King Ranch Casserole. Punk Ranch Casserole? Seven Ranch Casserole?

At some point last year I stumbled upon a photo of a vegan King Ranch Casserole on Instagram. Thinking that this concoction must somehow involve (magically vegan?) Cool Ranch Doritos, faux chicken, ranch dressing, cheese, Texan elbow greese, I screen shot that shit and put it on my list of Things to Create Someday.

As it turns out, the King Ranch Casserole does not, sadly, involve Doritos (though there is ample space for that modification should one choose), nor does it involve everyone's favorite MSG-induced addiction, ranch dressing. I did some research on this beast and stumbled upon the following description of the King Ranch Casserole from Texas Monthly magazine, which clearly I could not improve upon myself:

As far as anyone can tell, the recipe does not hail from the real King Ranch; how many yard birds have you seen in photos of that majestic spread? More likely it's a Junior League attempt at chilaquiles or a Texas take on chicken a la king. And though it is a member in good standing of the condensed-soup canon, those bland, oddly comforting Gerber-invoking turkey tetrazzinis and tuna noodles simply cannot compete with the exotic King Ranch, whose lively Tex-Mex flavors - spicy chile powders, zesty roasted red peppers, earthy mushrooms - coalesce in one sublime, admittedly unattractive package. So lively are these flavors supposed to be, in fact, that I propose you ditch the cans (except for the wholly respectable Ro-Tel), and make this from-scratch verson... One bite of this "steaming mass of melted mush" (as this magazine once referred to the KRC) should put you right back in mom's kitchen - and not in your high chair.

Pretty classic. So let's veganize it!

Vegetables to chop
1 onion
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
2 handfuls of mushrooms
4 green chiles, roasted and peeled (with stems and seeds discarded)

Spices
5 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper

Other stuff
tortillas - depending on the size of your dish, probably about 18
1 can Ro-Tel (this is the tomatoes and chiles that your mother uses to make cheese bomb Ro-Tel dip)
3/4 Cup flour
3 Cups vegetable stock
1/2 Cup soy creamer
1 package cheddar style Daiya cheese
1 package mozzerlla style Daiya cheese
1/2 Cup Earth Balance

(This is the part where I say first thing's first - preheat your oven to 350)

So first off you'll want to start with a celebratory cheap Texan beer. But since you can't get lone star in Kentucky, just crack open a PBR as you heat the butter in a large pan over medium heat. Turn the heat down to medium low and saute for about 5-7 minutes. Then add the spices and stir until the onions are evenly coated. Now add the flour - just a handful at a time - and stir continually. Once the flour doesn't look like flour, whisk in the stock, just 1 cup at a time. Then add the creamer and Ro-Tel and give it a good stir to make sure everything is incorporated. Remove from heat and set aside.

Now here's where we build the casserole. Some recipes will have you hold onto a little bit of stock so as to soak the tortillas, but I skipped this step and my casserole still turned out fine. I suppose though, now in hindsight, that this may have been a brilliant idea.

Anyhow, grab a casserole dish grease the bottom on the pan with butter. Now line the bottom with tortillas - make sure they overlap one another. Next, pour about half of the pepper-mushroom-flour sauce over the tortillas. Sprinkle half the mozzerella to cover. Add a second layer of tortillas, then more sauce, then the reamaining mozz. Finish with a final layer or tortillas and THE WHOLE DANG PACKAGE of cheddar Daiya.

Let this thing cook for about 45min-1hr. Until it's casserole ready. You know what that means. All brown and bubbly on top. Let it sit roughly 10 minutes before serving because ouch.

This post dedicated to the ranch-style home I lived in this time last year. Big shoutout to ranch homes everywhere. 

Peanut Curry Tacos Because Taco Cleanse

Good evening and welcome to Blog Update After Two Gin And Tonics Night! Now that I've "achieved" "adulthood," just two cocktails can make for some pretty entertaining VEGAN MOFO so let's get this party started like we're 25 and we're up past our 10 pm bedtime!!

