Ramblings...

We are still chugging along in our vegetarian/vegan eating. Over the past few months I’ve collected a number of vegan cookbooks and also had the pleasure of dinner with some dear friends at a vegetarian/vegan restaurant while we were stateside. It was YUMMY and gave me hope that with time I too could produce food that taste way better than any meat-filled meal I’ve ever made.

This evening while looking at the list of recipes I put on the menu for this week I realized I didn’t feel like making them…I wanted something else more “comfort” foodie. I just wasn’t sure what to make, then I remembered those yummy Salisbury Steaks that you get in your frozen food aisle that requires no real work to get from freeze to table. Since I don’t have access to vegan oven ready Salisbury Steaks I decided to try my hand at making my own, but what to use…I figured black beans would be good. So I flipped through Veganomicon located their Black Bean Burger recipe and tweaked it a bit.

The following is my steak patty recipe:
1 can of black beans *drained and rinsed*
½ cup power flour *my personal take on power flour in which I use Whole Wheat Flour, Quinoa Flour, Buckwheat Flour, and Organic All-Purpose Flour*
½ cup wheat germ
1 teaspoon chili powder
½ teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon McCormick Grill Mates Hamburger seasoning
½ teaspoon poultry seasoning
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
½ teaspoon garlic salt
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 ½-2 tablespoons bar-b-q sauce *I’ll try steak sauce next time to see if it gives it a more meaty flavor*
2 tablespoons ground flaxseed + 6 tablespoons water *my go to egg replacer*
¼ cup water

Directions:
Mash the beans so that all the beans are broken up *no whole beans left*

Mix together the 2 tablespoons flaxseed with the 6 tablespoons water and set aside

Add all the ingredients including the flaxseed mixture to the mashed black beans, stir together

Once through mixed form into balls, pressing them flat with the palm of your hand, set aside patties

In a skillet heat up some oil (I used extra light olive oil),once hot add in the patties (about 3 at a time depending on the size of your skillet and the size of the patties)

These cook relatively fast so keep an eye on the skillet they should cook about 3-4 minutes on each side, you can cook them a bit longer if you want crispier steaks

While they are cooking chop up one white onion, about ten small mushrooms (or two large Portobello mushrooms) you can use canned mushrooms if you’d like , and two cloves of garlic (I press the cloves with a knife before mincing them)

One all the steaks are finished place them on a lined plate to drain off any excess oil and add the onions, mushrooms, and garlic to the leftover hot oil, sauté on low/medium heat

While the skillet is going prep in a small pot about a 1/4 cup of vegetable broth with garlic and onion powder, you can add a bit cornstarch to thicken the broth a bit.

Once the onions mixture in the skillet is ready turn off the heat, add the patties back to the skillet and pour the broth over the patties, cover the skillet and prep the rest of your meal.

I served ours with garlic and parsley potatoes, organic corn, and mushroom gravy (just regular jar gravy I had, still in search of a yummy gravy recipe so if you have one please share!)

The meal came out great! The Spouse who is very much a “meat and potatoes” kind of guy actually got seconds!! He usually grumbles when I’m prepping our non-meat meals, but while I was cooking he walked into our kitchen area and said “hmmm…what you cooking it smells GOOD!”. So if you are trying to win over a meat-lover I highly recommend this recipe!