Vegan "Bacon".......Vacon!!

.....FOR DELICIOUS VACON AND TOMATO SANDWICHES!! ..........MMMMMMMMMMM!


There is nothing tastier than vegan bacon. But it can be hard to find and when you can it can be expensive. So I figured out how to make it at home (Hooray for me!!).

The first very important ingredient you will need is this:



It's called "Liquid Smoke" and it's made by all sorts of different companies with different labels but unfortunately as far as I can tell it's only made in the US. So if you live outside the US I encourage you to either make friends with some Americans who can send you this stuff, drop huge hints to friends who will be visiting America, or alternatively you can order it online at places like this: Americansweets.co.uk.

If you are American then it is your moral duty to make friends with at least one overseas Vegan and send them this stuff.

So on with the recipe:



THE INGREDIENTS

DRY INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 Cup Wheat Gluten
1/2 Cup Nutritional Yeast Flakes
1 tspn Salt
2 tspn Garlic Powder
1 tspn Cumin Powder
2 tspn Coriander Powder
3 tspn dried onion flakes
1/2 tspn celery salt
1 1/2 tspn black pepper
1 tspn crushed red pepper
1 package single serving dry tomato soup mix


WET INGREDIENTS

I Can (Aprox 420 grams) Baked Beans in Tomato Sauce
3 Tablespoons Liquid Smoke
3 Tablespoons Olive Oil



COOKING INSTRUCTIONS

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. It is very important to keep the dry ingredients separate from the wet before you are ready to mix them because the wheat gluten can get very rubbery and weird if you don't.

In a food processor or blender, blend all the wet ingredients well until you can no longer see any bean lumps:


Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and knead it all together with your hand:


If the dough is slightly dry, take a lump of it and sop up the remnants of the wet mixture that are still in your food processor then squoosh it all together.

Form two logs about 6 inches (15cm) long:


Grease the middle of a sheet of aluminum foil for each log with vegan butter (a.k.a. Margarine!), making sure to put extra globs of it on the top of the log:


Wrap the logs so that they close at the top and bake in the oven at 175°C (About 350°F) for 90 minutes. When they come out they should look like this:


It's best to let them cool all the way for at least a few hours before slicing them, otherwise they will be too spongy to work with.

When they have cooled, slice the logs into slices about 3mm thick which should work out to about 25 slices per log. To get that crispy lovely bacon effect, fry them in a pan with a bit of oil at a low temperature until they get crispy and dark:


Nutritional Information

5 slices or 1/5th of a log:

Calories: 250
Fat: 5.6g
Saturated fat: 0.8g
Polyunsaturated fat: 0.8g
Monounsaturated fat: 3.3g
Carbohydrate: 17g
Dietary fiber: 4g
Protein: 34.6g
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