Vegan Tacos

Confession: sometimes, I get in this experimental phase where I just keep playing with something until I'm over it for a while. For example, when I discovered that Korean beef recipe, I made it over and over again until I was tired of it. Right now, for me that thing is TVP.

First, you should know we've discovered that now all three of us have pink eye. The baby got it again after she finished her antibiotics, which means that all of the things we thought that we had disinfected will need to go round two on their Lysol bath. And, of course, Tony and I both got it, even despite the rigorous hand-washing and disinfecting (probably because the baby is going through this face-grabbing and face-slapping stage).

So begins the eye drops and hyper-vigilance. I have to say, this is not easy for me. I'm a pretty chill mom. I'll probably never be the kind of mom that totes along the hand sanitizer and freaks out about germs, but now I suddenly have to be. Just the very notion of it seems over-whelming and annoying to me. I feel tired already just thinking about the extra laundry and cleaning I'll be doing for the next week or so.

It should come as no surprise, then, that I wanted to keep dinner tonight easy, which is why we opted for tacos. I mean, what's easier than tacos? We discovered with the nachos that TVP actually functions really well as a taco meat replacement, so we decided to just go back to that for tonight. I know, it seems repetitive and not at all inventive of me. There's going to be more interesting stuff on the horizon, guys. I promise. For now, let's just talk about taco TVP.

Last time, I mentioned that I thought that the TVP would be much better if I'd actually used a taco seasoning packet with it, so tonight that's what I actually did. We used Bob's Red Mill TVP, and I rehydrated it with water and a few drops of liquid smoke. Our taco seasoning was actually in a big shaker that we bought at Costco, so I basically just used three tablespoons of it and 3/4 cup of water. I put the taco seasoning and water in the skillet, added the TVP, and heated it up until there wasn't a bunch of extra water hanging around and the seasoning looked evenly distributed. I wouldn't say it took much longer than it usually takes for meat to absorb taco seasoning.

Taco TVP "meat."

In my opinion, it's more the accouterments that make the tacos. We did the usual lettuce, tomato, red onion. I also mashed up half of an avocado with some lime juice (I just used the bottled stuff in the fridge because my limes always go bad on me before I can use them) for my tacos. We bought some Tofutti sour cream to try, and I can report that it tastes surprisingly like sour cream. I was kind of impressed with it. I will say, however, that the warmer it gets, the less it tastes like sour cream, so it's really best to have it cold. We also had taco sauce; we use Ortega mild because it is vegan and we like the flavor the best.

There are two things that I missed about tonight's tacos versus our usual non-vegan tacos. First, I should have taken the time to cut up some black olives like I normally would. I definitely missed their flavor. I thought about it, but I was too lazy what with the pink eye and all. Second, I really did miss the cheese. We bought some vegan cheese to try, but we bought the block stuff (because I refuse to pay more money for shreds when I can shred it myself at home for free) and again with the lazy.

The red onions are hiding under the lettuce.

A word on vegan cheese: so far, I've had three experiences with vegan cheese. The vegan cheese on Whole Foods vegan pizza is tasty, but it does not taste of cheese per se, nor does it have the texture of cheese. I also made the mistake of buying a cheap vegan cheese just to try some vegan cheese, and I can honestly report that vegan cheese is not something to cheap out on. The results will be lackluster if you get the cheap stuff and you will be afraid to try again. The third result was much better. I tried some Follow Your Heart provolone today actually. It was pretty good. It smelled exactly like cheese and had the texture down. It tasted like cheese, but like a mediocre quality cheese, which is pretty good for something that doesn't contain any dairy whatsoever. Someone had to science the shit out of that stuff to get even a mediocre result. I have bought some other brands to try, but I'm trying to go sort of one at a time on them. I'll report more on my experiences with vegan cheese as they come up.

One thing that Tony and I both found surprising about these tacos is how quickly they got us full. Actually, that's something we've been surprised about since going vegan in general. We both get full more quickly and end up eating less food in the long run. On a normal non-vegan taco night, I'd usually eat three tacos. Tonight, I only ate two and felt full and satisfied. The good thing about that was it enabled me to make a taco salad for lunch with the leftover toppings and TVP. My easy dinner transformed itself into an equally easy lunch, which will enable me to get a little more sleep in the morning tomorrow.

I have about one more meal worth of TVP left in my pantry. I'm going to make it my goal to use that TVP in a way that doesn't revolve around tacos or nachos or something like that. I'm going to try to think outside of the taco-type box that I seem to have put the TVP in in my brain and focus on doing something different. What that will be remains to be seen at this point, but I swear I'm going to try to make it a fresh, new thing! Like I said, I'll try to be more interesting.

Nachos and TVP

Sunday is my favorite day, always has been. It's a day for chilling out, meal prepping, catching up on some TV and emails, and just generally being low-key. And since Josephine is still pretty snotty, it's a good time to be resting and doing as little as possible. She spent at least two hours this afternoon sleeping on me. It was a really nice moment.

