Original Recipe: Pintos & Brown Rice Bowl

I am a fan of Chipotle Grill but I don't get there very often and lucky for me, I can make a yummy Burrito Bol here at home.

Chipotle offers their black beans for vegans as their pintos have bacon in them (boo hiss). So, I thought I'd create a pintos & brown rice bowl for us!

This recipe is basically one serving with a serving of the beans leftover.. unless you're really hungry.. then you can eat it all. I won't tell.



Pintos & Brown Rice Bowl

Beans:

15 oz can pinto beans (drained and rinsed)
1/2 Tbsp taco seasoning
1/2 cup water
few shakes of liquid smoke

Place the ingredients in a sauce pan and simmer for 8 to 10 minutes until the water has evaporated some and you are left with saucy beans.

Brown Rice:

1 cup prepared brown rice
1 Tbsp water
1 tsp dried cilantro
1/2 tsp lime juice
1/4 tsp salt

Combine ingredients. If rice was refrigerated when you mixed everything together, warm for 45 seconds in microwave. don't overcook it, it will get lumpy and dry!

Corn Salsa:

1/4 cup of your fave salsa
1/4 cup cooked corn

Mix together.



Additional optional ingredients:

Vegan sour cream (warm for 10 seconds to make it thin enough to drizzle)
Cheesy sauce - I like the vegan queso recipe on this post or you can use Daiya cheese.
Fresh veggies like lettuce, fresh tomatoes, peppers and onions.


Assembly:

Layer the brown rice on the bottom, then saucy beans, then corn salsa, then vegan cheesy sauce and finally, sour cream.

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You, Sir... are NO LION!

Meat eaters love to liken themselves to carnivores. Humans are not carnivores. In fact,  biologically, humans are herbivores. If you look at our nails, our teeth, our jaws, our digestive tract, digestive juices, and our intestinal track, it matches that of an herbivore, not a carnivore and not an omnivore.

Check out the chart below.

Humans have chosen to be omnivores, which basically means 'humans eat anything' but I think we all know that just because you can eat something, doesn't mean you should.

I'm looking at you, Cinnabon!

If humans were carnivores or even 'natural' omnivores as some argue (meaning biologically designed eat both plants and animals, like bears, raccoons, and chickens) then seeing road kill would make you want to stop and eat it or seeing a horse in a pasture would make you want to stop and kill it for dinner. Does that describe you? I sure hope not.

I had to adjust the size of the chart to fit here so I realize this chart might be hard to read here on the blog.. so please click here to see a bigger version. It's fascinating. Hard to argue with the facts, man.

The Lion Defense

When a meat eater uses the lion defense it irritates me. There is a big difference between a lion killing a zebra and a human killing a cow. Lions killing zebras is natural. Humans killing cows, is not. It's what we've been conditioned to do through the generations. It comes back to the child equation - if you put a child in a room with an apple and a rabbit ... the child will play with the rabbit and eat the apple. Not the other way around.

1. Lions don't breed zebras in captivity.
2. Lions kill one zebra at a time as needed. One lion kills around 15 animals a year. Lions are scavengers the rest of the time. The get 40% of their meat  from dead animals or stealing from other carnivores.
3. Lions don't torture and neglect the zebra before killing it.
4. Zebras have the possibility of escaping from the lion.
5. Lions kill their prey as swiftly as possible.
6. Lions eat their prey raw and they eat all of it - even the hide and the hair.  Without condiments.
7. Lions catch, kill and eat their prey without the use of tools, traps, weapons or a grill.
8. Lions swallow their food whole.

1. Humans breed herd animals because herd animals don't fight back. Why do you think humans use cows for milk instead of a lion? There is no nutritional need for the milk of other mammals. Cows were chosen because they are docile and can be easily exploited.

2. Humans kill more animals than they need and hundreds of thousands of pounds of flesh is thrown away and wasted on a daily basis .. making the sacrifice of that animal's life even more horrible and senseless.

