Teese Experiment #2

As I mentioned a week or two ago, I received 2 types of Chicago Soy Dairy's Teese to play around with. This past week I did something with my Mozzarella style. I had some cremini mushrooms to use up and also had some Gimme Lean sausage on hand, so I decided upon Baked Stuffed Mushrooms with Sausage & Mozzarella. I didn't follow it exactly. I didn't have green onions and I didn't use any faux Parmesan (even though I had some...I think I just forgot to put it in). I didn't have Italian Seasoning, but had the separate ingredients and I may have added thyme. What I love about this recipe is that it allows you to input how many servings (which for this recipe equates to how many mushrooms you have) and then it changes the recipe for you so there's no thinking "hmm, what is 2/3 of 1.5 teaspoons?" They do all the work for you!) Also, I added some s & p.

I didn't love this recipe, but I did like the mozzarella Teese! I noticed that the more I used, the better it tasted! If I used this recipe again next time I would use less sausage and add some bread crumbs. Oh, and more mozza Teese!

Yesterday, I made another dish with the mozzarella Teese. I had no recipe this time and just used up the veggies that were going bad in my fridge with some marinating tofu also needed usin' up. The tofu had been marinating in tamari, water, sage, rosemary and nooch. I sauteed some leek, garlic, red bell pepper and the tofu in olive oil and after it was done cooking I grated some of the mozza into it and stirred it up. I put a piece of Good Seed bread in the toaster oven with a couple slices of the mozza, then plated it up, piling the tofu/veggie mix on top. I enjoyed this quite a bit! Next time I would add more mozza and perhaps some kind of gravy. Yum!

I definitely think this is the best mozzarella vegan cheese I've had so far! I look forward to making a panini sandwich with it with some pesto and summer-fresh tomato!

Eggplant Burger

Eggplant Burger with a side of my mom's favorite, lima beans!

So I finally got to the other eggplant product by the folks at Dominex! Woot! Finally!

Well, so there's the Eggplant Burger. I put it on a slightly toasted whole wheat bun with some vegenaise, ketchup, yellow mustard, lettuce and a piece of Tofutti "American" cheese. I didn't realize that this was going to be a like a Boca patty, as in, meaty soy product. For some reason I didn't get that idea from reading the box, but I didn't read it very carefully and I just glanced at the ingredients and didn't really think of it. I thought it was going to be, like, 98% eggplant....which I thought sounded kinda weird. So when I was cooking it on the skillet in a little oil, I was, like, oh, it's just a fake meat patty with some eggplant thrown into the mix.

Flavorwise, not impressed. It tastes a bit off and it's definitely not as good as Boca, which is one of my favorites. The texture is fine and since my nose has been stuffy and my memory is bad, I don't have anything to say about the smell.

Yeah, this burger did nothing for me except give me some nutrition.

The lima beans are frozen from Grocery Outlet, I think they were Green Giant but I can't find any proof online about that. I believe they were 99 cents. You take them out of the box and put them in the microwave for 5-6 minutes and walah! Ready to eat limas! Semi-dry tasting, just as I remember from my youth!

Green Chili Cheese Grits

*Cilantro for looks only

I am one of the many bloggers that are participating in the Teese vegan cheese challenge. I was able to choose which of the flavors I wanted (we picked a back up flavor, they ended up giving us both, which so awesome!) and then were asked to make something that really hadn't been done before.

The flavors I got were Mozzarella and Nacho Sauce. First up: Nacho!

I thought and thought, trying to come up with something I hadn't seen yet. And based on the google search for recipes, this isn't something that's come up lot. Perhaps it's because there's only a small population of people out there who actually like grits.

I normally only see cheddar cheese in Cheese Grits, but I thought the Nacho would give a nice mexi flavor. This is the recipe I ended up with:

3 cups water

3/4 cups quick cooking grits (I used white)

2 garlic cloves, put through a garlic press (roasted garlic would probs be alot better)

salt

2 green chilies from a can, chopped small

2-3 T nooch

fresh ground pepper

1/2 t red pepper flakes

Teese nacho cheese sauce (a 1/4 of the small tube...maybe 1/4 cup?)