I have little to say about this dish, other than obviously it combines three of my favorite things - curried tofu, peanut butter and tacos. This is pretty simple and quick(assuming you don't regularly spend 20 minutes looking for spices like I do), and tasty to boot, so I'm pretty proud of this dinner. Perfect for the working mom!

#joke #neverhavingchildren

(headlamp edition because it's dumpster night)

Here's the stuff you'll need for these yumtown tacos (serves 2-3 because #singlelady and #leftovers):

1/2 small/medium onion, chopped
2 Tbl olive oil
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp thyme
1 Tbl curry powder
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 Tbl Texas Pete or other Louisiana style hot sauce of choice
1/2 a crown of broccoli, chopped
1/4 block extra firm, well-pressed tofu
2 Tbl nutritional yeast flakes
1/2 Cup chopped red cabbage
2 Tbl natural peanut butter
1/4 Cup coconut milk
also corn tortillas #duh
fresh cilantro

Get yourself a medium-sized cast iron skillet, and heat 2 Tbl olive oil in it over medium heat for about a minute. Toss in your onions and sauté for about 5 minutes. Toss in the cayenne pepper, paprika, thyme, curry powder, black pepper and salt, chili powder and garlic powder and mix thoroughly. Stir over medium heat for about 2-3 minutes. Add the hot sauce and stir to mix evenly.

Next, add your chopped broccoli and sauté for another 5 minutes. Toss in the tofu and make sure everything is evenly coated with spices.

Once evenly coated, add your nutritional yeast coat evenly. Toss in the red cabbage and stir another 3 minutes. Finally, stir in the peanut butter until it is homogeneously mixed throughout the veggies. Stir in the coconut milk and cook on medium heat another 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and let cool.While you're at it, heat the tortillas using a small skillet (no need for oil or butter here) over medium heat for about a minute at a time, then flip.

Spoon the mix onto freshly toasted tortillas, and top with fresh cilantro. Need I even say it? Best paired with a freshly cracked PBR.

(Side note: these are good for boosting morale after a highly unsuccessful dumpster dive. It sucks that you can't hit the jackpot every time.)

Egg Salad Egg Salad and VEGAN MOFO LIKE A CHAMP

My relationship with my younger brother is based largely on love and absurdity and obscure inside jokes from 20 years ago. Part of what keeps us in stitches when we're around each other is the uncomical nature of a lot of our jokes. He'll say something like, "Meredith, that man over there... is wearing a TIE!" and look at me with a pointed sense of doom. It sort of destroys me.

So one time he replied to a text message with just the words "egg salad."

"Tyler go home you're drunk."

"No Mere say it out loud egg salad."

Eeeeeeeeeegggggggg sa-lad.

It has stuck with me ever since, so today I give you lunch:

Truly, it's not a traditional egg salad, but it IS a salad with a QUOTE fried egg patty QUOTE on it. I posted the details about my new-found love of fried egg patties in a previous post about The Egg McMuffin, but as Vegan Mofo marches on valiantly into the abyss, I confess I have no apologies about recycling recent recipes. 

A quick refresher on the fried egg bit, for those of you who don't follow my every update on various forms of social media.... Here's what you'll need: 

extra firm tofu, well-pressed and drained, cut into thin slices

1/2 Cup soy creamer

1/2 Tbl turmeric

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 Cup nutritional yeast flakes

Whisk all these (but the tofu - obvi) together in a small bowl, then dip the tofu slices into the batter. Fry these over medium-high heat in a skillet for about 5 minutes, then flip and fry another 5.

Also included in Egg Salad Egg Salad:

romaine

chopped pistachios

avocado

agave mustard dressing

shelled edamame

Awwwwwwwww yeah.

Northwest Tacos and Doing Really Great at VEGAN MOFO

Doing really great at VEGAN MOFO guys!!!!!! Two posts in 5 days means I WIN.

No lie, I've been insanely busy with work and cooking and meal planning and this little thing called training for a marathon. I'm in the thick of it right now and some days I run for like, hours, and it's stupid. Really, don't ever run a marathon.

