Scrambled

I've haven't been home very much lately, as usual, so here is a post to catch up on a few things.

I tried yet another very vegan-friendly restaurant in the cities.. This one was on "Eat Street" in downtown Minneapolis; The Bad Waitress. It was a neat little corner-diner establishment where you ordered your food at the counter and they brought it to you. I got excited when I saw their vegan scramble, and opted for asparagus and red onions as my allotted veggie add-ins. It also came with hash browns and whole wheat toast.

 

Now I am a little biased when it comes to tofu scrambles because mine is the best in the world (I'm so modest), but this sucked pretty hard. It consisted of big dry lumps of tofu, barely warmed on the grill and dusted with a very small amount of tumeric. I really couldn't taste any other seasonings. Besides my onions, which came out as regular yellow onions, not red. Luckily there was a bottle of Chalula on the table, which I liberally drenched my plate with. Except the toast...but that doesn't mean I didn't think about it.

To prove that my scrambles are far superior to the mess above, I have a picture of an epic veggie scramble I made for breakfast on Mother's Day. Behold:

 

My scrambled tofu doesn't always have this many vegetables in it, but my mom's fridge is always stocked. It's like a mini farmer's market at my disposal. This time I tossed in some onions, carrots, broccoli, and spinach. Adding lots of veggies helps stretch the dish out, along with making it more of a meal.

We also discovered something amazing on Mother's Day. Grilled avocados.

 

Which make some super amazing guacamole.

 

This was incredible. I almost want to get a grill just so I can make this every day. The avocados were warm and oozy with just enough char and smokey flavor from the grill. My mom likes to make her guac with tomatoes, onions, and lots of fresh lime juice, which is all fine by me!

Vegan Runza: A Tutorial

Sometimes unplanned purchases can end in awesomeness. Like this big bag of shredded cabbage I snagged at Sam's Club.

 

I buy heads of cabbage a lot because it's a cheap and filling vegetable that can go in almost anything. This bag contained 2 pounds of shredded green cabbage, along with some barely-there red cabbage and carrots. Bags of this mix were strategically placed near huge jars of coleslaw dressing. Ick! I wasn't certain what I was going to do with my bag...stir fry, maybe?

It turns out that other inspiration would soon strike me. Seemingly random inspiration. How about runza? I haven't had that since BV (Before Vegan) times. I am pretty good at veganizing dishes, so I decided to give it a shot.

The first thing I did was make up the dough. Runza dough traditionally has eggs and milk in it. I figured I could just make a regular yeast dough, but as I was flipping through cookbooks I came across a recipe for soft pretzels. I decided that this dough would be an excellent choice, keeping in line with the pseudo-German aspect of this dish. So I whipped up a batch using a recipe from this book. You can always find one online, they're not complicated at all.

 

Once the dough had done its thing, I divided it into twelve pieces

 

And then flattened them into disks.

 

 

Then I worked the filling. To start, I chopped up half an onion

 

I sauteed this in a little bit of olive oil while I thawed and chopped some Boca burger patties. 

 

You could use whatever vegan ground beef analog you wish. Trader Joe's makes a pretty good one, or you could even use cooked chopped mushrooms. Go crazy.

Once the onions are starting to turn translucent, add your meat substitute and stir it in.

  

 Then cover the whole thing with cabbage.

 

Cook until the cabbage is tender, but not mushy. Season with lots of black pepper and hot sauce if that is your thing.

 

Next, roll your dough chunks out until they are about 4-5 inches across. Top the bottom half of a dough with about 1/4 cup of your filling.

 

The top with a healthy pinch of Daiya.

 

Fold the dough in half, and crimp with a fork to seal. 

You don't really need to create a high-performance seam here. You will be tucking in the runza to bake anyway. 

Like this.

 

What turns pretzel dough into baked pretzel goodness is a baking soda wash. These are shown already "glazed".

They bake up nice and golden like this.

 

Ok, so there are a little splotchy. There must have been some dried flour stuck on in some places. I baked these at 350 for about 30 minutes, and they turned out perfect.

 

Nice and hot and crusty out of the oven!

 

This was easily the best Daiya application I have discovered so far. It melted and blended perfectly into the savory filling and soft innards of the roll.

This recipe may seem like a lot of work (it was), but it's totally worth it, I promise!