3. Humans routinely torture and neglect the animals they keep for food.

4. Cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys and other food animals have no means of escape from humans because we keep them captive.

5. Humans love to believe they have 'humane' slaughter. There is no such thing. Food animals must have a beating heart in order to bleed out at slaughter so 'humane' apparently means 'knocked unconscious'  but that doesn't always happen. It is very common for animals to still be awake and aware as they are being butchered - sliced open, bled and chopped up. At the very least.. animals are still alive even if they are knocked out.

6. Humans are not true carnivores since they do not eat their flesh raw and they only eat certain parts of the corpse. Humans must cook the flesh of animals in order to make it safer for consumption. Humans season their flesh in order to make it edible. Humans use ketchup, mustard, bbq sauce, salsa, herbs, and spices.. which are all PLANTS. so.. humans use plants to make their rotting flesh edible.

7. Humans require tools and traps and weapons to catch an animal and while it's possible they might be able to kill certain animals with their bare hands, they'd need tools in order to dismember and eat one and they'd surely need fire to cook it. When was the last time you saw a lion with a Weber?

8. Humans must chew, a lot. In fact, humans don't chew as much as they should. Read this!

So, if you are a meat eater using this tired old debate.. you can stop now.

Original Recipe: Shelly's Chik'n Salad

Feel free to share this recipe but please link back to this blog.

I recently discovered a couple products that mimic the texture of chicken in a way that you can use them to make old favorites like 'chicken' salad.

This photo was the salad I made using Augason Farms Chicken Substitute but I have to be honest, I didn't like it as much as I loved Soy Curls so I would recommend making this with the Soy Curls instead. You'll just need to chop those up a little after rehydrating them.

The Augason Farms product had an odd aftertaste to me and it is far more processed and has more ingredients than Soy Curls so health-wise, choose the Soy Curls.

Give my friends at Fake Meats your business as they are an independent company and appreciate your orders! Their shipping is very reasonable and they ship quickly.



Shelly's Chick'n Salad

1/2 cup chick'n substitute or Soy Curls
1 cup water
1/2 tsp no chicken bouillon
2 stalks celery, diced
5 baby carrots (or one whole carrot), diced
1 tsp nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp season salt or Original Old Bay
1/2 tsp lemon pepper or lemon-herb Old Bay
2 tbsp walnuts, chopped (or sub sunflower seeds!)
Veganise (or other vegan mayo), to taste
salt & pepper to taste, if needed

You can also add in anything you'd like to make this amazing.. perhaps green onion or pickle relish!

Boil the water and bouillon and then add in the substitute or curls and cook for a few minutes to rehydrate and warm it up. Drain and squeeze out the excess water from the chik'n.

Add the rest of the ingredients except the mayo until blended. Add in the mayo a little at a time until it is how you'd like it. You want it to hold together but not be too wet and gloopy. Serve on a whole wheat bun, in a wrap or on top of a salad. You can also chill it for a more traditional salad before serving.

Review: Soy Curls

So, I have a bit of a story to tell before I review Soy Curls.

The first thing.. do you know how hard it is to not type Curlz with a Z at the end? It was right there for the taking and they squandered it. Z, man.. Z

Anyway.....

I believe that the universe sometimes works in mysterious ways. Not an otherworldly or superior being-ish way.. just a sort of an odd 'wow.. look what had to happen in order for this to have come about' sort of way.

This is how I found Soy Curlz.. uh, Soy Curls.

So, a number of years ago.. many, many moons.... I met a girl online named Dee. She and I met on a message board. We stayed in touch thru the years and when Facebook came into being we ended up being FB friends.. and that is how I met her cousin in law, Pam.

Pam is a runner and she has a blog. I make jewelry and sell it on Etsy (yes, I'm going somewhere with this) and I created some running jewelry for Pam and then I expanded the 'Run' line and in order to promote the line, I offered Pam the opportunity to hold a giveaway on her blog because the universe knows, I am so not a runner and I needed exposure to runners.

