I made this the other day, it doesn't have hot peppers in it, but after trying it, the next time I make it I think it would be great with some red bhut powder in it. It's vegan chocolate mousse... 4 ingredients, avocados, bittersweet chocolate chips, a couple teaspoons of soy/almond/coconut milk, and in this recipe I used orange, but next time will definitely be peppers. You pretty much just puree the avocado, add in melted chocolate and the milk, and whatever else you want to it.  let it chill and then eat!
 
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 faux rajma over basmati rice.    I didn't have patience or ingredients to do the recipe I normally use. 
 
can of  kidney beans, white ghost , lots of fresh garlic,  onions, 3 tbsp coarse ground  kashmiri chilli powder,1 tsp ground dry ginger( didn't have fresh) ,dash of cinnamon , 1/4 tsp salt , approx 8-10 grinds b pepper,  1/2 cup water, veg bullion cube.  3 heaped  tbsp Gheee  ,  3 tbsp coconut milk  powder , mixed with 1/4 cup cold water til dissoved to a thick liquid 
 
 melted the ghee, browned a quarter of a finely mince onion,   added  the minced white ghost and stirred for about a minute then added the dry spices and fried them out ,  added the rinsed beans, minced garlic, 1/2 c water,    S+ P     ,  cooked down  for 5 mins on low simmer then added coconut cream  simmer for about a min . 
 
 
 
 
 
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This probably could have gone in the DC thread but its going here. Disregard the out of focus pictures.  (if you've never had a Negroni, go get yourself a nice gin, some campari, and martini rosso.  There is a distillery down the road here that makes the gin in the picture below.  I usually despise gin, but can't get enough of this one.)
Just a simple pasta sauce with zucchini noodles. 
 
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Pasta sauce was made with cherry tomatoes out of the last haul from the garden.  I chopped up garlic, a crazy habanero from PexPeppers (the walls on that hab are so thick and it doesn't have that musky hab flavor at all), and threw in some capers to saute for a min, before adding the tomatoes. 
 
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I added the tomatoes, fresh herbs, and some wine, I should have used white, but only had a nicer bottle of white so opted for the three buck chuck shiraz instead. I took a photo of this step, but it is so out of focus and blurry that it really isn't worth posting.
I have this little gadget that shreds up the zucchini into little noodle sized strands.  Its really easy and I kind of like the zucchini "noodles" better than linguini these days. Here's the zucchini being tossed with the sauce:
 
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And finally some fresh parmesan.
 
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