Thank You Joanna!

Reading through my list of vegan blogs yesterday I came across some very important information. Something that the people at Boca and Garden Burger don't want you to know. The secret diy burger formula. Joanna Vaught, creator of many a delicious recipe, posted a basic tried and true equation for making burgers just the way you want them or a different way every night. Whatever strikes your fancy. She just knows the way straight to my heart.

I had to get right on this. Could it be true? Oh the possibilities. My first thought was hoisin sauce. I wanted some. Hosin made me think stir fry, I had bell pepper and carrots already. And I was off.

This is what I came up with:

• ~2 cups finely chopped carrots and shiitake mushrooms (vegetables)
  
• 1 cup black beans and 1/4 cup sunflower seeds and 1/4 cup black sesame seeds (protein)
  
• 1 1/2 cups cooked brown rice
• 3/4 cup vital wheat gluten
• 1/4 cup oil and a splash of water (liquid)
  
• 1 T black bean garlic sauce (liquid seasoning)
  
• 2 tsp crumbled dry red chili and 1 tsp ground ginger (dry seasoning)
  

This made 6 good sized burgers to fill out our Ezekiel buns. Building went as follows: bottom of bun, Vegenaise, cucumber, greens, burger, pan fried red onion and orange bell pepper, hosin sauce on top bun. Unhinge jaw and eat.

I'm loving this formula. Brown rice and vital wheat gluten are a pantry staple. These burgers will take whatever you have around. Read through Joanna's suggestions and you'll get the idea. What a great way to pull together different theme patties or to just help clean out the cupboards in a super tasty way. Don't feel confined to burgers here either. Go for cutlets (add a little more gluten if you like more chewy texture) or balls (yeah I said it, balls) for a sub, pasta or whatever.

Have you checked out Yellow Rose Recipes? No? What is wrong with you?!?!

It's almost time for another wonderful book

So you're all wondering, "How the hell am I suppose to feed a vegan if you keep disappearing?" All I can say is, sorry about that. I'm working on a big project at the moment (nothing crazy exciting for anyone but myself I'm afraid) that is keeping me more then busy. I'm a bit overwhelmed really but I'm just going to keep chipping away.

Aaannnyyway . . . I thought I should probably post something for the April Daring Bakers Challenge. I did it, I just have the worst time sitting down to post about it. Well, I kinda did it.

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

So this challenge allowed for some creativity. I took that permission and stretched it to a tester recipe for Isa Moskowitz and Terry Romero's new cookie book. So I would like to reveal one delicious brownie.

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Brownie

It's in the spirit of cheesecake at least. I just couldn't bring myself to buy 3 tubs of vegan cream cheese for a whole cake. That's not something I need lying around. Now I realize that this isn't the best picture of this delectable treat so I would also like to direct you to the flickr pool for more photos from this highly anticipated book that looks like it will be a companion to Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, to be entitled Vegan Cookies Take Over Your Cookie Jar. This takes care of the ever present chocolate craving as well as the cheesecake need we sometimes experience. For chocolate chips I used Lindt 70% thins all crumbled up. That was the ticket let me tell you.

So I ask that you please stick with me here. I have some tasty treats waiting in the wings and I will try to set aside time to complete the posts for them.