Feel Good Food...

Sometimes you just want some feel good food. Not a salad. Not a soup. But FOOOOOOOD. Ok, so that didn't make a lot of sense. 

Some days salad and soup are feel good food. But tonight I wanted something warm and "un-vegan" in the intellectual sense. Like, I know that its vegan but I want to trick my brain into thinking its a relic from the past.

So tonight we had ribs and slaw! I also had some sweet potato laying around so I grated it on my mandolin into shoestrings, drizzled it with olive oil and sea salt and added some rosemary. DE-VINE. Oh my gosh! 

The ribs were leftover from the other day, so I threw them on the BBQ to crisp up and did they ever! 

The slaw I used pre-packed cabbage slaw mix and made the sauce. I just pour and scoop ingredients but I'm going to try and guess here.

The sauce consisted of:

- Vegenaise (1/2 cup roughly)

- Rice Vinegar (3 tbsp?)

- Wasabi Paste (1 tbsp?)

- Jalapeño flakes (2 tbsp)

- Fresh Cilantro (1/2 cup?)

- Sugar (2 tbsp?)

I also added raisins. Because I wanted something sweet to balance out the spicy. Here's how it looked!

The sweet potato, once grated and tossed was spread onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Then baked at 450 degrees for about 15 minutes. Once the edges were nice and crispy I took it out and put it in a bowl. It was SO good and so easy to make!

I now feel so full and satisfied. 

I'm debating making some vegan fudge tonight but truthfully I'm just so tired. If I do, there will be an entry! 

Stay tuned! 

Ribs.

I've been a vegetarian my entire life. My wife has not. In fact, for the first 39 years of her life she was a solid omnivore. Then in January of 2013 she made the decision to go peascatarian (seafood only) and last month she made the leap to vegetarian.

Her transition went rather smooth, except for one thing. Ribs. Since January all I've heard is, "Ribs. I want ribs. Why isn't there a rib alternative? Can you find one? I WANT RIBS."

Well friends, thanks to my good friend Tatiana (with some help from Google) I HAVE MADE VEGAN RIBS.

I'm a firm believer that 90% of the awesomeness of a dish is the sauce. I'm a total sauce whore. Seriously. I'll do almost anything for sauce. Almost. 

Anyway, I was super skeptical as my dealings with Seitan (Vital Wheat Gluten) had been non-existent up until tonight. 

You can use any vegan Seitan recipe that google comes up with. They're all relatively the same. I got mine from food.com. 

Without further adieu, THE RIBS!

As for the magic sauce, it was hot as hell. Just like we like it in our house. I measured nothing, but I'll guess as best I can here for ingredients:

Ketchup

Tabasco sauce

Brown sugar

Wild Turkey bourbon

Soy sauce

Mustard

Crushed garlic

Molasses

Hot chili peppers

Basically, just mix it all in a saucepan and bring to a boil and the reduce to a low simmer. 

When the ribs are done sauce the hell out of them and OM NOM NOM.

I asked my lovely to sample them and this is what I got back...

I hope you all enjoy them that much too!

Cheers!