I was going to make a yummy vegan friendly chili recipe a friend gave me and I decided it would be fun to add in some "ground beef" veggie crumbles. I went to the freezer section where they keep them and decided to check the ingredients just for the heck of it. What can I say, I'm spontaneous like that. And that was when I saw it. Morningstar veggie products have milk and egg in them! I then frantically checked all their other products that I'd bought previously and they ALL have freaking milk and egg in them.
I feel violated. Here I am, writing my cute little blog about being such a good little vegan, and I am a total liar. Yes, I didn't know. But still. I feel like Morningstar cheated on me. There we were, having a wonderful relationship, a relationship I thought would last for ever and ever and BAM! Morningstar was freaking cheating on me. Most upsetting. So now I have to feed all the rest of my yummy veggieburgers to the huz. At least they won't go to waste. It does no one any good to waste food.
When I first became a vegan, a friend advised me to always read labels and that a lot of things that appeared vegan friendly really weren't. I obviously did not follow directions. There's another point for my second grade teacher. I'm still getting screwed over for not listening to directions...
So the moral of this story is Morningstar products are not good for vegans.
After this I went in search of veggieburgers that are vegan friendly. I was having horrific visions of summer barbecues where I am stuck eating only the lettuce and tomatoes and other condiments. However, Gardenburger's Black Bean Chipotle Burgers are vegan friendly. All other Gardenburger products that were at my store are not... So, at least I found one burger I can rely on this summer. I'm not sure it was worth the crazy freezerburn I acquired by reading every single label in the freezer section, though.
Ok, getting back to the chili... I ended up making the chili without the veggie crumbles, obviously, but it was still yum. Here's the recipe:
Ingredients:
•2 tablespoons (2 turns around the pan) olive or vegetable oil
•1 medium yellow skinned onion, chopped
•1 large red pepper, seeded and chopped
•1 large green pepper, seeded and chopped
•1 large jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped
•4 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
•1 cup pale beer or vegetable stock/broth
•1 (32- ounce) can crushed tomatoes
•1 (14-ounce) can black beans
•1 (14-ounce) can dark red kidney beans
•1 tablespoon ground cumin
•2 tablespoons chili powder
•1 tablespoon cayenne hot pepper sauce, several drops
•1 teaspoon coarse salt
•1 cup spicy vegetarian refried beans
Here's what I used.
Directions:
Over moderate heat, add oil to a deep pot and combine onion, peppers, and garlic. Saute for 3 to 5 minutes to soften vegetables. Deglaze pan with beer or broth, add tomatoes, black beans, red kidney beans, and stirring to combine.
Don't the veggies look all pretty?
Season chili with cumin, chili powder, hot sauce, and salt. Thicken chili by stirring in refried beans. Simmer over low heat about 5 to 10 minutes longer, then serve up bowls of chili. You can then top it with scallions, tomatoes and tortilla strips if you like.
This recipe was adapted from a recipe of Rachel Ray's to be vegan-friendly.
Here's the finished product.
When I made it, I decided it didn't seem spicy enough so I put in an extra jalapeno pepper and, because I didn't have cayenne pepper hot sauce, I put a tablespoon of actual cayenne pepper in. Woah, hotness. The worst was that I had the juices from cutting the jalapeno on my hands so when I went to wipe my nose I literally burned it off as all the juices from the jalapeno got up in there. It was horrible. But the chili itself was good. I'm sure the hotness didn't help my poor, inflamed stomach lining. Again I am not listening to directions and avoiding spicy food like my stomach doctor told me to... One day I'll learn my lesson. Maybe. Until then, Mrs. Vugdaveen can continue to haunt me. (You know she was a horrible teacher with a name like that. Evil, evil lady.)
The chili was actually quite easy to make except that Rachel Ray is a liar just like Morningstar. She claims that there is only ten minutes of prep time, but that is a total under exaggeration, at least for me. Excuse me, Rachel Ray, but I apparently am not the vegetable cutting machine you expect us to be. I happen to care about my finger tips.
This recipe also makes much more than four servings. The huz has had to eat it for dinner the last few nights in a row. Poor huz.
So this past weekend we took a small excursion to a land called Philadelphia for Mothers Day. The fam wanted to get pizza one night for dinner so I asked the paps to get me a vegan option. I asked for a cheeseless veggie pizza. Apparently, this was way too much for Dominos to comprehend. My poor paps had to argue with three people at Dominos that no, he did not want cheese and that yes, he understood he was getting charged for each vegetable topping. It would seem Dominos does not know the meaning of life without cheese. So after much debate, Dominos finally allowed the paps to order the pizza he was paying for. Even after all that fuss, the pizza was super delish. Both the huz and the paps approved even though they are cheese lovers to the core. The overabundance of veggies completely masked the fact that the cheese was missing.
However, after all that, the pizza was still not vegan friendly. Dominos had coated the crust in garlic butter. I was a good little vegan though and did not eat the crusts and gave them to the huz instead. I must say, though, that you forget how good butter tastes when you don't eat it for a few weeks. I had to start stopping an inch from the crust so I got no butter taste. I have very weak self-control, especially when it comes to dairy. Yum.
But then I remind myself where that nasty stuff comes from and I'm all good again.
Obviously even though this was a vegan pizza, it is still not the most healthy. Look at all that oil! I'm totally going to blame it on the butter crust. Any detective would be able to see the crust was totally the culprit based upon the oil ring print suspiciously gracing the box.
I just froze bananas to make banana whip. I'll post pictures and the recipe tomorrow.
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