Now, when it comes to food, this weekend has been less about meal prepping and more about using stuff up--whether that be leftovers or just previously purchased ingredients before they go bad. Since we've decided to transition into vegan, we've been buying a lot more produce and beans (obviously). You know what doesn't keep for very long? Avocados. I got really excited to see avocados on sale the last time we shopped. Per Alton Brown's advice, we let them ripen to perfection on the counter and then put them in the fridge when they were ripe. This kept them from getting too ripe, and it helped to keep them fresher for longer since we can only shop every two weeks.

Even despite the fridge trick, my avocados were close to being at the end of their lifespan. So what do you do when you have avocados on the edge? You make guacamole. There's really nothing all that special about the way I do it. Yesterday's guacamole was really in keeping with the using-up-some-stuff theme. I had tomatoes and avocados that needed to be used, some red onion I bought for one recipe that needed to be put to another use, and half a lemon to use up. It was the perfect collection of things to make guacamole, though I would normally use lime juice, Throw into that salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and you're in business. (Pro-tip: if you put cling wrap on the surface of your guacamole when you put it away, it won't brown. That's my trick for making it last longer!)

What I really wanted to do, though, was find something else to put that vegan nacho cheese on. If I didn't make it clear before, I really enjoyed that vegan cheese. But leftover vegan nacho cheese and guacamole does not exactly nachos make, and what I wanted was nachos. It needed something else, something meat-like. So I thought this might be a good time to experiment with the TVP we bought.

If you're not familiar, TVP is texturized vegetable protein. It's a dried food that simply needs to be rehydrated to be eaten. I rehydrated ours with vegetable stock according to the package directions (ours was the Bob's Red Mill variety, but there are other companies that offer it as well).

After that, I seasoned it with some cumin, onion power, garlic powder, chili powder, cayenne pepper, and liquid smoke. I didn't measure anything, just seasoned to my own taste. I was going for a taco meat kind of flavor, but I didn't have any taco seasoning on hand. Next time, I think I would just use taco seasoning because it would be easier and probably have a more traditional taco meat sort of flavor. Even with my improvisation, the results were good.

For the record, it also bears noting that the vegan nacho cheese actually heats back up really well when left over. I was concerned that it would get much too thick, and it did thicken up more over time, but it thinned back out very nicely. All we did was heat it up in the microwave, add just a splash of water, and stir. It worked out.

I started out just making it for myself because I was hungry after work, but Tony took an interest in it too after it was made. He actually voluntarily ate some. I have to give him credit. Lately, Tony has really been branching out with food. Eating cheese is way out of his comfort zone, vegan or not, but he was willing to try it. This morning, despite his hatred of coffee, he was willing to try a new coffee that we bought, and he discovered that he liked it. He also really liked the TVP with the vegan nacho cheese. I know because he ate a full plate of his own nachos, minus the guacamole.

Finished product on my plate. Picture this without the guac for Tony's plate.

 I'm a bit relieved to see Tony trying to be more adventurous with food because it would be pretty hard for us to go vegan if he wasn't willing to be more open about it. To be honest, I was bit skeptical when he suggested that we go vegan. It was a battle just to convince him to go for meatless meals a few times a week for the sake of our budget. Tony is a creature of habit. He likes to stay carefully ensconced in his comfort zone, and anyone who suggests he come out of it is usually met with irritation and attitude.

I'm not trying to disparage him; obviously I love him or we wouldn't have a daughter together and a relationship. It's just that going vegan is a big lifestyle change. I don't want it to be something that we do for a week and then just go back to the old habits. And I don't want him to feel the need to go sneak a hamburger on the sly. This relationship is not one where we force each other to do things or guilt each other, and it's counter-productive if we feel like we have to hide things from each other. If he's going to do the vegan thing, I just think it's going to be more successful if it's something that he actually wants to do. But I would be lying if I didn't admit that I'm really relieved to see him being so open and receptive to it.

Anyway, the other stuff we've made this weekend has been part of the continuing effort to use up our remaining meat and dairy. I did finally make the chicken wings. They were good, but I truly don't feel like I'll miss them. I also made some popcorn earlier today since I couldn't really decide what I wanted to have, but I wanted something. Tonight's dinner was more vegetarian than vegan since it contained butter and cream. I made garlic asparagus pasta. It was good, but I'm not going to really get too detailed with the recipe. Why? Because I want to find a way to make the recipe vegan, and then share it here! So expect that to be coming in the near future.

For now, we're closing out this Sunday night with some tea and fresh fruit in bed while Tony catches up on Fuller House--I finished binge-watching it earlier today. Our nightly routine lately has revolved around sharing a bowl of sliced fruit and having some herbal tea once the baby is in bed. It's a new routine, but I find that I really enjoy it. It's a nice way of winding down, so I'm just going to let the winding down commence right now.