Vegan Comfort Food

I was reading back through my blog last night, FINALLY responding to some of the comments from last week, when I became fixated on the post about Rosetta's Kitchen over in Asheville, NC. I got to thinking back, about how delicious that meal was, and it really got me hankerin' for another big ol' plate of vegan comfort food. So into the kitchen I went to try and recreate something similar for my lunchbox today. I didn't have the time to fool with trying out a brand new recipe like the Peanut Butter Baked Tofu, plus I'm not sure that it was really something that I liked THAT much, it was a little too rich for me, so I ended up fixing something that's really quick and really easy... and REALLY delicious.

Vegan Chicken Fried Steak is something that I came up with on here a while back. Of course there's not any real chicken or steak in it, and it's not even fried, but that's the best name I could think of for this. All I did was warm up a Boca Chik'n Patty and then smother it in some delicious Vegan Brown Gravy made using my favorite recipe. You might remember that I like to doctor the recipe up a little bit by adding an extra Tbsp. or so of Soy Sauce, along with 1/8 tsp. or so of garlic powder, a pinch of thyme, a pinch of sage and some fresh ground black pepper. Gosh this gravy is good, even better than what I've eaten in restaurants. And if you haven't tried it all over a Boca Chik'n Patty yet, you really should go do that right now. It's CRAZY good. The only problem is, after I eat one, I want two or three more. Luckily, the lunchbox won't let that happen today.

I also brought along some homemade Mashed Potatoes, covered with some more Vegan Brown Gravy. And you know, I don't have to feel bad about putting this gravy all over everything because the stuff is FAT-FREE. I did put the potatoes in a smaller container instead of a larger one to help me control the calories a little bit. Plus, I omitted bringing any type of bread like a roll or cornbread muffin, like I used to do so frequently.

I also whipped up a big bunch of Kale & Onions by just frying up some onions & garlic in a skillet and then wilting a bunch of Kale in it. You know, I had never eaten Kale before in my life until that meal last week at Rosetta's Kitchen. I've seen various posts about it on other message boards where people have someone in their family who hates it and such, so I was kind of wary of it. But HOLY COW I love this stuff. It's my favorite green now and I plan on eating lots and lots of it in the future. There's a lot of Kale in my house right now because of that "secret weapon" for my health & weight loss that I mentioned yesterday (if THAT gives you any hint as to what it is). Like I said, I'll be doing a post about that in a few days.

And for dessert, I just whipped up a quick Trail Mix by mixing together some Raw Almonds, Raw Cashews, Raw Sunflower Seeds & Raisins. YUM!

So there you have it, a nice little lunchbox full of delicious vegan comfort food. It was really easy to cook up. The only thing that even really took any time was boiling the potatoes so that I could smash them up.

That Vegan Brown Gravy really is one of the greatest things ever. You could feed that to any omnivore and I think they would love it. I like to put it on EVERYTHING.

So thanks for checking out the blog today. See everybody tomorrow!