Tonight was Thursday which means hoards of drunk 20-somethings wandering in and around my home, street, square and alley and really all over the place. But we will pretend Thursday means taco time.

Quick note about Tex Mex: growing up in the American South, I became accustomed to what I knew as Mexican Food - white cheese enchiladas covered in a reddish brown sauce, white cheese dip, watery salsa and free chips, orange rice and pinto beans. Lime margaritas with salt on the rim. On your birthday it's all about the sombrero and lots of fanfare, free fried ice cream and a locally composed Spanish happy birthday sung by half a dozen servers.

It's my go-to hangover food. So of course you can imagine how appalled I was when, as a new resident of Portland, Oregon, I thought I was going to get Mexican food and was met with THIS:

"AUTHENTIC MEXICAN FOOD."

What is this???? Where is the cheese? What's with the fresh herbs? And all the colors?

Over time I opened up to the idea of "real" Mexican food, I guess, and at least it gave me some pretty pretentious fodder in foodie circles. "Yeah, aren't you so mad that Bowling Green doesn't have any authentic Mexican places? Even the ones across the tracks don't serve ceviche." 

I guess I miss it now. Because when taco night rolls around, all I want is crunchy veggies and fresh herbs. Here's what I whipped up for dinner. The red cabbage and sweet taters make it quintessentially PACNW.

Northwest Tacos

corn tortillas
avocado
1 Cup brown rice
1/2 Tbl taco seasoning
1 sweet potato
2 Tbl vegetable oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 Cup red cabbage
2 Tbl Braggs amino acid
1 Tbl brown sugar
1 Tbl chili garlic sauce
2 Tbl hot water
1 Cup cold water
a few sprigs of fresh cilantro
1/2 Cup vegan cream
1 tsp black pepper
2 Tbl almond milk
1 tsp dill

The first step is to chop and marinate your red cabbage. Of course, this is best done 1-2 hours before Taco Time, but you can fudge it with 45 minutes. That's how long it takes me to find and measure out and mix my taco seasoning anyway, let's be honest.

Slice the red cabbage into thin strips, sort of like the way you are thinking. There is no other way to "slice" red cabbage other than the way that is currently in your mind's eye.

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together your Braggs, brown sugar and chili garlic sauce. Add that hot water to melt the sugar, then stir in the remaining water. Toss in your cabbage, mix thoroughly and place in the fridge until you're ready to engage Taco Time.

The second step is to prepare your tortillas. For this dish, I created taco bowls using the back of a muffin tin, as seen on basically every life hack blog ever. This works well, provided you only want to make 3 taco bowls, as they tend to overlap and get wonky. No need to use cooking spray here, just fold your tortillas in the crevices, and bake at 400 for about 10-15 minutes, or until crispy golden brown.

Next, get your rice going. I always forget this step, which sucks because it ends up being a 15 minutes mistake. Good thing I am here to remind you!

Next, slice your sweet potatoes in thin strips, like thick french fries. Using a cast iron skillet, heat the vegetable oil over medium high heat. As always, it's good to use a test piece with this one. Break off a small piece of sweet potato and toss in the oil to test its heat. Once the piece starts to fry, toss the rest in. Fry until golden brown (about 5-7 minutes). Then lay them to dry on paper towels. Immediately salt and pepper to taste.

Once your taters are finished, discard your oil (I strain and save mine for later use) and dump the rice into that same cast iron. Add your taco seasoning* and stir fry for about 5-7 minutes.

While everything is finishing, crack open your second PBR and whisk together your sour cream topping. This piece is crucial for ultimate Portland-ness, provided you have access to a squirt bottle. These are like a buck and a half and will turn any amateur home cook into a veritable culinary Mick Jagger. People will literally be impressed with your cooking simply because of a $1.65 investment. It's my secret weapon.

Whisk together the sour cream, pepper, almond milk and dill. Toss that into your squirt bottle for maximum squiggly. 

