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.

 
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. 

 
Eventually, after a long long time (especially if you use brown rice), your arroz congri will be ready.  

 
 
Happy vegetarian eating! (I also ate left overs this morning covered in cheese and a fried egg)
 
Let's see what you got....

 

[Rawkstah]

Tonight was vegan pizza night.  I cut out a lot of dairy, but can't give up pizza and ice cream (usually pay the price for it the next day :-/).  At home though, I have been making vegan pizzas with dairy free cheese.  They actually taste better than any frozen pizza I've ever had.  So tonight's pizza was garlic, mushroom, black olive, sliced fennel, spinach, and Morning star breakfast sausage all crumbled up. Topped with some franks and alternated between recipe x and fornax from deeroo. omnomnomnom.
 

 
Oh! And GIP sent me some of his Black Currant jam and I've been using it in the second ferment of my Jun tea.  It tastes almost like champagne with subtle hint of the black currant.  It is so good and the color is nice
 

 

[Guatemalan Insanity Pepper]

YUM and yum 
 
looks good
 
 
 
 

 

[Rawkstah]

Campfire foods.  
 
Ancient sweet, asparagus, english muffins, and a block of spicy bbq tofu.  I doctored up some store bought bbq sauce with some smoked hab powder, some Pex To The Moon, a dash of franks, ginger, turmeric and extra soy sauce. 

 
Cheez curds that we saved from lunch on the drive there... 

 
Building my sammich, the bbq tofu, pickles, hot banana peppers, the ancient sweet, and curds

 

 
Dog Tax.

 

 

[grantmichaels]

Nice ... plus a Moscow Mule ...

 

[Rawkstah]

Nice ... plus a Moscow Mule ...

Nah just use the copper mugs to keep things colder longer.  I don't drink vodka so I've never had a Moscow mule, but I'm a fan of the Kentucky mule with bourbon and hot pepper bitters in it.  

 

[grantmichaels]

+1.

 

[The Hot Pepper]

Nice!

 

[oldsalty]

Just beautiful the food and the dogs.

 

[dragonsfire]

great setup

 

[Ashen]

 I am wanting to rev up my morning start
 
oolong tea,  poached eggo and avo  over millet.   
 

 

 

[grantmichaels]

Pretty!

 

[Rawkstah]

Last post was over a month ago here! I've been crazy busy running a new business lately and it is a lot less fun than everyone makes it out to be.  I've still been cooking but I usually get home from the shop, cook and consume without hesitation.  This weekend I made tvp ropa vieja style so this afternoon I turned it into tacos.

 
Also a few weeks ago I got a mango from a street vendor covered in lime juice, salt, and chili powder and it was amazing... I've been doing the same thing at home for dessert.... 

 
 

 

[Rawkstah]

Check it out! Homemade vegetarian jerky!  
 

 
So I've been brewing Kombucha and Jun Tea lately and every batch you make the SCOBY (the "mushroom", really its a symbiotic culture of bacteria & yeast), multiplies.  I had 3 batches going at once so you can imagine I am flush full of these things.  One of the jugs hadn't been performing as well as the others so I looked up what I could do with the SCOBYs besides just chuck them and give them away.  Turns out you can eat them!  So I separated them out (they feel like raw chicken breast in texture but you can peel them to be very thin) and cut them up, marinated the strips in soy sauce, ginger, smoked habanero powder, smoked serrano powder, black pepper, garlic, balsamic vinegar and some jun tea.  Only marinated for about 20 min, then I threw it in the dehydrator for 8 hours.  It is interesting, at first I was all weirded out, but it tastes good and its supposed to be good for you so win win.  

 

[sicman]

If you say so.

 

[Grass Snake]

Really nice "meatless" thread Rawk. Food looks yummy.

 

[BigB]

check out making jerky from coconut, it's pretty dope

 

[Rawkstah]

check out making jerky from coconut, it's pretty dope

I was looking into a beet jerky and tofu-tvp type jerkies.
Since I brew kombucha/jun tea almost once a week sometimes two batches so I have those scobys around and never know what to do with them, at least now I can use them.  Also if anyone wants a SCOBY for jun or kombucha just inbox me.. 

 

[The Hot Pepper]

You can make some good jerky from apples. Yeah yeah don't shoot me lemme splain! If you've every eaten dried apples you know the texture. And they are sweet but not sugary sweet so all this means is now, all you have to do it add the savory. So you core and peel an apple and slice into thin slices, of the whole apple (x how many you want). You then soak the slices in your fave jerky marinade, but you cut the sugar in half because of the apple sweetness. You soak the apples for 2 days in the fridge. You then put them in the dehydrator but sprinkle with a small amount of sea salt. Dry per normal for dried apples plus an extra 2 hours for the added moisture. When done you have a great sweet/salty/chewy snack even with a jerky color and texture.

 

[Rawkstah]

I like to make savory apple chips!
 
I had every intention of posting dinner tonight, vegan chili with wisconsin beer battered cheese curds, but dude was late coming home so I had to warm the curds in the toaster oven and that was a bad idea.  it turned into chili with a blob of melted cheese and batter pieces around. 
 
whoops!

 

[Rawkstah]

I finally got a new phone yesterday, for the past few months I'd been toughin' it out with the old phone even though the lens was cracked (didn't seem like a lens was a reason to get a new phone for me).  I was wondering why all the pictures were coming out a tad out of focus all the time.  So here's the first food pics with my s7.  Eggwich.
english muffin, avocado, smoked paprika, romaine, morning star bacon, egg, el capitan, sliced nhu peppers, and from the garden sliced yellow and red cherry tomatoes, and cucumber and more el capitan under the cucumber. 

 
all put together with the runny yolk drippin' out