Ask A Vegetarian

This blog is focused on allowing people to ask questions about vegetarianism and veg*n lifestyle. Since this is our first post we don’t have any questions to answer, allow me to ask (and answer) one of my own: 

Question:
Can you make a vegan valentine’s dinner so delicious it will melt the heart of an omnivorous date?

Vegan, Mocha, Spaghetti. Those three little words—I bet you like at least one or two of those things or else you wouldn’t be reading this recipe, but I doubt you’d expect them the blend together so well!

This recipe is a little different, it lacks meat for one, it is caffeinated, and it uses a few new ingredients most cooks won’t be familiar with. Don’t worry, this will make a pasta sauce that is thick and chewy like a stew, and a meal that is healthy and packs a ton of flavour. Best of all, this could be kosher or halaal, it’s vegetarian, and it’s even *gasp* vegan - so this is the one dish you know you can prepare safely for almost any guest (and just use gluten-free pasta to be absolutely untouchable).

Ingredients

Veggies

• peppers (green, red, yellow, orange, whatever you like)
• onion (white, and green if you have them)
• mushrooms
• two cloves garlic, shaved
• can of tomato sauce
• additional veggies if desired (eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, greens, beans, carrots, celery, etc)

Dry ingredients

• desired pasta
• Textured Vegetable Protein

Spices

• MSG &/ Celery
• Salt 
• Pepper
• Nutritional Yeast
• bouillon cube
• desired spices (coriander, cumin & paprika for a spicy flare; or basil, bay leaf, oregano and sage for an italian flare; or whatever blend you season with)
• soy sauce
• vinegar (wine or cider adds flavour)
• coffee (day-old drip prepared, fresh french-pressed, or instant coffe granules work best)

Equipment

• large pot
• one bowl for mixing a sauce
• wok or large saucepan
• Non-Olive Oil for sautéing
• measuring spoons and cups
• stirring spoons

WAIT, what is this stuff?!

Nutritional Yeast (aka NutraYeast, Nooch)

This is a natural multivitamin that is surpassed in nutrition only by flavour. It looks like yellow dry flakes, and a dusting of ‘Nooch’ can replace the need for parmesan or romano (or other hard cheeses) helping you trade the fats in your diet for vitamins, without your mouth caring about the difference : )

Unlike its name would seem to imply, it doesn’t have any active yeast in it. This is actually a by-product that yeast produces as it feeds on sugars. Pick it up at health food stores, ask for it at the Bulk Barn or whatever local bulk food store you have. We just filled an old parmesan shaker and keep it on the table, but a restaurant-style sugar shaker would be a step up from this.

Nutritional Yeast on BulkBarn.ca

MSG

This is a misunderstood spice. Taste is traditionally composed traditionally four flavours: sweet, salty, bitter, and sour - but Japanese cuisine had always taught the existence of another flavour: umami, which is savouriness. It’s that thick, meaty, brothy undertone that asparagus, fried fish, beef, and tomatoes all have in common. MSG is that flavour exactly, extracted (or simulated) and purified - so it can be added to any dish. Much like salt, it also acts as a natural preservative that helps vegetables stay crunchy and bright (and full of vitamins) longer after cooking.

Celery has the similar flavour-enhancing abilities without the controversy, so if you’re afraid to use MSG, or can’t find it where you shop, throwing in some chopped celery will to little to affect the balance of the dish, but will significantly enhance the flavour.

Wikipedia article on Umami

TVP

Textured Vegetable Protein is probably the most exciting new food I’ve found in years - it’s cheap, healthy, versatile, and best of all - tasty! It is made from a mixture of soy flour, extruded into different textures and shapes, and then dehydrated. It comes in three textures: flakes, chunks, and slices. for this recipe we’ll be using the chunks, which look like salad croutons in their dry state before cooking, but taste more like beef or chicken chunks when prepared.

TVP has almost no flavour of its own, so its important to include whatever flavours you want inside your TVP in the liquid that it is rehydrated from. If you simply rehydrate with water and then cook it, the flavour would be very bland.

