Good Ol' Southern Grits-n-Gravy

Somehow I'm stuck on breakfast blogging lately. Perhaps because summer's laid back schedule allows time for things other than Cheerios and rice-milk.
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Grits, though not exactly a familiar food in the Pacific NorthWest, are, ironically one of my kids long-time favorites...
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For the uninformed, "grits" (or "traditional hominy grits") are somewhat different than cornmeal.

Alton Brown explains it best: Cornmeal (like you'd make polenta with) is made from ground dried corn. Grits are made from ground, dried hominy (which is still corn, but treated slightly different). To make hominy, you start with field corn that's dried. Then the dried corn kernels are soaked in a solution of baking soda, lime, or wood ash ("lye water") for a day or two. (Sounds yummy, huh?) The kernel's shell pops off, and the kernel swells to twice its size. Kernels are rinsed more than once, then dried again, and finally ground into grits.

The directions for grits are on the box. Go buy a box and try them. Very warm, creamy, homey "comfort food" sort of stuff but with more texture and character than, say, Cream of Wheat....

My gravy is the same-ol', same-ol' stuff I make to smother just about every breakfast item I can think of.... COUNTRY GRAVY from a past post, with some of my smashed up, and browned HOMEMADE SEITAN SAUSAGE added in. Sausage is optional, it's good without too!

I'll leave you with this hilarious picture of our cat contemplating life from atop HIS precious pot of fresh catnip... of which he indulges in fairly often!!
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Have a great Fourth of July. I'm headed to the Seattle Vegan Meet-up group's Potluck. Pictures to follow, there promises to be lots of yumminess.

Rambling About Fajitas

I used to ramble on randomly, about my kitchen and family and foodie adventures - a lot more than I do now. Lately I've noticed my posts have become a rushed, "slam-bam-here's-the-recipe-ma'am" sort of thing. And to most of you poor readers, that's probably a good thing (just the fact's please, ma'am!!); but tonight I slowed down just a bit. I have no specific recipe and my cooking took a rather rambling turn, so that's what you get.

Around here, Friday is "Mexican Food" night; a weekly supper tradition started when the girls were little and their Dad cooked awesome and loaded nacho platters of cheesey insanity; I do have to give him credit there, they were good. But diets, ethics, relationships and the rest of life changes and evolves. These days, I do the Friday night (and every other night) cooking and it's usually enchiladas, tamales or tacos.

So, tonight, my youngest suggested fajitas. She'd been begging me to use the Field Roast Mexican Chipotle sausages I had stashed in the freezer. According to her, they're her favorite thing in the world and it wasn't FAIR to see them sitting in the freezer every time she opened the door and we needed to use them because they'd been there FOREVER. Well, things don't need to be quite as dramatic as all that, but it was a good suggestion, and as you'll see, her idea had DELICIOUS results.

Wow. Can I just say these were just INCREDIBLY yummy! No exact recipe, but I do think we stumbled on the perfect blend of spices and veggies.
I'll definitely do these again - (when I can afford the sausages, which isn't often, sadly. Yes, I tried making my own seitan Chipotle/Chorizo-style sausage, and while I love it, I just cannot duplicate the same flavor or texture as the fine folks at Field Roast, which is why they own a faux meat company and I don't...)

But I digress...
We cut 2 sausages into strips (which sorta crumbled, but my daghter specifically wanted "strips" I don't know why...) and fried (yes, I said FRIED, deal with it or substitute the word "saute" if it makes you feel more virtous) in a non-stick pan with strips of veggies;
1/2 an onion,
1 zucchini,
1 red bell pepper,
1 medium carrot, sliced paper thin so it cooks quickly
minced garlic and some tomatoes.

