Gardein Beefless Burger Open-Faced Sandwich

I know, another product from Gardein? Yes! I really like Gardein products. These burgers were great! I did have these in a "traditional" hamburger way as well as this open-faced sandwich way.

For this dish, I sauteed a bunch of onion and mushrooms together, and made a sort of gravy sauce. I toasted some bread, pan-fried the burger, and put it all together with some peas on the side.

Birthday Explosion, Part 2 of 2: Food Trucks [Vegan MoFo]

[Give Beets a Chance: veggie dog from Magic Bus Cafe @ Food Truck Food Court.]

It's Vegan Mofo! AKA the Vegan Month of Food, an annual event of vegan food bloggers. I really wanted to sign up but failed to do so by the deadline. I am going to be participating anyway and hope to blog a lot this month. You can head on over to VeganMofo.com to find out more.

Today's post is the second part of my birthday explosion. I wanted more than anything to go to the various food trucks that have popped up all over Minneapolis/Saint Paul these past few years. On Wednesdays, there is a Food Truck Food Court in Saint Paul and I went there to check it all out.

We went first to the Magic Bus Cafe, a cool purple bus serving up veggie (and meat) dogs with various relishes and toppings. The one pictured at the top of this post is a dog with a beet and sauerkraut relish, the one below is a spicy dog with jalapeno relish. Sorry for the blurriness in these photos, it is incredibly difficult to take decent photos outside with my camera.



After chowing down on dogs, we hit up Gastrotruck and had two delicious black bean burger sliders.



Finally, we had to have dessert: cupcakes! These beauties were from Cupcake On The Go, the truck version of Cupcake. These were amazing and super-rich. Yummy! Fantastic birthday lunch.

Boca Burger with Peas, Corn and Mashed Potatoes

Nothing spectacular, other than the Burger Shark in the potatoes. Just a pan-fried Big Boca Burger (slightly larger than the regular-sized patties) with mashed potatoes and peas and corn. Some Earth Balance for butter, salt and pepper.

Veggie Burger with Frank's Redhot and Vegan Bleu "Cheese"

The title says it all. One Vegan Boca Burger, smothered with Frank's Red Hot and tons of crumbled Sunergia Soyfoods Vegan Bleu Cheese.

I got the idea while watching Diners, Drive-ins and Dives om the Food Network. I purchased the vegan bleu "cheese" a while ago and didn't know exactly what to do with it. I've since mixed it into Organicville's Non-Dairy Ranch to make a sort of creamy bleu cheese dressing. The non-dairy ranch isn't *that* great, but I have enjoyed it on pizza.

Noodles with Beefy Gravy, Mushrooms, Onions, and Peas

I craved a gravy dish the other day so made this up as I went along.

What You Need:

1.48oz dry pasta (I used Whole Wheat spirals)
50g onion
120g mushrooms (I used sliced baby bellas)
1/2c ricemilk (or other milk)
3t Whole Wheat Flour (or all purpose white)
65g peas
1 veggie burger, crumbled

To Taste:
Bragg's Liquid Aminos
Salt
Pepper

Okay. I started by cooking the pasta normally, drained and rinsed and waiting for the gravy.

I sautéed the mushrooms and onions and added a microwaved veggie burger (I microwave to thaw) which I cut into pieces in a pan. Then I added some of the flour, as well as some rice milk, stirring constantly. I added the rest of the flour and milk, as well as some Bragg's, salt, and pepper. I dumped the peas in to mix with everything. It took some time to get just the right consistency fo the gravy.

I poured the gravy over the pasta on a plate. This was one large serving.

Overall, I need to improve the gravy. It was still a little heavy on the flour taste, but the Bragg's worked really well. Next time I may try adding butter or fat of some sort. Interesting experiment.

Juicy Lucy: Vegan Style

This is my vegan version of a Juicy Lucy, which is a legendary burger around Minneapolis. I've never had a "real" Juicy Lucy, but have had it described in detail and read about it a lot.

I used a Vegan Boca Burger, sliced in half horizontally to create two skinny patties, and I then inserted one slice of Vegan Rice Cheddar Cheese by Galaxy Foods. (I haven't been able to find the American flavor or the Pepper Jack flavor, but I want to. I like this "cheese" quite a bit because unlike Tofutti slices, this stuff is trans fat free!)

I ate the whole concoction on one piece of bread, and folded it all in half to have a weird double cheeseburger juicy lucy type of thing. It was tasty, but I believe that there wasn't enough fat in the burger to achieve true "juiciness".

Black Bean Burger Experiment Number One

This is my first time maing a veggie burger from scratch. It was tasty, but didn't hold together very well.

My recipe, made up:

386g black beans, drained and rinsed (I used one 25oz can, drained and rinsed)
83g onion, small dice
1 clove (7g) garlic, minced
2 jalapenos
1/2c hydrated TVP
1/4c salsa
1/2c frozen corn
3/4c cooked quinoa

spices:
taco seasoning, cumin, salt, pepper


1. hydrate the TVP in veggie broth or other flavorful broth.
2. Mash the can of drained beans in a bowl with a masher or fork or hands.
3. sautee onion, add cumin (1/2t?)
4. once onions start to brown, add garlic and salsa and frozen corn
5. after a minute or so, add TVP, mix thoroughly, add some taco seasoning and a little liquid. I only added a tiny bit of taco seasoning, and this recipe probably doesn't need any at all.
6. once mixture is thoroughly seasoned, turn off heat and add to bowl of beans.
7. mash/mix everything together.
8. add 3/4c quinoa, mix until it seems like a lot of the liquid is absorbed.
9. with a 1/3c as a scoop, make patties. Using the 1/3 measurement cup, you should get about 8 patties.
10. Fry up the patties, freeze the leftovers. Serve either on a bun or with chips and salsa, garnished with cilantro.

So....yeah, we'll see how they turn out after they have been frozen for a while. Maybe then they will stay together better. Or, I can just go back to the drawing board on this one.

Still tasty....here's one without chips: