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

Yeah lemon or lime can take something very heavy and lighten it/freshen it up... or just make it pop. Lime on all tacos! I use lemon in my guac not lime, for some reason, oh and bloody marys! No matter how good you think a bloody mary is, squeeze that lemon and bam! 100x better.
 
I'm still waiting for someone to post up the Asian soup post that launches me ...
 
I have the stuff, but no requisite knowledge or even eexperience having eaten a lot of it ...
 
We're going to eat a lot of Mexican this coming week, to try sauces ...
 
After that, though, it's going to be Asian-fest ...
 
Hoping to find some veg stuff in Asian fest ... or, meat-less, might have meat-y broths etc ...
 
I like the healthy discussion about replicating meat dishes.  Most the time I am not trying to replicate meat, but it is how to make it relevant for others.  I do replicate more dishes these days now that I've locked down some good seitan recipes, they've fooled many, even had a vegetarian scream at me for feeding him meat. I also get requests for meat dish replicas.  But the dishes with the store bought meat substitutes is just for saving time.  I don't go out and buy Morningstar products thinking oh this is going to make such a great meal. No, its more like 'Oh these little buffalo chik'n bites will be great when I stumble home drunk off my face next weekend"
 
Cooking without meat has really improved my cooking in general.  When I replicate meat dishes I find that I'm not really craving the meat in the dish, just the sauces or seasonings. The wheatmeat just becomes the vehicle, I can't really make a gyro (which I always loved the flavor of but never ate more than a couple bites because the meat strips were just weird) with just a pita, tomatoes and tzatziki.  I am much more familiar with fresh produce and flavor harmonies. I buy vegetables I've never heard of just to figure out how to cook them. It has forced me to be more creative so that I'm not just eating vegetables and beans on a plate but actually making a well balanced meal.  I now live in a pseudo game of Chopped.
 
I still buy meat occasionally, but I've never really cared too much for it.  Its expensive if you want a decent, non gmo fed, hormone/antibiotic or whatever else goes into the animals-free meat.  I'm not like Chris where I can go out and hunt a deer, the best I can do here is some alley rats that are probably living on a diet of my dogs' poo.
 
It does help to have someone living here that 100% on board with eating like this. I'd never go through all the work for just me. 
 
That's all. 
 
Oh yeah the supermarket stuff is mostly all crap. Artificial flavors and such. Some people are fooled because they think veggie automatically means healthy. Always better to make it at home, just like any "boxed" or frozen food.
 
Keep posting the goodness!
 
Eating vegetarian is never about trying to sub in other stuff to replace meat.  Go veggies and let them speak for themselves.  Umami can add a missing element that meat can provide but it's easily replaced with veggie alternatives.
 
Veggie = vegetables, not let's try and and make an eye fillet replacement with soy and non meat protein glues and flavours # 123, 2367, 272, 736 and colour 2u4j3yv.  Sorry if the U's in my spelling confuse yo.  Sorry, you. :D
 
Deathtosnails said:
Eating vegetarian is never about trying to sub in other stuff to replace meat.  Go veggies and let them speak for themselves.  Umami can add a missing element that meat can provide but it's easily replaced with veggie alternatives.
 
Veggie = vegetables, not let's try and and make an eye fillet replacement with soy and non meat protein glues and flavours # 123, 2367, 272, 736 and colour 2u4j3yv.  Sorry if the U's in my spelling confuse yo.  Sorry, you. :D
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Agreed. And I mentioned MSG earlier, too many people are afraid of it here though. Fear mongering and such. In Asia it's celebrated as the 5th taste sensation, umami. Here... Chinese headache... baddd! It is natural, and if you do not have a reaction (very few do), then there is no reason to fear it. It makes many things meaty! It's in soy sauce, so if you did not react to that, you are fine! :)

I'm not sure if rawk uses it or not. You can buy it in the spice aisle. It looks like salt.

Many people eat it every day and don't know it. It occurs naturally in a lot of stuff, and also through processes, like autolyzing, etc. Companies sometimes hide it in "autolyzed yeast" and such, because of the fears. For mass-consumption it is extracted from sugarbeets and seaweed. In soy sauce, it occurs naturally.

FYI:

Monosodium glutamate (MSG, also known as sodium glutamate) is the sodium salt of glutamic acid, one of the most abundant naturally-occurring non-essential amino acids. MSG is found in tomatoes, Parmesan, potatoes, mushrooms, and other vegetables and fruits.
 