She ran the giveaway and her friend, Kim, won it.  Kim is a vegan and she lives in the same regional area of Chicago as I do! What are the odds? I'm always happy to meet new vegans. While Kim and I were chatting via email she casually said 'oh, hey.. by the way.. my husband owns fakemeats.com .. here is a discount code for 15% off.'

I had heard of Fake Meats.com and I even 'liked' them on Facebook but I had no idea it was based here in Illinois where I live and I had no idea she was a friend of Pam's. I've even browsed their website. Now, if you know me.. you know that I rarely buy anything online without a discount code.

So.. off I went to browse again, 15% code in hand. I found Soy Curls (and some other chicken substitute and some cheddar bacon popcorn and..... but let's get back on topic, shall we?!) Now, I had heard of Soy Curls but hadn't really researched it or checked for reviews or looked for recipes. It isn't anything I can buy locally so I hadn't tried it yet. I honestly thought it was just TVP but it isn't. It's actually whole soybeans.. nothing else!

Yes.. it's a whole food.. like tempeh is. Hardly processed, really.

The Butler Foods website says this about Soy Curls "Select certified Non-GMO soybeans grown without chemical pesticides are soaked in spring water. Then the soybeans are cooked and delicately textured after which they are dried at low temperature thus ensuring the natural goodness of the whole soybean high in fiber and omega-3. Soy Curls™ are one of the most pure, healthful products on the market containing no chemicals, additives, or preservatives."

So ... by some strange universal magic... I found my way to Soy Curls via my friends Dee and Pam.

So... onto my review.... I f'ing love these things and so did my 'vegan at home' husband (he's an omnivore when he eats away from home). I can see these getting lots of use in my house!

I re-hydrated them by soaking them in a no chicken bouillon for about 20 minutes. Then I dredged them in flour seasoned with salt and pepper and pan fried them in canola oil and drained them on paper napkins.
That gave me the base for what will become a staple around here... I had perfectly breaded morsels of goodness ready for whatever sauce I wanted... I coated them in buffalo wing sauce and served them as is with fries. We loved it!

They have a delightfully chewy meat-like texture and I'd imagine they'd pick up whatever flavor you cooked them with. I had a hard time staying away from them after frying them up. So, make extras for snacking.

Here are the photos I took of the process:

My husband made the same remark I did when seeing them .. they look like clam strips. so, I figured I could maybe season them with Old Bay sometime and make those for him. I could also imagine using sweet & sour or teriyaki on these and making fried rice or a stir fry. Kim says she makes fajitas out of it (sans breading) .. so, I think anything you can do with shredded chicken, you can do with Soy Curls.

Two thumbs up.. for sure. I'm gonna need to order more.

Clone Recipe: Trader Joe's South African Smoke Seasoning

Feel free to share this recipe but please link it back to this blog. Thanks.

Clone Recipe: Trader Joe's South African Smoke Seasoning

Ah, Trader Joe's. If you've been to one, you know and if you haven't you dream of one day visiting one.

Our nearest TJ's is an hour drive away so I only make it there a couple times a year. One of my most fave items is the South African Smoke Seasoning Blend (SASS for short).. it is large flakes of sea salt, paprika, basil and garlic in a grinder.

As much as I love it, I found myself wishing I could sprinkle it like salt, versus grinding it and having larger flakes on my food.  So.. I made my own! Plus, this means I can have it anytime and if you aren't near a TJ's.. you can enjoy it too!

I like it on popcorn, vegan mac & cheese and potatoes.

I recommend using a Bullet blender if you have one.

Trader Joe's South African Smoke Seasoning

5 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp sea salt
2 tsp garlic salt
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp hickory smoked salt

Blend together in the Bullet, Store in a glass jar or covered container. Use as you would salt.