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Pizza Stuffed Waffles

22 Mar

Every Friday at my house starts with a ball of dough. At the end of the day, that ball of dough has risen, been punched, stretched, baked, and consumed. I, too, often feel like I have been stretched and punched and baked and consumed by the end of Friday each week, but I continue to make dough. Every week. Because there’s nothing more therapeutic than kneading dough.

This month I joined the Waffle Club, and finally got myself a quality waffle maker. Just like any new appliance in my kitchen, I’m thrilled to play around with the options available with a waffle maker. Thus far I’ve waffled rice, hashbrowns, waffles, and tofu. However, I feel like these pizza stuffed waffles have been my greatest creation. Perfect handheld size for dipping or even packing on the go, and even good cold (just like regular pizza!) The new Moocho cheese is absolutely perfect for this, because it melts perfectly and oozes out the edges to crisp up nicely.

You can enter to win all of the ingredients to make your own pizza stuffed waffle (including this Presto Stuffler!) by entering my giveaway on Instagram.

Even if you don’t win this giveaway, you can still make your own delicious pizza waffles with the recipe below. You can store these in the fridge for up to one week, or in the freezer in an air tight container for up to one month for easy on the go lunches.

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Chickwheat Cordon Bleu

8 Feb

It’s a blustery winter day here and my oven is begging to be used. It’s actually been in and out of functional use all week, but today it thankfully decided to cooperate. With Valentine’s day quickly approaching, it’s nice to be able to serve something a little more upscale for a nice candlelit meal. We have two kids now, so we won’t be having a candlelit meal, but the thought is nice I guess. We prefer to snuggle in bed and enjoy a pizza and movie together, with maybe a strong drink. We’ve been doing this for years now and it’s still something I look forward to.DSC_0408dit

This recipe requires a bit of preparation ahead of time, but it’s relatively intuitive. Chicken cordon bleu was never something I had prior to going vegan 8 years ago, but I feel like this is a pretty close replication. Please click through the links for my recommendations for alternatives and for prior recipes!

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TTLA Sandwich

4 May

Summer has suddenly descended on the Midwest, which means I basically want to spend zero time in the kitchen with the oven on. My Instant Pot has become my best friend for any cooking I would normally do on my stove top and while I’m still a salad-hating vegan, I’m rediscovering an old fondness for sandwiches.

Conveniently, Lightlife Foods offered me the opportunity to try their tempeh bacon on the newly popular tempeh, tomato, lettuce and avocado sandwich. If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you might have noticed we spent the weekend in Indianapolis, where we stopped at Whole Foods for several meals, and some Fakin Bacon Tempeh Strips.

See my spin on the classic #TTLA recipe below! Continue reading →

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Pulled Phauxrk

6 Feb

Move over jackfruit, there’s a new vegan pulled pork in town and it’s pronounced like fork.

This recipe is bean based, like my previous Chickwheat Shreds and like Blackbeet Beef it calls for cooked mushrooms for flavor. You can either roast or pan fry them, either will cook off the extra liquid and make them more flavorful. Use any white beans you can find navy beans, great Northern beans, it shouldn’t impact the end result.

Kneading in the food processor is what gives it the characteristic shredded texture, so be sure not to skip this step or cut it short. If you don’t have a dough hook, you can use your regular blade to knead. If you don’t have an instant pot, this can also be steamed in a conventional steamer for the same amount of time.

I prefer to weigh the ingredients in this recipe, as I think it yields the most consistent results, but I have included volume measurements for most of the ingredients if you don’t have a kitchen scale.

If you make this recipe, please use the tag #phauxrk on Instagram or public Facebook posts! I’d love to see your creations!!

Many thanks to Somer at Vedged Out and Chloe at Vegan or Not for assisting in the recipe testing!

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Faux King Crab

24 Jan

I could tell a pretty embarrassing story about crab here. I’ll spare you the details and just share this recipe for faux King crab instead. If you say it three times fast, you’ll laugh just as much as you would have at my embarrassing story.

Algal oil is pretty essential for the ocean flavor of this recipe. I don’t really recommend skipping it and it will give you a good DHA boost for the day, but in a pinch you could use a similar amount of kelp powder. It can be found in the Amazon link below or at your local natural food store in the supplement section as vegan DHA or Omega-3. Please see my notes below the recipe regarding tofu/agar.

If you don’t have an Instant Pot, I recommend steaming on the stove or in a conventional steamer for the same amount of time. A stove top pressure cooker could also be used.

If you make this recipe, be sure to use the hashtag #fauxkingcrab on Instagram or Facebook, I would love to see your results!

Many, many thanks to Somer McGowan of Vedged Out for assisting in recipe testing for this recipe.