I boiled the water, the lower heat to simmer and put in the grits, salt and garlic. Whisk, leave uncovered and stir occasionally for about 5-7 minutes. Stir in the rest of the ingredients and top with hot sauce if desired.

Personally, this isn't my favorite. I think I would prefer it with a non-nacho cheese, but I am going to try it again tomorrow because I believe time will make the flavor better. It's not bad, but it's just not something I'm excited about. Perhaps it could also use some baking? The cheese has an odd smell to it, like an artificial smell, that I found a bit disconcerting. But it didn't taste weird. I would like to try it as a melted queso sauce and will perhaps try other things with my leftovers of it. Do you have any suggestions?? Also, suggestions for the mozzarella?? I'm thinking of stuffing mushrooms with it..

Update, next day: I just ate a delicious breakfast burrito that consisted of the chili cheese grits, avocado, sauteed Gimme Lean sausage, green pepper and onion. So yum!! Also, the grits do taste better with a little aging (doesn't that look misspelled?)!

Butter Pee-can

I came across Soy Dream's new flavor, Butter Pecan, at Fred Meyer's tonight and I was feeling old (have you ever heard a 5 year old ask for some Butter Pecan ice cream? I didn't think so...), so I bought some. My sister, our housemate Helena and I usually watch the new episode of Greek on Tuesday nights together, so I thought ice cream (I mean, non dairy frozen dessert*) would be a nice accompaniment. Helena was missing, but Kim and I dug into the pint of Butter Pecan. We thought it was good, especially when you had a lot of pecan pieces, but it wasn't great. I don't think it's something I would buy again unless it was very on sale. It's just that with the greatness of Trader Joe's/Double Rainbow Soy Very Cherry Chip, you feel ripped off when something else you bought just doesn't make you as swoony. It makes me wish they had more flavors at Trader Joe's. The problem with the Butter Pecan was the soybeany aftertaste and the ice cream didn't have the luscious creaminess that Double Rainbow's has. 

I give this 3 out of 5 stars.

* Did you know that in America, your product has to be at least 10% milk fat for it to be legally called "ice cream"? Stupid. To me, that's like saying you can't call a vegan sausage a sausage because it doesn't have real meat in it. I've encountered people who have gotten up in arms about the ice cream thing (I'm talking to you, commenter dude, on Grant Butler's vegan blog!). I sorta get it because you want ice cream to mean literally iced cream...but no. Actually, I don't get it. As long as it's labeled correctly, with either "non dairy" or "vegan" before the words "ice cream", why does it matter? Those words describe what it is, or trying to be. "Frozen dessert" could be anything; push pops, fudge pops, creamsicles....Ok, rant over...

Eggplant Product Review

So a few months ago, I received some coupons to try out Dominex products. They have several products, but don't expect something without eggplants, their logo says Dominex "The Eggplant People." I'm not a huge fan of this vegetable, to me it's like cats or celery, if they disappeared from Earth, I wouldn't be upset. Ok, actually, I know quite a few cats now that I like and would be sad if they disappeared and celery is a vegetable I actually dislike, so I wouldn't say it's in the same category as eggplant, which I neither like nor dislike...So really, ignore that whole sentence...It's all to say, that currently none of my favorite things involve eggplant. But see...now that I'm thinking about it, I do enjoy some baba ghannouj, the stuffed mini eggplants from Ya Halla's are so good, and breaded eggplant is yum. Though the last doesn't count, because have you ever had something breaded and fried that you didn't love? 

Which brings me to the first product I've tried: The Eggplant Cutlets. Aka breaded eggplant. The way I cooked them was on the stovetop and in the oven. The stovetop ended up being the preferred method. The oven ones took longer than instructed. Which is probably just the fault of the oven, but I'm not sure what the deal was and why it took so dang long. The above picture shows them (stovetop cooked) with a Cluckphrey "chicken" patty (I will blog about those soon) and whole wheat pasta with tomato sauce and nutritional yeast. They tasted good, they tasted like you think they'll taste. I added some salt on top of mine. Because I dislike making breaded eggplant myself, I would possibly buy these. If they were on sale. My friend Jess quite liked them.

