Vegetarian Biscuit Gravy

VEGETARIAN BISCUITS & GRAVY
Make your favorite biscuits. I recommend using Pioneer Baking Mix.
When you put the biscuits in the oven, begin the gravy recipe.

Serves 4

7oz (half package) Vegetarian Patty Sausage (pork style)
2 cups Milk
4 Tbsp Flour
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
2 dashes of Liquid Smoke
4 Tbsp Butter

Melt butter in a saucepan on medium heat.
Fry sausage, breaking it up into tiny bits with a spatula.
Cook until its lightly browned.
Stir in flour and cook about 5 minutes, occasionally stirring.
Add milk, salt, cayenne, and liquid smoke.
Stir until gravy thickens to desired thickness.
Serve immediately on the biscuits.

Vegetarian Sloppy Joe

Here's another use for the "TVP taco meat".
I wouldn't call this "real cooking" but its quick, easy and tasty.

Serves 1

1 hamburger bun
1/2 cup prepared TVP taco meat
1 Tbsp Barbecue sauce

Mix TVP and sauce. Microwave it for about 1 minute.
Spread mixture on the bun and serve.

TVP Taco Meat

TVP Taco Meat
yields about 22oz or 5 cups

2 cups dry TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein)
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 can Rotel (chopped tomatoes and chilies)
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp liquid smoke
1 TBSP chili powder
2 TBSP soy sauce
2 TBSP olive oil
1 cup dry red wine
1 TBSP vegetable broth powder
½ tsp salt

Preheat oil and liquid smoke in a Dutch oven on medium heat.
Fry the garlic and bell pepper for about 2 minutes, only until garlic lightly browned but aromatic.
Drain the Rotel, reserving the juice.
Combine Rotel juice, wine, salt, broth powder, soy sauce, and chili powder. Add water to the liquid mix until it measures 2 cups.
Pour liquid mix and Rotel into the pot, still containing the garlic and bell pepper.
Raise heat to high until liquid is boiling.
Add dry TVP, reduce heat to medium and stir constantly for about 5 minutes or until it reaches a consistency similar to cooked ground beef.

Serve on tacos, taco salad, nachos, etc…

Quorn

I've experimented quite a lot with this stuff. Quorn is a brand of meat substitute products. They make several types, but I almost always use what they call "naked chik'n cutlets". It is made from egg whites and a special strain of mushrooms.
It may seem pricy, but you can use half of what a recipe calls for that uses chicken since it doesn't shrink when cooked. Most health food stores carry it and some regular grocery stores have it now too. Pick up some and put it in the freezer for upcoming recipes.

Quorn Cacciatore with Acini di Pepe

I improvised this last night using Quorn Naked Chik'n Cutlets.
I know it isnt a true Cacciatore, but its the closest dish to
what I made for the sake of naming it.

click here to learn about Quorn

Serves 4-6

28oz can Crushed Tomatoes (Imported Italian)*
15oz can Diced Tomatoes
1 red bell pepper, chopped
8oz yellow onion, chopped
1 box Quorn Naked Chik'n Cutlets
4oz sliced mushrooms (about 1/4in thick, and no wider than 1 inch across)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 TBSP basil (dried)
2 TBSP oregano (dried)
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp minced garlic
8oz Acini di Pepe pasta**
24oz water
1 TBSP butter (unsalted)
Olive Oil

You'll need a medium sized pot with lid for the pasta, large pot with lid for the sacue, and 10 or 12 inch skillet for sauteing.

Bring the water to a boil in the medium pot. Pour in the pasta. Stir and cover. Reduce heat to medium-low (3 on my electric stove) and cook for 15 minutes. Stir a couple of times during cooking so the pasta doesn't stick to itself. After removing from heat, drain any remaining water and stir butter into the pasta. Cover and hold for service.

Pour both cans of tomatoes, and all dry seasonings into the large pot. Stir, cover, and set the heat on medium.

Heat 1 TBSP oil in skillet between medium and medium-hi. (7 on my stove)

The following procedure gives the veggies a nice tasty browning which wont happen
if they only simmer in the sauce. They are sauteed separately to help promote the browning, which doesn't work well if the skillet is crowded.

Saute Onions and garlic until the onions start to brown. (about 5 min)
Stir onions and garlic into the sauce. Remember to keep the sauce covered so it wont splatter.
Saute bell peppers until starting to brown. Add to sauce.
Saute mushrooms until starting to brown. Add to sauce.
Add 1 tsp of oil to skillet.
Saute Quorn until golden brown on all sides. Add to sauce.

Remove sauce from heat and serve over the pasta, or stir pasta into the sauce before serving.


*Italian tomatoes are more acidic which gives them a very bright flavor. This is the key ingredient to a delicious sauce that is noticeably better than store bought sauce. I keep a can of this in the pantry at all times. I use Cento brand. Find it in the Italian section of your grocery store.

** Acini de Pepe is one of the tiniest pastas. It's small size gives maximum surface area to release its dusty starch coating into a wonderful texture that is not too different from risotto. Never pre-rinse it. Find it in the Italian section of your grocery store.

Substitute for bacon in a recipe

A lot of flavor comes from bacon. That's why its used as a source of cooking fat in many recipes. Its true much flavor comes from the animal fat, but it also comes from how it is cured, i.e. smoking.
My favorite clam chowder recipe says to chop up a slice of bacon and fry it to render the fat for frying up onions. I didn't want to miss out on the flavor so I came up with an alternative that is functional and yields tasty results.

If your recipe calls for a slice of bacon, instead use a Tablespoon of olive oil and a teaspoon of liquid smoke (hickory, not mesquite) for each replaced bacon slice. Don't worry that the liquid smoke smells to strong at first. It settles in cooking and works quite well.