Raw Vegan Dolmas

Yeah that's right. You heard me. And these things are easy to make and healthy and GOOD!

I think you can use whatever you have, basically, but here are the vegetables that I used:

1 turnip
1 large onion (actually this is something you shouldn't leave out)
4 smallish beets
4 large carrots.

Finely chop each one of these ingredients (not all together - one vegetable at a time), then add them to your mixing bowl.

Now add:

1 GENEROUS teaspoon cumin powder
1 GENEROUS teaspoon dill
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (also "generous", but "1/2 generous" kind of looks weird in print for some reason)
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup olive oil

Now mix it all together. Nothing needs to be exact, BTW. As I've said, you can probably use whatever vegetables you want - I wouldn't leave out the onion though. And absolutely don't be shy about the spices! It will all taste fab, trust me!



Now comes the hard part (sort of). Get your grape leaves out of the jar (actually, that IS hard), rinse them well, trim the stems off then lay them on your cutting board and place some of the mixture in the middle as pictured:



Now wrap the top over, then close in the sides, then roll it down, gently squeezing as you go to make it as tight as possible. If you have some imperfect leaves, keep them to one side to use for repairs, and likewise if you make a dolma that turns out with holes in it, put it aside until you get to a repair leaf.

It's best to pack them in some sort of sealable container as pictured above as you go.

And of course, NO COOKING REQUIRED! (Hence the "raw" bit!)

Serve with a bit of lemon juice. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!
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Quick and Easy Seitan Breakfast Sausages!

...In under 1 1/2 hours! And I've provided photographic evidence!

Just follow the pictures and what I say, step by step. It's easy. You'll see.

Here's exactly what time it was when I started:



1) Put all your dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.
* 1 1/2 cups wheat gluten powder
* 1/2 cup brewer's yeast flakes
* 2 tablespoons garlic powder
* 1 tablespoon dried onion flakes
* 1 tsp. Thyme
* 1 1/2 tsp Cayenne Pepper
* 2 tsp. sage
* 1 tsp ground black pepper
* 1 tsp Salt



Mix it all up.

Try not to let this happen:


Add slightly less than 1 1/2 cups water, 2 tablespoons of which is Liquid Smoke (Sorry, I forgot to photograph this bit), and mix it all up and knead it a bit until it's a lump like this:
 

Separate into about  20  little pieces and roll each one up in a bit of cooking paper then a bit of foil.
 

Steam all the little wrapped sausages at medium low heat for 45 minutes - 1 hour.  At 45 minutes they are ready to fry up in a pan, but it's best to let them go an hour if you want to save them for later.
 

Fry them up with a bit of vegetable oil! Delicious!.....Oh, and twice the protein of "meat" sausages, NO fat at all (except for what you fry them in), and they cook up fast!
 

And here's what time they were done!
 
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Vegan Sausages!

I realize this is not a particularly artistic or otherwise impressive photo, but it is an authentic photo of a sausage I just made. The fork is in the picture for perspective lest you think it was a giant sausage on a dinner plate.

My latest vegan sausage invention and this one is pretty fabulous if I say so myself (and I do). This sausage is tasty and HEALTHY. Why just look at the statistics (which I went to a great deal of trouble to find - so really have a look):

PER ONE SAUSAGE

.........My Vegan Sausage....................Pork Sausage

CALORIES: 170.............................................286
FAT GRAMS: 5.6.............................................22.7
PROTEIN GRAMS: 20.6..................................15.9


Yes, that's right! My vegan sausage is HIGHER in protein and LOWER in fat and calories!

THE RECIPE:

This recipe is for a quite mild taste. If you want to jazz it up a bit I suggest doubling all the spices apart from the thyme.

INGREDIENTS:
(Dry)
2 cups wheat gluten powder
1/2 cup dried bread crumbs
1/2 cup yeast flakes
2 tablespoons thyme
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon fennel seed
1 teaspoon salt

(Wet)
1/2 large onion (or 1 smaller onion), finely chopped
1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cups strong vegetable stock (made with 2 vegetable stock cubes)


COOKING INSTRUCTIONS:

First take the chopped onion and fry it up in one tablespoon of olive oil until really nice and brown. Set aside. Next make the vegetable stock - I suggest using one cup of boiling water to dissolve the cubes in then adding one cup of cold water so it won't be too hot to the touch later. Stir this all up with the olive oil in a small mixing bowl and set aside.

Next, mix all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. When they are well mixed, using a large spoon, stir in the onions then add the wet ingredients mixture and mix it all together with the spoon until it's one cohesive lump with no dry bits.

Next divide it into 12 equal sized lumps. Once you've done that, roll each one into a sausage shape and wrap it individually in a bit of aluminum foil. It's probably best to make them as long and thin as possible if you want them to end up looking more sausagy than the ones I made. Alternatively you could make patties out of them. There are no rules (wouldn't it be weird if there were, though?).

Put the whole lovely pile of them in the oven and cook at 175°C (350°F) for 90 minutes.

Good, huh? I wasn't kidding, was I?
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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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