Have your pan HOT and throw everything in, stir gently until tender-crisp and browned in a few spots. No oil needed, the veggies and sausages have enough liquid. (So maybe that IS sauteeing instead of frying? Nevermind.)
You can use any vegetarian meaty thing you want here, but you may need to add spices and seasonings to taste, unlike with the Field Roast sausages.
Add the tomatoes at the last, just let them soften a bit, and for heaven's sake, don't let the sausage get dried out, you paid too damn much to let it do that!! (Add a little tomato sauce or even broth if needed, but not so much that you make a sloppy mess).

Serve in warm, flour tortillas with some vegan sour cream and/or guacamole (not pictured here because my youngest isn't a fan of the guac and this was HER idea, after all).

VeganMoFo I Hate Thee!

OK, I really don't, but the title caught your attention, right?

For the uninformed, "VeganMoFo" is a month-long attempt by vegan bloggers everywhere to post something about vegan food, every day. That's a LOT of blogging. And a lot of food. REALLY good vegan food.

VEGAN-MOnth-of-FOod... get it?

You can read about it on the PPK forums, here.

Now, I am perfectly OK with VeganMoFo, in fact I embrace it wholeheartedly. But it doesn't like me, or my blog for some reason...

To start with, last year the cute little "VeganMoFo" banner caused some huge script-java-something-something error on my blog and it crashed. I removed the banner and all was fine. Add it, in a different version... and my blog refused to function properly for yet more reasons. So after several more attempts to unify myself with other "VeganMoFo" bloggers, I skipped the whole banner idea all together.

This year, October 1st dawns bright and clear and I again attempt the to add this little bit of brown font to my blog. No dice. I get gimongous "ERROR" messages whenever I try to log in. The nice people at Blogger help me. I remove the bad VeganMoFo. And several posts disappear into thin cyberspace air, never to be found again...

SOooooooo... that said. I really AM attempting to participate in the whole "post as much as you can all month" concept, I am just not going to do so with a cute little banner.

With that said, I'm finally posting my vegan seitan sausages, the same recipe that everyone else made and posted ten years ago. I've been using this recipe from "Every Day Dish" but there are a zillion variations out there.

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They turn out really nice, though I admit I just can't leave a recipe exactly "as is".

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I usually punch up the spices and garlic a WHOLE LOT and use 1/4 cup tapioca flour for 1/4 cup of the vital wheat gluten flour because I like the more tender texture.
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We've been enjoying these grilled, fried with onions and potatoes, sliced in ratatouille, and topping pizza. LOVELY and actually much quicker to make than you'd think. Do try them if you're the one person on the planet who hasn't.

And yes, for you whiners, I'll be back with more original "Straight-From-Tofu-Mom's-Kitchen" recipes in a day or so.

Italian Kale and "Sausage" Stew

Nothing terribly profound today, but after a quick look at my almost-finished-somewhat-neglected garden, I did discover late summer zucchini, plus onions and kale to use up like CRAZY; so I combined several Italian-Kale-Bean-Sausage soup ideas, (along with a few mismatched refrigerator leftovers because I'm frugal like that) and came up with supper.

No, it's not exactly "soup" weather but my kids liked it, no leftovers, so I must have hit on something... (plus it uses Field Roast sausage which is one of our all time favorites!) Sorry the picture's crap, the soup was not.

Kale-"Sausage" Soup

1 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 - 3 links vegetarian sausage, like Field Roast Italian, cut into (1/2-inch) slices
1 - 2 zucchini, quartered and cut into slices (about 2 cups?)
3 garlic cloves, (you know I used more!) peeled and crushed
6 cups or more!! chopped trimmed kale (I happen to be growing Lacinato or Black Italian kale, but use whatever you have)
1/2 cup water
splash of white wine (optional but I add it to everything)
2 (16-ounce) cans or 3 cups coooked cannellini beans or other white beans, rinsed and drained
1 (14 ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
1/4 cup pitted kalamata olives, finely chopped (optional but in my opinion, why would you leave them out?)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Sauté onion and veggie sausage 4 minutes or until sausage is browned. Add zucchini and garlic; cook 2 minutes. Add kale and remaining ingredients; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Serve immediately.