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....

 

[texas blues]

Wheatmeat.
 
That just sounds all kine-o-wrong Rawk.
 
The gyro though looks awesome!
 
Now you got me cravin' falafel. 

 

[HigherThisHeat]

That gyro actually sounds and looks quite tasty!

 

[Rawkstah]

falafel will be on wednesday, I am giving the pickled turnips I made an extra few days before I crack the jar open.... And I might try shawarma with the left over wheat meat... 
 
I doubted the seitan for a while, but I live near 2 different vegetarian places, and after trying it there, I knew I could make it and make it better.   There's about 35-40 g of protein per piece of seitan I made and about 5g of fat (mostly from the olive oil).  The nutritional yeast flakes gives it a ton of vitamins and minerals too.   It has more carbs than animal meat and tofu, but you can use it and flavor it to anything you want.  

 

[sicman]

i dont have a clue what you are talking about.  ive never even seen or heard of half of the words in above statment.

 

[LUCKYDOG]

I have yet to venture in seitan land but that Gyro looks great. My son is turning from meat these days so I will keep this is the back pocket - looks like a winner even for us carnivores 
 
Besides my wife and I can eat a big bowl of Tzatziki with a giant spoon by itself its SO good

 

[The Hot Pepper]

Mock dock from a can is creepy looking stuff... but this looks awesome!

 

[texas blues]

I wanna' see Rawk's falafel homemade pita chingaderra. 
 
I like the stuff but I don't reckon I make it right.
 
School me girl.
 
And load it up with the jeek sauce!
 
I'm with LD on that stuff.
 
I could drink that sheeit!

 

[The Hot Pepper]

"Jajeek" on falafel? Noo. Tahini/humus/baba. Yogurt sauce would make it mushy.
 
By the way, why you call it jeek? You have Iraqi joints over there?

 

[Ashen]

I thought Jajik was Armenian.  I know they even thin it out with a bit of water to make a drink or soup.   Either way , thick jajik  is great on Donair/Doner.  I have been leery of buying Seitan , but now that I see how it can be made , I will have to try it.  That gryo looked  tasty. 

 

[The Hot Pepper]

Mmm the doner (Turkish) or donair (Canadian)... haha talk about names... jajeek is the Iraqi sauce and is a mispronunciation of cacik, the Turkish stuff that is tzatziki in Greece. But I would never put any on falafel. It's for meat (or meat substitute ).

 

[JoynersHotPeppers]

Not enough meat in this thread...see ya

 

[The Hot Pepper]

Really all the names are the same... they all kinda sound like zazeek or zjajeek and are just accents and regional differences. Yogurt sauce!

 

[Rawkstah]

The falafel making is being put on hold because I tried out a new middle eastern place around here today instead... I'm going to try and make BBQ wheatmeat sammiches tomorrow instead. 

 

[The Hot Pepper]

Sounds interesting! What meat will you imitate? Pulled pork?

 

[Rawkstah]

If I can find jackfruit, I'll definitely do the pulled pork.  I've read its great to imitate pulled pork with... I've got to JayT a bit and see how the wheatmeat will shine best for bbq, I may throw it on the grill with some hickory chips.  I've got more mouths to feed than usual tomorrow, so it may be an array of meatless fewdz, or I might end up drinking too much and it will be a disaster.  A delicious, but not very pretty disaster. 

 

[The Hot Pepper]

The caps of button mushrooms are good for chicken. Pop the caps, give a rough chop, and steam them in a basket steamer. Take them out and stir in a warm pan with some BBQ sauce for about 15 seconds. Put on a bun with pickles and a slaw top. The trick is the steaming. They take on water instead of losing water and get kinda plump and slimy like chicken lol.

 

[Bailey]

The caps of button mushrooms are good for chicken. Pop the caps, give a rough chop, and steam them in a basket steamer. Take them out and stir in a warm pan with some BBQ sauce for about 15 seconds. Put on a bun with pickles and a slaw top. The trick is the steaming. They take on water instead of losing water and get kinda plump and slimy like chicken lol.

Plump and slimy?
Sold!!

 

[texas blues]

THP jeek is just kitchen slang for tzatziki or any yogurt with garlic, cukes, and whatnots.

 

[Rawkstah]

Here it is.  BBQ seitan sammiches with a red cabbage slaw and a bbq aioli.
 
The slaw is just red cabbage, carrots, cilantro, tossed in ACV and some maple syrup. The aioli is mayo, a couple spoons of bbq sauce, smoked paprika powder, Joyner's pecan smoked bahamian goat powder, a dash of lemon and of course a boat load of garlic.

 
 
for the sammich I let the seitan sit in a bbq sauce mixture for about 2 hours before throwing the pieces right on the grill.  I took a grill shot but in the heat of the night I must have deleted it from my phone. I sliced up the seitan thinner and tossed it in the remaining sauce mixture.  The corner store didn't have any buns without HFCS so I went with some bakery french bread loaves, steaming them before loading up the goodies.  

I apologize for the kind of blurry photo... my hands were full of bbq sauce and I was trying not to get it all over my phone. 
 
 
One of the vegetarians who came by was pretty skeptical about it not being meat and a meat eater told me it was better than pork.  While I don't believe that last bit, it was pretty good, and probably something I'll do again. 
 

 

[Weed]

I just had an egg, broccoli and jalapeno taquito. I kept dumping Tabasco on it the whole time too. Got kinda hot for a minute.

That slaw looks good.