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Sunday brunch - "Fronch toast" from Vegan with a Vengeneance ,served with organic maple syrup. There's a side of garlic mixed greens, orange slices, Yves breakfast sausage and homefries. The fronch toast is chewier than it looks - such an indulgent brunch treat & eggless indeed. I added some vanilla extract & cinnamon to the batter. George Foreman grilled Italian baked tofu, asparagus, cremini mushrooms, summer squash & zucchini. The vegetables were marinated in fresh lemon juice, garlic, pepper, sea salt & olive oil. We have a small outdoor grill but we're on the second floor of our building this summer so the grill is going to be for picnics and bbqs only. Handy GF.
Grilled veggies & tofu, green leaf lettuce and toasted garlic ciabatta bread - made with earth balance and crushed organic garlic.Saturday night we made "bbq ribs". The recipe is from Vegfamily.com and can be found here. Honestly, I get really weirded out by most faux meats and couldn't handle a bite of these - but I was intrigued to try the recipe out - it was pretty easy and much quicker than most seitan makings. I used Consorzio Organic Spicy bbq sauce, our staple. Thomas calls it "delish comfort food". Oh, seitan, how I wish I liked thee.
25 comments:
I find it interesting that you (and many other vegans) get weirded out by the faux meats. I am curious why... I certainly am not judging you by any means, but I wonder. I know I am into them in part because I was a huge meat-eater my first 15 years of life and went without faux meats except for the occasional Morningstar Farms products for many years thereafter. Over the past 7-8 years or so, I have relied upon the faux meats and I love them love them love them...
Thanks Jess and I hope I am not offending you or anyone with this query!
Those ribs look freakishly real. I wouldn't eat them either, but minus the other fake meats EVERYTHING looks great here. You must love oranges with breakfast, as I'm seeing a trend...
Great post!
Oh Kleo, I've never thought of animals as food (or eating dead ones or using them) therefore any food that is closely resembling dead animals is a turn-off to me. I just don't care for a food that is plant-based and made to taste like a dead animal. There's a 100% vegan restaurant that I love around here, however I refuse to try the Argentine Steak Po-Boy that Ray gets because it looks, smells and (he says) tastes like meat. He even tricked his cousein. Now I wouldn't want to taste that!
It's strange to me that many more vegans (for ethical reasons) don't like fake meats. I hope this gives a bit of an explanation.
I disagree with u eatpeaceplease.. I'm a vegan and have been a vegetarian all my life.. never tasted meat.. but faux meats dont mean a thing to me.. they are just normal food to me.. its only when u start thinking that its faux meat the problem comes.. think of it as seitan or tempeh or tofu.. and not faux meat!! Maybe for me its easier coz I've never tasted the real thing ever in my life.. so when I eat tempeh bacon or seitan peppersteak to me its like I'm eating seitan or tempeh.. not some faux version of something.. I'm not sure if I'm getting my point across.. but its really Simple.. and again it has nothing to do with ETHICS.. believe me!! its just a simple personal preference!
and jess, the stuff looks amazing as usual!!
and jess, I had a question for u.. that looks like an electri grill to me.. Am I correct?? If yes, how is it.. I'm planning to buy one since a while now.. but a lot of ppl told me its not worth it..
I took one look at the faux ribs and said, "ooh -- ew!" Too realistic for me. (This from the girl who looks longingly at chicken salad -- the ONLY omni food I miss!) Everything else looks awesome, though! Brunch is really an event at your house, isn't it? I love how you include veggies in brunch -- I have such a hard time doing that, unless I'm making a tofu scramble.
those faux ribs look so good, jess! i'm a huge faux meat eater. i didn't stop eating meat because i didn't like the taste. i was grossed out by it because i knew what it was and sometimes you'd end up with grissle/fatty stuff and that was really gross, but with plant-based foods there's no worry of that. it's the flavors i miss, not the flesh.
I can't blame you for being icked out by the ribs. Meat substitutes aren't my favorite thing. Tempeh is the only one I really like, and I don't actually consider that a "meat substitute," per se. I tried the Gardenburger Riblets once and couldn't finish more than a bite. It just totally turned me off.
That fronch toast looks killer, though. I think I've decided what to have for breakfast tomorrow!
I never cared for the taste of meat myself, it was always just a carrier for ketchup. Oh how I love ketchup. So I don't crave meat, I crave ketchup. So when that happens I will make pan fried, breaded tofu, seitan, etc. But I don't think of them as faux meat either. To me it's just yummy tofu with ketchup.
Oh! How I miss visiting you! I will be back more! Seriously! These dishes look awesome as usual!!!
Hope to see you soon!