I have found TVP at asian grocery stores, arab markets, the grocery store, health food stores, and bulk food stores.

Textured Vegetable Protein on BulkBarn.ca

Instructions

Step 1: Sautéing the Veggies

Chop up any green onion you want, about one quarter of a pepper into small chunks, and about half a white onion into cubes and start them sautéing with some oil in your saucepan.

As the veggies sauté, sprinkle in a small pinch of MSG and another of salt (I love sea salt for flavour), freshly ground pepper, and two teaspoons of Nutritional Yeast. Add in any desired spices to the veggies, but hold the garlic - we add that just before the tomato sauce goes in.

Step 2: Adding the ‘Mocha’

Quickly grab your teaspoon and bowl and mix these together quickly:

• 2 tsp soy sauce
• 2 tsp vinegar (wine or cider for flavour)
• 1.5 tsp cocoa powder
• 1 tsp instant coffee
• 1/2 tsp vegetable bouillon
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1/4 tsp MSG
• desired spices, salt, pepper
• (my blend: 1/4 tsp cumin, 1/4 tsp paprika, 1/2 tsp celery seeds)

Now you have the ‘mocha’ sauce ready!

Step 3: Last Minute of Sautéing

When the veggies have sautéd to the point where the green peppers have brightened and are vibrant green - this is exactly where you want it. Now is the time to add the garlic! Add two cloves of garlic either pressed or shaved very thin, and you can add your mushrooms now as well. Stir this around until you start to smell the garlic flavour be released (be careful not to scorch the garlic).

Step 4: Adding the TVP

Fold in your ‘mocha’ sauce slowly as the veggies reduce over the heat. Your TVP will start out hard and dry like croutons. You want to keep frying the TVP until it absorbs almost all of the liquid from the mocha sauce. Pay attention to how much liquid the TVP is absorbing, and keep adding it 1/4 cup at a time. I’ve added up to 2 cups to sauce before, so don’t be alarmed if your TVP is very ‘thirsty’.

The main goal is to get the TVP to a consistency where it is as tough and chewy as beef. It will get there, just keep adding water and cooking it longer until it does. Sample the TVP along the process to test doneness. Once it has gotten half-way to your final desired consistency, it’s time to add the tomato sauce.

Step 5: Adding the Tomato Sauce

Once your sauce has been cooked with the veggies and TVP for a while it’s time to add the tomato sauce. Keep checking the consistency of the TVP aAs it rehydrates, it will keep sucking moisture out of the sauce. Add a tablespoon or two of oil to the sauce now, this will act as a carrier to help carry some of the flavours as your spices mix together in the heat.

Step 6: Finishing the TVP

Keep simmering and adding water to your sauce as needed, stirring it regularly, until the TVP chunks are fully rehydrated. This can take 10-30 minutes, depending on how much water is available to it. The more you cook with TVP, the quicker you’ll get at judging this stage. Once you have reached your desired level of doneness in the TVP, you can turn the sauce down to simmer for a while, or boil some noodles right away.

Step 7: Boiling the noodles

7.1) Place the noodles in a large pot, filled 3/4 full with water, and add 1 tablespoon salt. Almost all of this salt goes out when you dump the water, but some of the flavour of the salt will remain in the pasta.

7.2) Boil the water, add in two tablespoons of oil, and noodles for two or three people.

7.3) Boil the noodles, stirring occasionally until the noodles are cooked ‘al dente’ which means there should be a firmness in the core of the noodle still that you can feel with your teeth. If you don’t know what this means, you’re probably over-cooking your pasta.

7.4) Strain noodles into a colander and briefly rinse the noodles with some cold water. Place the drained noodles back into the cooking pot, with just enough oil to keep the noodles from sticking to each other.

Step 8: Serving

Dish the noodles into bowls, then cover those with a generous helping of the sauce. This recipe also adapts well to using rice or bread instead of pasta. Top with more nutritional yeast, salt and pepper, and hot sauce according to taste.