I don't avoid MSG like to do HFCS.  If its an option to avoid it I probably will, but I'm not going to not eat something because of MSG, I do for artificial sweeteners, weird chemical preservatives, etc. 
 
Mostly I just do my best to eat healthy and natural, avoiding stuff that is processed or stuff that has additives to make it more convenient.  For example I always make my own tomato sauce, make my own salad dressings, and soups.  Its just stuff that is pretty easy to make, people just end up buying it at stores because its convenient.  But I still keep some crap food around, like the Morningstar chik'n nuggets, those aren't so good for you even though they're vegetarian.  Oh and there's always a stock pile of Mama Ramen.  
 
I have no idea what to call this... I just kinda threw it together with things in the fridge... 
Spinach-Zucchini pasta noodles, pinto beans, black beans, broccoli, cauliflower, and garlic, with a sort of cheesy sauce made with soy milk, smoked hab powder, nutritional yeast flakes, a piece of cheddar cheese, and some parmesan.  It was a bit sweet from the soy milk so i put a little ACV in there and it actually balanced it out nicely.  
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then a took the rest of the raspberries and blueberries, squeezed about a quarter of a lemon over them, a little honey and some hemp seeds.
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satisfying enough for a totally fly by the seat of your pants lunch. 
 
My hypothesis that the dill pollen would be 'weaker' (strength) was wrong, so I had to mash the potsto on the plate to homogenize the dill pollen throughout ... whereas normally I'm a pooch'r ... you know, the erupting spuds look or whatever ...

It was tasty in the end!

If someone slices my baked potato full length and blocks me from pooching it, I'm less thrilled. Quirks, we all have 'em ...

Cheers!
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Grant had me cravin' taters so today I whipped up some potato pancakes.  
I used 4 potatoes, but I probably should have only used about 3-3.5, some onion, a spoon of WWflour, garlic salt, smoked powder, a dash of baking powder, cheddar cheese, and rosemary.
Mixed up the dry ingredients and the egg, before adding the onion, potatoes, and cheese. 
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This is what the mix looked like after it was all stirred together
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I thought this was going to be the money shot.
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But c'mon you gotta get that egg yolk all over those tater-jacks like syrup. 
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It was delish.  Might look into that pollen stuff you use Grant to season taters and wheat meat in the future.  
 
potato pancakes are hard work, in my experience ... but oh so good.
 
I like love that you can dress them up different ways (a quality of most of my favorite foods) ... and I usually always eat one w/ a slice of American cheese, one w/ SC and chiv es, and then the majority of them w/ apple sauce ...
 
Nice job w/ the egg run, though, I need to try that next time - for sure ...
 
Cheers!
 
Rawkstah said:
These weren't any more work that regular pancakes sans the shredding part.  I'm sure you've got a gadget for that though. 
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one of the blades, the cheese grating one - if I recall, for the food processor does a pretty good job at that ...
 
squeezing out the liquid is kind of a pita, and pretty essential unless you have a different technique for that ...
 
i suppose there might be a way to salt out some of that water content, perhaps, but i've never done it ...
 
a nice variant is smitten kitchen's granny smith take : http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2010/11/apple-latkes/
 
you might like that - i've done that one and we enjoyed it ...
 
the smell in the house behind potato pancakes is pretty special for a few days, especially if they are properly loaded w/ onion ;)
 
If only I had known you could sell dill pollen/flowers by the tin can...
 
How much was that Grant?
 
able eye said:
If only I had known you could sell dill pollen/flowers by the tin can...
 
How much was that Grant?
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~$15 delivered free w/ Amazon Prime, if memory serves.
 
You use a tiny amount ...
 
I'm curious how it will hold up over time ...
 
I dont think its the pollen per se. I've always been told the flowers and seeds are more dilly, yo. I had many more flower tops last year than I needed for reseeding my little dill patch though.
 
There's definitely little green bits and yellow pollen-y stuff ... two components, at least  ...
 
It's potent. In fact, it's almost hard to apply evenly and lightly enough ... next time I'm planning to mix the pollen into my salt and pepper etc, and then apply it all after mixing it up well.
 
grantmichaels said:
There's definitely little green bits and yellow pollen-y stuff ... two components, at least  ...
 
It's potent. In fact, it's almost hard to apply evenly and lightly enough ... next time I'm planning to mix the pollen into my salt and pepper etc, and then apply it all after mixing it up well.
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That's a good idea.
 
I was staring at your pic earlier trying to figure it out and it looks like they just pick the very top of the flower clusters. Gives me a good use for the billions of flowers those things make this year. Keep us updated how it stores.
 
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