I still have yet to try the Vegan Burgers that are in my freezer. I never have buns for burger-shaped foods and have this mental block where I don't like using pieces of loaf bread for burgers. Also, it doesn't seem like the type of burger that you should eat breadless. So...eventually, my dears, I will get to trying those out.

Higher Taste are makers of yum.

Last fall me and the GetSconed chick were gifted with a large amount of goods from Higher Taste, a local company that is known for it's buzzitos and hippie-healthy (for real, they put a shit-ton of shredded carrots on them and use hearty whole wheat buns) sandwiches. 

Included was the buzzitos, hummus, their deli salads, and one of their sandwiches, the Spicy TLC. The deli salads are served in various grocery store deli's and not available in the self-service area like the buzzitos and sandwiches.  

Jess took the hummus and let me have all the deli salads. Unfortunately, I got all these goodies at a time where I was unable to get to everything before their expiration date. I don't remember what was going on, but for some reason I ended up having to throw some of the stuff out. But I did try at least a bite of it when I first got it. My favorite deli salad was the Vegetarian Chicken Salad. The only thing I didn't like about the (vegan) mayo based salad was the celery. I'm a hater of celery. It has to be very finely chopped or cooked to death for me to be ok with it. They use chunks of very firm tofu as the "chicken." I enjoyed the curry goodness of the Curried Rice salad. I'm a sucker for those curry rice salads that have a nice sweet kick that comes from the addition of raisins. The Spicy Yaki Soba is just that, spicy. But as a person who's a bit of a wuss when it comes to spice, it wasn't too hot. Also, it's labeled vegan, but technically not since it's got honey in it. I'm a honey-eatin' vegan, so I didn't mind. Then there was the German Potato Salad. I thought it was...ok. Nothing to write home about. I would eat it happily if served it, but I wouldn't go out of my way for it. 

The salads are sold at the following places:

1. Both Food Front locations (NW Thurman & SW Capitol Highway)

2. Zupan's (W Burnside, SW Macadam, SE Belmont) However, at Zupans they list them as "Zupan's insert name of salad here  Salad"

3. Fred Meyer's Hawthorne 

4. Ross Island Deli

5. First Alternative Co-op in Corvallis

6. The Kiva in Eugene

I don't have anything bad to say about any of the buzzitos I had. The standout was the new Ya-hoo BBQ. The yummy BBQ sauce, the soycurls....yum! If you still haven't had soycurls, you need to get to it! Like tofu, they aren't flavored so they soak up whatever flavor you give them and they have a delightfully shredded chicken texture. (If you know me at all, you know that I love going to Taqueria Los Gorditos and order a burrito, torta, taco, whathaveyou with soycurls. They do an awesome job with the soy curls...and everything. but i digress...) The thai and teriyaki ones are sorta strange b/c it's like eating a thai or teriyaki dish wrapped in a tortilla...b/c that's what it is. Good, just weird.

My favorite sandwich is still either The Golden Slice, a fried piece of tofu with the usual shredded carrots, vegenaise, whole wheat bun, or the Bhima Power Burger, a hearty sandwich consisting of a tempeh burger with the same extras. 

You can go check out Jess's review here. Do you have a favorite Higher Taste product?

Moving day quickly approaches...

I'm in the process of moving back to Vancouver, Washington. Because some may not know, let me explain that Vancouver is really just a suburb of Portland. You cross a river (the mighty Columbia) and booya, you're there. The river crossing is actually the most annoying part. There's only 2 bridges that go over there (the other is highway 205) and traffic gets really bad from about 7:45-9:30am going into Portland and then again at 3:00-6:30pm going back to the 'Couv. It's ridiculous. I forget about it when I'm in Portland, but whenever I visit (or today, when I took a car load of boxes) and I'm like, crap, this sucks. Today I left at 2:40pm and the traffic was already shitty. I believe this happened so early because of the 3 day (for some people) weekend. When there's no traffic I can get to my sister's house in about 15 minutes. Today it took 35 minutes. Blah. 

My hours at work are pretty weird, so I hope to not hit traffic much on my commutes. 

Remember awhile back when I posted what was in my fridge? Well, Jess reviewed the products a couple weeks ago and I'm about to. That shall be my next post after I've moved! 

I shall miss this girl and this porch...