Fried Okra, Green Beans and Sundried Tomato Sausages

 

Every once in a while I relinquish my stronghold over the kitchen and allow Colin to fry, saute, marinate or grill something. I essentially have to leave the kitchen because otherwise I will have a fit over how much oil, earth balance, sugar or BBQ sauce he throws into something. Really, I try to be good about it. I mean he is using olive oil and Earth Balance after all. I mean these are good fats, cholesterol and trans-fat free fats - how bad can they be? Still, I can't help but cringe when he throws two tablespoons of Earth Balance into the pan to cook green beens or douses veggies in olive oil to prep them for the grill. I am a baby and I minimize my use of added oils and fats to the point that it sacrifices taste - but that doesn't mean that Colin has to. And - as he so eloquently argued as he literally was pushing my whining self out of the kitchen - "What do you think you are eating when you go out Taylor? How do you think restaurants make french fries taste so good? THEY DEEP FRY THEM."

Fine. I'll allow it. In moderation. I mean he learned how to cook from Germans after all; what do I expect?

The Okra, Green Beans and Sauerkraut (which also has a good amount of EB in it) were his doing, the sausage was mine (mediocre first attempt). The only things that actually followed some kind of traceable recipe were the okra and the sausages so that is what I've got for you today.

Deep Fried Okra

(Adapted from Vegan Piggy) 

• 1 pound fresh Okra (this was a "speckled shelf" inspired dish!) - chopped into 1/2 inch slices
• 2/3 cup flour
• 1/3 cup ground corn meal
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp garlic seasoning or garlic blend
• 1 cup plain soymilk
• canola oil for frying

Bring a 1/2 inch layer of oil in a fry pan up to heat over MEDIUM heat.

Stir together your dry ingredients in a medium sized mixing bowl.

Dip a handful of your okra pieces into soymilk and then toss them into the dry ingredient mixture.

Drop into the hot oil and let fry until golden brown :)

Remove from oil and set on paper towels to let the excess oil drain off.

Dip in sauce of choice and munch!

Sundried Tomato Seitan "Sausages"
(Adapted from Veggie Num Num)


For the Broth

• 3 cups veggie broth
• 3 cups water
  
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/2 can of fire roasted tomatoes (you will only use 1/2 the can in the actual sausage recipe - below)
• 1 Tbs Sriracha
  
• 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 2 tsp italian seasoning
• Onion/carrot/celery scraps (any misc. veggie pieces you want to throw it to give it flavor)

Bring all broth ingredients to a boil while you are preparing the sausages.

For the Sausages

• 1/4 cup raw cashews, lightly toasted
• 1/2 yellow onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup hydrated sun-dried tomatoes
• 1 can fire-roasted tomatoes (preferably with green peppers in them as well)
• 1/2 lb vital wheat gluten flour
• 2 tsp paprika
• 2 tsp cayenne
• 2 tsp Italian seasoning blend
• 1 cup veggie broth
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• Kitchen Twine (we used dental floss - no kitchen twine to be found in my kitchen)
• 6 pieces Cheesecloth (cut into squares that are about 6 inches X 6inches)

Pulse the cashews, onion, garlic and sundried tomatoes in a food processor until chopped finely but not pulverized. They should still have a noticeable texture to them.  Add in 1/2 the can of fire-roasted tomatoes and pulse a few more times.

In a large bowl, combine the gluten flour and all spices. Mix in the cashew/tomato mixture and then slowly add in the veggie stock and olive oil, mixing constantly.

Mix all ingredients together for about 4-5 minutes or until you have an elastic, stringy dough.

Divide the dough out into 6 pieces. Form each one into a sausage-type shape and place in the center of a square of cheesecloth. Wrap the cheesecloth tightly around the sausage and use twine/floss to tie it at each end.

Place each sausage in the boiling broth and reduce to a simmer. Allow to gently simmer for 30-40 minutes.

Remove sausages from broth, allow to cool slightly and then cut off the cheesecloth. In a large fry pan or on the grill, grill each sausage until golden on all sides.

Top sausage with mustard and bottom with sauerkraut and munch!

I can't wait to get better at this recipe. It has a lot of potential but definitely needs some refining. Colin loved them and I think all six were gone in a matter of two days, but still! They will be better next time :)

 

Om noms.

Live long and prosper! And share your kitchen...sometimes.

Vegan German Food Cart

When Colin and I first met, one of the things we bonded over was our mutual obsession with food carts. Portland is one of the epicenters for food cart action and almost every one has a vegan option, meaning we have taken it upon ourselves to try them all. But what we really want to do is (someday, between my law school and Colin's masters and the myriad of other projects we take on) is to start our own.

Our idea? German food. The good stuff. And all vegan. Like this:

And I figure, Colin is 75% German and I'm 98% vegan (with the exception of chickie eggs) so I figure that makes our food cart mostly authentic and 100% unique.

So we've been experimenting with menu ideas. A lot. This picture above shows the following

• Green Beans with "Bacon"
• Kartoffelsalat (potato salad)
• Whole wheat Spätzle
• Schnitzel (Chick pea schnitzel!) With vegan sour cream on top.
• Sauerkraut 

Also we made this:

It's a German dumpling soup, sometimes made with semolina but we made it with cornmeal. Also it has a chickie egg in it so it's not 100% vegan - we'll have to figure that out later. But it's SO SO good. It's like the best comfort food in the entire universe and it's incredibly easy to make. Probably the easiest thing on our menu.

Definitely a success.




The potato salad was moderately successful. It's basically just potatoes, vinegar, parsley, red onion, olive oil, salt, Bragg's and vegan bacon bits. We learned that it is best with red potatoes - any yellow skinned potato is just too mushy (I like it that way but Colin doesn't think it's authentic enough).

The spätzle (pronounced "shpets-le") tasted fine but doesn't form up very well with whole wheat flour. I keep trying and trying but it really needs to be made with white flour - the whole wheat is too starchy and doesn't allow it to ball up properly. I'm going to keep experimenting. We have a spätzle maker which is really handy, so there is no excuse for not having our delicious German pasta properly formed.

The Schnitzel was also really good, but it needs a little more playing around with. It's an adapted recipe from Veganomicon's Chickpea Cutlets but pounded out a little more. Next time I am going to add more vital wheat gluten flour to make them a little meatier and I am going to try breading them on the outside to make them look more like the real thing (I'm trying to get away from breading and frying and butter but it's GERMAN FOOD. I need to lock it up if I'm ever going to make it anything like the original).

Lastly - the green beans. I wanted to make sauteed apples and turnips as our veggie, but the green beans were on sale and looked so bomb and they really did turn out great. Part of the problem that I struggle with is that I love vegetables so so much and there aren't enough of them in German food. If we ever do open a food cart, I will make sure that there are several veggie options. Because it will make me feel better.

Also I have a reciple for Apfelkuchen that I want to try (that's apple cake in case you were wondering) but I didn't get to it this time around. No German food card would be complete without Apfelkuchen.  Or potato pancakes. More to come! So many delicious options!

So that is our idea so far! Still experimenting but it's going well. If anyone wants to be a test subject, please let us know! We can use as much feedback as we can get :)

One final picture:

(See what I mean about spätzle? No whole wheat flour for you, spätzle!!)



Live long and prosper. German style.