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Vegan Calamari

18 Jan

A few months ago I made the Vegan Oxtail recipe by Korenn’s Vegan World of Food and was very impressed by the texture of the oyster mushrooms. Oyster mushrooms are kind of an old card in the vegan world, they work excellent as scallops or pulled barbecue on sandwiches. I thought it would be fun to use their shreddy texture for vegan calamari, and I was not disappointed. The mushrooms take a little oceany flavor on during a bit of marinating time, and get battered in a simple flour mixture. Feel free to use a more advanced batter recipe if you prefer. You can usually find large oyster mushrooms at bigger grocers and international markets. If you can’t find large ones, smaller ones will work just as well, but the calamari rings will be smaller. 

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Blackbeet Beef

8 Jan

Sundays usually make me crave a big hearty meal. During football season, we usually have a giant feast of nachos but the cold this week had me craving something more hearty. I’ve had a lot of great feedback on my recent post for chickwheat shreds and some innovative people have been using black beans instead of chickpeas to create a ‘beef’.

Today seemed like a good day to test this recipe, and it was definitely a hit. I used roasted white mushrooms to create a beefy flavor and beets for more earthy undertones. The dark soy sauce helps turn the roast a nice deep brown, but if you can’t find it, you can use regular soy sauce with added browning sauce.*

Kneading in the food processor is what gives it the characteristic shredded texture, so be sure not to skip this step or cut it short. If you don’t have a dough hook, you can use your regular blade to knead. If you don’t have an Instant Pot, this can also be steamed in a conventional steamer for the same amount of time.

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Chickwheat Shreds 

17 Dec

I live in a large town in Illinois, and we are lucky to have an abundance of local stores that sell chickpeas. Most of the time I wonder why I lived so much of my life without the joys of baked chickpeas and I spend an exorbitant amount of my free time planning what I’m going to do with my next batch of chickpeas, because I buy them in 5 pound bags and always am looking for new recipes.

I enjoy seitan making as much as I enjoy chickpeas. If you’ve followed my Instagram lately, you have seen how much seitan I’ve been experimenting with. This recipe was the result of running out of tofu and not being able to leave the house with two small children. The chickpeas add lysine (and lots of flavor) to the seitan and the method used to knead the seitan gives it a great shredded texture. I add a bit of apple cider vinegar to the recipe to cancel out the strong gluten flavor, but feel free to omit if you don’t have it.

This recipe is pretty dependent on an Instant Pot for similar results. If you have a conventional steamer, you may possibly be able to achieve a similar result if you are able to maintain the steam for 2 hours. If not, try making several smaller packets and steaming for an hour. Edit: since the writing of this recipe, many people have tested different cooking methods and steaming on the stove top or in a stove top pressure cooker works well!

Most food processors come with a dough hook, it’s just a plastic thingamabob that kneads instead of chops. If you don’t have one, or can’t find it, you should be able to get a similar texture with your metal blade. Just be sure to process long enough that it comes together and turns stringy and taffy like. You can also use a Kitchen Aid with a dough hook for 15 minutes or longer.

I prefer to weigh the ingredients in this recipe, as I think it yields the most consistent results, but I have included volume measurements for most of the ingredients if you don’t have a kitchen scale.

For those of you who prefer recipe videos, check out this one from Mary’s Test Kitchen!

If you make this recipe, please use the tag #chickwheat on Instagram or public Facebook posts! I’d love to see your creations!!

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BBQ Jackfruit Ribs

24 Feb

My husband has been vegetarian for over 15 years, yet he still answers “ribs” when asked his favorite food. Last year for Father’s Day I made him these juicy, chewy, meaty jackfruit ribs and they’ve become a regular meal in our house since then.

Jackfruit has been floating around in the vegan world for a few years now, usually as a pulled pork substitute.  It works great to add a shredded texture to these seitan ribs!

I add refined coconut oil and peanut butter to give them a fattier texture, but you could easily substitute both of those out for a more firm result. I also use ground dried shittake mushrooms to add a little “umami”. I find whole shittake mushrooms at my local international store and grind them and store in a jar. If you don’t have these available to you, feel free to omit it.

This recipe calls for an Instant Pot, but if you don’t have one you can use a steamer to steam the ribs or an oven to bake them, whichever is your preference. They are very versatile!

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Deep Dish Pizza + Lightlife Coupon Giveaway

29 Apr

Why hello again!

Are you still reading?

It’s been a while since I was here!

Today I’m going to be sharing one of my favorite pizza recipes, deep dish! Being from the Midwest, Chicago style pizza is a big thing here. I do love the sauce on top, but my favorite part is the thick crust.

Sausage is almost as important to Chicago style pizza as the crust, and my favorite vegan sausage is made by Lightlife. I used to buy it every time I visited Trader Joe’s, as it’s the perfect breakfast sausage, served with scrambled tofu. Lightlife has a great range of vegan products. My favorite include:

Please click continue reading below to enter my giveaway for 5 $1 off any Lightlife product coupons!!

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