One of the dreaded but necessary jobs in the kitchen is to clean out your refrigerator. Let’s face it. Food can die on the shelf in the back of the refrigerator. The crisper drawers can be a veggie graveyard too. Sometimes food begins to go south faster than anticipated.
Yesterday was the attack day. This time I put a big soup pot on the stove and all of the almost gone veggies went into it. I had too-ripe tomatoes and mixed veggie leftovers to add. The cauliflower and cabbage were still good but not enough for a meal. I threw in a few green onions, some organic no-salt seasoning and water into the pot. I let it come to an almost boil and then turned it down to simmer most of the day. My results: a clean fridge and this bounty of veggie broth. Clean, cheap and no preservatives. Feeling good.
For several months I’ve been reading about aguafaba and it’s uses. I even saved it in the fridge. Didn’t use it though. Oh, wait. I assume you know what it is. It’s the liquid or pot liquor as they call it in the south left after you cook chickpeas. Most of us toss it after straining the chickpeas. I finally used it in my gluten free waffle recipe.
Now you can’t just pour it in. It has to be whipped. I am lazy so I used my immersion blender instead of a whisk to do the work.
After I achieved a whipped egg white consistency, I added it to my batter. Like egg whites, the aguafaba adds moisture so I slowly added the milk a little at a time. I didn’t want to make the batter to liquidy. The results were beautifully crispy on the outside, tender on the inside waffles. Aguafaba will definitely be added to my egg replacement arsenal.
Partially eaten waffles😄
I forgot to take a picture before we began eating so I had to snatch my hubby’s plate from his hands.
The other day, I made chickpea flour tofu. The person’s whose instructions I used said, the recipe was simple but you had to master the process or technique. She wasn’t kidding. The first batch, I let get too firm. The second was just smooth enough to give me a firm, sliceable tofu.
I cubed a portion of the firm to bake and added it to some vegetable Lo Mein. The too, too firm I crumbled and added to a vegan pot pie filling to replace chicken. Normally, it would be vegetables only in the filling. Both meals were delicious. My husband said they were a repeat. It might be a while before I buy soy based tofu again. This was cheaper and convenient.
They say necessity requires you to get inventive. I doubt if I would have tried this if I had been able to find regular tofu in this grocery store wasteland.
Tonight (Tuesday) I went back to the lab, finally. The last year or so I have been buying Plant-based meat substitutes, (that usually means processed soy). It is expensive and I discovered through experience, causes weight gain. I thought if they can make it so can I. Tonight was the night.
I decided to try making crumbles for tacos. I marinated TVP in a Mexican spiced marinade. I added vital wheat gluten and put it in a skillet to cook like ground beef. Added a little salt to taste.
The next part of the experiment was a homemade corn tortilla baked in a tostada shell. Once I began I discovered I didn’t have very much Masa. I ground corn meal but it wasn’t as fine as masa. I used it anyway. Worked out okay. Will be better next time.
So here is dinner. Homemade tostada shell with home cooked black beans, marinated homemade meatless crumbles, lettuce and tomato topped with nutritional yeast.
Oh how I remember the aroma of homemade sausage, homemade biscuits, grits and eggs for breakfast at my great-grandparents home. I also remember the first night I was exposed to the smell of the pig slaughtering. My great-grandfather and his neighbors got together and slaughtered the animals at the same time. It was horrific. They made their own sausages and other meat cuts. As bad as it was it was forgotten that breakfast morn.
Now I am not a meat eater and sausages along with hot links are just fond memories. I have found some meat substitute sausages to be satisfying but they are expensive and fattening. So how do I deal with this dilemma? Make my own of course. I discovered a book while searching for something else on Amazon. It is call The Art of Making Vegetarian Sausage by Stanley and Adam Marianski. The majority of the book explains the science of sausage making. This appeals to my chemistry lab mind. I am reading now to get an understanding of the ingredients. Then I can make educated substitutes for things like egg whites.
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I am so excited. I have been trying for a while to create my own veggie burger raw and cooked. I have used other people’s recipes. Some were good and others not so much or at least not to my liking. What are my motivations for making my own. I could just buy them. Right? Motivation 1. Mastering my refrig
I also wanted to confidently create my own with whatever I had in the kitchen. That’s what so many said they did in their experiments so why can’t I? Motivation 2 Cost
Buying them can be a budget buster. They are expensive. Here in Texas they are approximately $4.50 and up for 4 patties and they may or may not be vegan. Motivation 3 Satisfying The Cardiologist
This is the hardest. Carl’s doctor has so many requirements. First it was raw so the body could heal itself. Then it was you can add in cooked but must be vegan,gluten-free, oil-free and clean as possible. Vegan was easy. We had already eliminated dairy and most flesh. Gluten-free required learning how to use different grains and seeds and the flours made with them to make waffles, bread etc. Keep in mind the raw, clean and oil-free parameters. Oil-free is easy to understand but no so eary to accomplish. You don’t want dry burgers, or dry anything. Still working on that one. Then what’s clean.
Clean eating is a deceptively simple concept. … At its simplest, clean eating is about eating whole foods, or “real” foods — those that are un- or minimally processed, refined, and handled, making them as close to their natural form as possible. fitnessmagazine
Minimally processed is the kicker. How can you know if it is minimally processed unless you make it yourself?
I finally found a recipe from The Spruce Eats that was very close to the #Dr. Praeger patties that I buy and fit within the parameters set by the Doctor. So with a little modification here is my offering.
Recipe
1 2/3 cup beans (this was a mix of kidney, lentils and leftover black)
1 cup cooked quinoa
1/2 c chopped on onion
1/2 c chopped yellow bell pepper
1/2 medium fresh jalapeño
1/2 medium avocado
1 Tbls brown rice flour
1 tsp chia seeds in 2 Tbls of water
3 Tbls of liquid aminos or to taste
Pinch of cayenne
Mix all ingredients in a food processor until well blend. Form patties and bake at 375° F for 45 minutes or desired firmness.
The brown rice flour made them a little crusty on the outside but were moist on the inside. I will try next time with oats instead of quinoa.
7 burgers that were 4″ in diameter and 1/4″ thick
The flavor was great and now that I’ve made them it will be a quick process next time.
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Anyone that has purchased organic and non-GMO produce knows it is expensive by comparison to conventionally farmed produce. So why do I do it and how can I make it more economically beneficial? For me, I figured I could pay at the grocery store or I could pay at the doctor’s office. The toxins in the pesticides that are used in conventional farming build up in our systems and eventually affect our kidneys and liver, killing us slowly. So those vegetables you were eating to become healthier might possibly be the cause of your illness. Unfortunately you can’t wash away the pesticide that has been absorbed into the meat of the vegetables or the fruit.
So I had to get my money’s worth. I was lying in bed thinking about the root system in plants. (That’s another post). It occurred to me that the stems of greens that we throw away contain nutrients. Rather than throw them away I put them in a pot along with other almost expired veggies. Add to that some seasonings and you have the making of your own vegetable broth.
Then I thought what to do with veggies after the broth was strained. I poured the cooked veggies into the food processor and chopped them all together. It looked interesting.
I wondered if it would add creaminess to a homemade salad dressing blend. Or maybe, it could be used as flavor additive and binder to my veggie burger recipes. It remains to be seen, but the goal is to USE IT ALL.
"Black Soil" Living 