Build it: taco shell, rice, cabbage, taters. Top with sliced avocado. Garnish with fresh cilantro. I served mine with cheesy refried beans and DUH a Pabst. Because.

*Soon I'll post my seasoning recipe. I DISlike purchasing seasoning packets from the store, because most of them are full of preservatives and MSG. For what its worth, the only vegan taco seasoning without MSG in Bowling Green is Ortega's seasoning.

Sausage Egg and Cheese McMuffins and ALSO VEGAN MOFO KICKOFF

Ladies, it's here. The month I always look forward to each year, in my long and storied history of veganism.

Which is nearing two years by the way, so I will now confess to you that only last year I discovered VeganMofo's existence, and THIS year I decided to participate. I figured blogging every day for a month wouldn't be too difficult but clearly I have already blown it by failing to post on the very first day. #theveryfirstday

So getting off to a great start. What is Vegan Mofo, you may ask? Is the the scary-looking, pleather-jacket-wearing biker dude with face tattoos at your neighborhood bar who will slash your tires for eating fried chicken? The name of Isa Chandra's pet bulldog? The newest vegan video game where you ninja-style destroy the owners of confined animal feeding operations and set free herds of cattle into the streets of southside Chicago?

Sorry, those are all good guesses, internet, but Vegan Mofo is the month of the year when we all come together as a vegan blogging community and celebrate our commitment to the lifestyle, our good jokes, our recipes and stories, our collective sass and our individual struggles. Like WHAT IN HELL in an OPML file?

Check out more at VeganMofo.com, where you can get a complete list of all the participating blogs and stare at cool vegetable cartoons and get altogether lost in a world of vegan internetness.

SO let me "start off" by apologizing for the run-on nature of this post. I haven't even started the real recipe yet but I've already started to notice. I attribute this completely to my recent massive intake of John Green videos. He's the sort of person whose vlog style is all about talking and talking and talking and occasionally switching viewpoints but never speeds, really, which I find incredibly endearing and thus I have subconsciously taken up certain mannerisms of his. As you can see.

In a related note, if you aren't familiar with the Vlog Brothers, here's a thing that could possibly change your world.

Speaking of changing your world, on to the McMuffin.

At first I thought that I wouldn't really call this a "recipe post" so much as a "post where there's a pretty picture and I show you how to make a sandwich." But then I decided that the eggish tofu was a big win for me, and let's face it not everyone "knows" how to "make a sandwich."

Also it's worth noting that I enjoyed this sandwich so much that I stole my brunch companion's half-finished sandwich when he was in the bathroom and finished it in 20 seconds.

Here's the stuff to get for this fantastic hangover companion:

English muffins (ALERT. I know we're all adults and we are pretty good at checking labels and reading ingredients, but be aware that English muffins are rarely vegan. It's strange, I know, but most contain whey at the very least.)
a tomato, sliced
cheese  (I used Daiya havarti-style wedge, sliced. Literally yum.)
1/4 block extra firm, pressed tofu
1/4 Cup soy creamer
1/4 Cup nutritional yeast flakes
1 tsp turmeric
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 pack of sausage (I used gimme lean)
2 Tbl pure maple syrup
1 tsp red pepper flakes

See how easy that list is? Nothing scary and foreign, just mostly some good old grocery store corporate vegan food. :)

The assembly is fairly straightforward, right? You've got your cheese. You've got your tomato. The tofu is supposed to be the quote "egg" part and the maple sausage part is, well, the sausage part. Let's talk about the tofu.

First, slice your tofu pretty thin. Next, in a small bowl, whisk together the creamer, nutritional yeast and turmeric. Salt and pepper to taste. Prepare a small skillet with a dabble of vegetable oil, and heat on medium high. Dip your tofu slices in the creamy nooch mixture, then fry on medium high until golden brownish on each side. Voila egg life.

The sausage is easy too. Using your fingers, mash together the maple syrup and pepper flakes with the sausage. Pat these into patties and pan fry like you're supposed to. Like.. medium? In a skillet?

There you have it. Now crack open a PBR and let's get this crazy party month started!!