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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....
 
ColdSmoke said:
Must be nice to have so much time to cook! Everything looks so good...
Its really just a matter of meal planning.  Most this stuff only takes 30-40 min to make, even a frozen pizza takes ~20 min to cook in the oven. I make one thing that might carry over into another dish later in the week. Like I'll make a batch of seitan one week when I have time, put some in the freezer, and it is good for 4 meals (for 2 people). The time it takes to assemble a meal like gyros or a "no killy philly" is minimal, its mostly chopping, and if you're knifework sucks then a food processor will definitely cut time. The curry dish only took about 35 min, most of that was simmer time, and the left overs feed us a 2nd day.  
 
Every Monday on my lunch break I figure out the meal plans for the week, send the grocery list to my other half to pick them up on his way home from work (he works by a better grocer, and in the burbs so taxes are cheaper on non food items and liquor).  If I decide we're going to have rice during the week I make a few dishes that incorporate rice, so I make a bigger batch and then its ready to go, if there are veggies that can be chopped ahead of time, I'll do them all at once, etc. Some meals do take longer, but a hearty vegetarian meal is easy to whip together.  My go to is black bean taco salad/burrito bowls.  Chop half an onion, garlic and a can of beans + Dee Roo Taco Tuesday seasoning in a saucepan, chop lettuce, add rice, cilantro, lime, tortilla chips, and salsa. Boom 10 min meal, if the rice was premade (I also have a rice cooker with a delay timer that helps a lot). You can get fancier with roasted veggies, avocado, homemade pico, or sometimes I make a chipotle vinaigrette if time permits. 
 
I have to reiterate that I'm a big believer in the freezer.  If I am going to be spending time cooking and the meal will freeze well, I double the batch and then save myself a couple days cooking in the future when I am strapped for time.  Some weeks i'm busier than others, so I try to take advantage when I do have time.  
 
I've been eating out of the microwave in the mornings but I've come up with a really good breakfast sandwich load with protein. 
 
egg white patty
morning star breakfast patty
whole wheat english muffin
tons of Huy Fong garlic chili sauce
1 slice American cheese
 
Delicious!
 
It really gives me a nice protein kick in the morning. The big downfall with this is that it's also loaded with sodium. I'm working 7 days a week and the practice is growing astronomically so it's been a challenge to squeeze in any good home cooking. 
 
Egg whites in this egg cooker has been a godsend:
 
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I started doing overnight oats, rolled oats + soymilk + scoop of protein powder + raw hemp seeds = ~35 g of protein in a cup of oatmeal. I usually stick blueberries and cinnamon in there with some honey or maple syrup.  .5 c oats, .5 cup soy milk, the toppings/sweetner, protein powder, and a scoop of hempseeds, put the lid on and in the AM grab it and go.  I know some people despise oatmeal though.  The carbs and protein combo keeps me full for a LONG time into the day.   
 
Always wanted to try a Cauliflower steak. LOL I was at a restaurant(shall remain nameless) and they wanted $13 bucks for a cauliflower steak plate.
Not only that but in Wisconsin! they were serving butter pads that had happy California cows all over them...
 
So I got a head of cauliflower for 98 cents sliced some "steaks", drizzled with EVO, salt, pepper, a sprinkle of Parmesan, and I crushed a P. Dreadie SB pod over it.
 
Let me tell you! that was good stuff!
 
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It baffles me when people say it has no flavor...
 
Try some curried cauliflower in a wrap with thin sliced raw red onion and cilantro.
 
Boiled with butter bring back memories, and also is a killer simple eat.
 
So one of the books I got is called Supermarket Vegan.  It's vegan recipes with ingredients that should be available in most everyday supermarkets, a lot of them are supposed to be quick and easy too which is nice.  Here's a cauliflower recipe from there.  Pretty much always add some sort of powder to any of my dishes, usually smoked bhut or red hab.  I used to have Joyner's pecan smoked Bahamian Goat powder, that was delicious but I'm out for now.  I'm sure you guys all have your favorites. 
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Vegan pot pies!
 
The filling is seitan, onion, garlic, carrots, celery, potato, mushroom, and green peas cooked up in OO and some liquid aminos (soy sauce). Drizzled some white wine over it and dijon mustard. Then I coated everything with chickpea flour, sage, thyme, bp, smoked hab, smoked paprika, and a dash of white pepper. Added the broth that I cooked the seitan in and soy milk and let that get all good together.  I cheated an used premade pastry puff (pilsbury's is vegan if that matters to anyone).  Still took forever to make the meal. I admit to not having great time management due to anxiously awaiting the 2016 Cubbies Home Opener/ WORLD SERIES BANNER RAISING...  but it was fun to eat pot pie again.  (cook time for the seitan 1 hr 10 min, 25 min in the oven for the bottom layer of pastry puff, time to cook the filling, and then ~45 min cooking with the top layer on) 
 
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sorry tried to over expose this shot  on my phone to let the insides be seen but it just looks like blah. 
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Made a "fish filet" type sandwich tonight.  I wanted it to be more like McDonald's but decided to go a bit healthier after pot pies 2 nights in a row... Here's the base recipe.  My usual disclaimer to only peeking at recipes and never following all the directions.  I made the tartar the regular way with mayo and dill pickles, the slaw I added a fresh pepper from on of my OWs.  Cheddar cheese melted on the bottom bun.  Sweet potato oven fries for the side.  Flavor wise it was good, not what I was expecting, more like a tuna melt really than a filet of fish, I should have figured that.  Dude ate 3 of them so I guess they tasted ok to him.  If you have tartar sauce on hand already the patties are pretty simple and hold together well.
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I'm back with more vegetables! I made a veggie and seitan skillet meal.  Marinated some seitan pieces in a mustard and wine marinade (dijon and yellow mustard, some white wine, seitan broth, smoked hab powder, coriander, allspice, clove, and black pepper). Chopped up some cabbage, carrots, red potatoes, onion and mushrooms.  I put the seitan in the the  middle of the skilled and surrounded it with veggies.  Added a little broth to cook the veggies in, topped them with a swirl of the mustard marinade and put it in the over on ~350 for an hour and a half, covered with foil. Unfortunately cooking it in broth like that made the seitan soft so I pulled that and threw it on in a small skillet. Seasoned the veggies with a little garlic salt and smoked paprika, added some kidney beans and about a quarter cup of rice just because it was left over inthe fridge and let it sit in the oven while I dealt with the seitan.  After the seitan dried out a bit I put the rest of the marinade on it and threw it in the broiler for a couple min. Fresh parsley to top it off and a glass of Spanish wine.  In the end, it was fantastic. 
 
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My first time trying tamales. The masa has green onion and poblano in it.  The filling is onion, garlic, carrot, red bell, poblano, tomato paste, chipotles and the adobo sauce they came in, corn, green olives, black beans, and seasonings.  Youtube'd how to wrap them and did my best... I ended up with about 30 tamales, and STILL had stuff left so I made 2 layered casseroles and threw them in the freezer. Hopefully I can just bake them at a later date and everything will taste good.  The first batch of tamales I should have let steam a little more, the pic is from the first batch (also the first few that were wrapped so not particularly great at it yet). The kitchen was a mess and I wasn't going to take a picture but y'all would say it never happened. The next batch came out better, but man do I have a new found respect for the tamale guy.  
 
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