I never liked meat even before going veg but if it's veg I will try anything once. teehee
Hi there! Thanks for stopping by again. I just posted about my less-than-satisfying lunch. HELP! What to do for dinner!?
Mc Seitan, I understand where you are coming from, although I have had meat (about 20 years ago) and I don't *really* remember the taste, maybe bacon only. I just never care for that taste, and I can see for you how you don't have anything to base it on.
I too, think of it as seitan, tofu, or tempeh as well, but when it is starting to be molded and seasoned into sausage patties, boca burgers, bacon strips, etc, that's when I start to not like the idea or taste. I guess if I had nothing to base it on I may not mind it (or even think of it as faux meat) but for me, I do.
And for the "ethics" part, I was just saying that many vegans out there are vegan for the majority of "animal rights" and "ethical" reasons, therefore those may not want to taste what is supposed to taste like a dead animal- but not. That's all. For people who are vegan for health, it's surely much healthier than dead flesh, but many faux meats are only good in moderation. As is anything.
some thoughts....
My take on the faux meats - I generally rule against them . I went vegetarian at 10, and starting not eating a lot of meals before then because I simply did not like them - the idea of steak was not appealing to me - whether subconscously I knew it was from an animal or not, I stopped eating a lot of meat. I've never had a veggie hot dog, and I like my veggie burgers to be full of veggies.
Meat analogs are nothing new, but I prefer tofu or tempeh flavored & fried to seitan. I can't get past the texture of a lot of fauxs, and I try to. There are very rare exceptions to this - recently I got into veggie sausage, though I'm still weirded out in retrospect (this was my first store purchase of it) - I will give the 'chicken and fries' at VP2 in NYC kudos galore.
This past year, I gave branded faux meat crumbles a shot, and I developed a taste for them in tacos & chili - but I have to say, I really prefer homemade tvp for use - it's cheaper and less of a strange aftertaste.
I don't like to rely on a faux meat, or any processed and packaged food ideally, to make my meals. Out of convenience and liking, I do used some bottled sauces, frozen foods, etc - it's easy. However, I'd *ideally* rather a baked piece of local tofu and greens from NW farms over a morningstar farms veggie burger meal any day - my boyfriend would probably say the opposite.
Costwise, if organic frozen veggies burgers were cheaper, I'd probably have more in the kitchen, but they're not, and I had a lot of fun making the black bean burgers not too long ago, and plan on making others in the future.
I'm a little stunned at how real the ribs look and taste - and I think it's remarkable that they're vegan!
The two meats I ate most were chicken and bacon - I was such a class act. I have no desire for chicken other than the aforementioned VP2 dish, I try faux chicken a lot because Thomas digs it, but it hasn't done anything for me but creep me out. I like making it though - there's a great recipe of chicken style seitan floating around. I prefer a piece of tofu, marinaded in braggs, baked in italian bread crumbs with marinara on the side to any chicken dish I can think of.
As for bacon - clearly I have a thing for crispy tempeh bacon - so much crispier and healthier than bacon ever was. Once I realized that I could be vegetarian, it was very easy to give up. I was giving up meats before I even knew what veg was!
Questions?
Wow--those ribs look amazing--I love seitan, personally--I don't have a problem with faux meats unless they actually taste like meat--which seitan doesn't to me... Beautiful job!
I'm a hungry blogger, and my mouth is watering for those ribs....and everything else.
Ooh, those ribs do look luscious. I use a mix from Harvest Direct and cannot figure out how to get nice, even flat ribs because seitan is kind of hard to work with, at least the way the mix is done. I'll have to try this recipe some time.
Yeah, I like Tempeh Bacon too. It's my fave kind of tempeh actually which is strage cuz when I did eat meat (or was forced to as a child because I didn't know anybetter) Bacon was one of the meats I hated most.
I love reading everyone's take on the faux meat... I am really glad I didn't offend anyone.
Thanks again for this post, Jess...
My MwM is up...along with a FLOG. CHEERS!
Hi Jess -- I visited your Daily Grind! Posted about it in my Munchies list today..
what's cookin'?
Recipe with pic! Check it out when you have time!
Miss ya!
wow. great responses. i too love faux meat. AND i love real meat. love it, love it, love it. but i won't eat it and haven't for 3 years so i'm greatful that i have such a large variety of faux's to choose from to satisfy that part of me.
two requests: replicate pastrami to the "T" and a french dip!
Man, those pics of the food look good. I wish I had the time to make such things...
Thumbs up!
The ribs look great. I found the same recipe online and thought it sounded weird, but now I might try it. Fake meat?: i really just want to eat something chewy, smokey, and covered in sauce.
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