Welcome back everyone!

Good to see you all here. 

Please indulge me for my annual Easter right of passage.

Before we get going I want to share a personal – non-vegetarian – accomplishment: as of this weekend I am 100% debt free!

[knocks every piece of wood within a square mile]

It’s true. My last big debt was the crazy, stupid, comfortable five thousand dollar bed I bought back in August. That fucker is officially MINE!

I also have zero credit card debt, no car payment, no mortgage, no student loans or personal loans or doctor payments or…

Have I sufficiently jinxed my dumb ass completely yet?

I plan on using the extra cash on hand to add to readily available cash as well as contributing more to my IRA. The 401K is kicking ass and so is the IRA but I want to add more to it dammit.

I’m only 6 1/2 years away from retirement and I want to do that shit proper!

It seems like I’m heading in the right direction. Took long enough.

 

Last week brought us a cornucopia of vegetarian recipe failure and general experimentation where things just could have been a whole lot better.

Today we have the polar opposite. Today we have things that turned out so well that the vegetarian versions may very well supplant the non vegetarian versions permanently. 

Let’s head to the kitchen.

One of the misconceptions about a vegetarian diet is it’s bland, unexciting and the equivalent of human cattle grazing. We’re going to showcase a few items today that will go a long way towards debunking that mindset. 

Be aware that we aren’t even CLOSE to cooking vegan today. Shit man, we use cheese and butter and other good things but we are indeed meat free and that’s fine. Needed even.

I will be seriously showcasing some of the things you can do with “Impossible” meat.

We’ve experimented with it before as well as “Beyond” meat but I found the Impossible meat vastly superior.

Over the course of several weekends I experimented with possible week night meals or easy “throw together at the last minute” meals using the Impossible meat. Shit that will look extremely familiar but food that is none-the-less comforting and damn near “meaty” in the middle of this vegetarian desert.

Here we are.

Our first recipe is – make yourself some damn meatballs.

Here we have our “meat.” Please note that the Impossible meat people decided to sell 12 oz. packages of meat instead of 16, despite the fact that every ground beef recipe on the planet calls for a 16 oz. package.

Address this fucking shit Impossible people if you ever hope to get full buy-in on your product! 

In addition to the meat we also have some grated onion, minced garlic, salt, pepper, dried basil, dried oregano, grated parmiggiano reggiano and I made a “panade” which is a mixture of cream and day old bread. This gave a really nice moist texture to the meatballs.

Add in an egg and give everything a mix.

Oh that’s splendid!

Now roll the little bastards up.

These will roast in a 375 degree oven for about 25 minutes.

When these came out of the oven it had been weeks since I had anything remotely resembling meat. I grabbed one of those meatballs with my bare fucking hands and shoved it in my pie-hole like a goddamn starving cannibal. It was soo fucking delicious.

Early on in my vegetarian venture I experimented with several familiar foods using non-meat items. One weekend I made flatbreads, one on Saturday and one on Sunday.

Pretty tough stuff being a vegetarian right?

Original recipe for the flatbread sauce, dough and general info can be found here.

Pizza on back-to-back days?

I do this for you! See the sacrifice?

The first day I made a roasted red pepper, meatball and ricotta flatbread and it looked a little like this.

Yes it was fucking outstanding. The ricotta gives the pie a really rich finish and the roasted red pepper compliments the meatballs perfectly.

Keep this in mind when you order your next pizza, folks. This is a great combo.

The 2nd day, though. The 2nd day?

I made this motherfucker.

THAT beauty is made with meatballs and sauteed mushrooms and garlic. What I did was melted some butter then sauteed the mushrooms in it for about 5 minutes. Next I added in some minced fresh garlic then a splash of red wine. Reduce down for 2-3 minutes then drizzle everything over the meatballs on the already dressed flatbread.

This is where we got that enticing banner image up there.

I will be making this thing again, EXACTLY as described including using the Impossible meat and I will be making it a lot.

A LOT!!

Best flatbread I ever personally made. Just fucking perfect. That pour of the red wine, butter, mushrooms and garlic was goddamn sinful. Unbelievably delicious.

LOOK AT IT!

Holy shit. Motherfucking touchdown.

A quick aside for a snack idea. Check this out.

I found this at my local Ralph’s when my regular hummus was out of stock. This is from Haig’s Delicacies straight from Hayward California, up in the bay area.

People? This shit is perfect.

Upon closer label inspection the answer is revealed.

Having a hard time reading that? It says garbanzo beans, tahini, lemon juice, water, garlic, cayenne, spices and sea salt.

That’s pretty much exactly what I put in my homemade hummus.

If you don’t regularly read the nutritional labels hopefully this inspires you. I read the labels usually to find out all of the frightening shit in a product. But also read labels because of this. Once in a great while you’ll find a label that encourages you to try a product based solely on its lack of bullshit ingredients.

Y’all know I make my own scratch made hummus up in here and if you’ve ever had fresh scratch made hummus you know that it is very different than the normal containers of hummus you find at the grocery store.

This was not. Not different at all.

In fact I’ve never tried ANYTHING that was store bought that tasted exactly like homemade. I ain’t going back either. My new regular hummus right fucking here.

Back to the recipes.

Hungry for a nice beef and bean “combo” burrito?

Let’s make one.

With this.

Into the pan you go.

And in the seasonings and a little water. Yes, I used a “Burrito” seasoning packet from the store. Lazy weeknight shit remember?

And simmer until thickened.

You already know what makes everything better.

Chile tepin! Yes I still have some of this on hand at all times.

Some of you may remember that this was the very first recipe EVER on Sunday Gravy.

Now build that damn burrito!

That’s our meat, some refried beans and some chile tepin. I covered it with some real dairy cheese and rolled that fucker up.

Want a bite?

Obviously I’m a huge fan of the big-ass meaty burrito.

When cooked with some seasonings and wrapped in a burrito you will detect basically NO difference between the Impossible meat and real ground beef. 

Last one.

We’ve actually done this one before using the beef version and the non-meat version but I cooked it during my vegetarian journeys and even took a few pictures of it and why the fuck not?

This time saute the meat with some onion. You will brown the meat slightly and then add in some minced garlic.

Next combine the meat mixture with a can of cream of mushroom soup. Mix it up real nice.

Cheese it up why don’tcha?

Your choice for cheese(s). I had a few slices of the cheddar from last weeks Sad Burger, then finished sprinkling with some 4 cheese Mexican blend that was used in that burrito you see right up there a few paragraphs above.

Yeah, you already know where we’re going with this. Tot it up!

Into a 350 degree oven for about 35 minutes.

See that shit?

See what we did here?

We made pizza and burritos and hot dish and not a single fucking animal was harmed!

That’s a good thing! Possibly a sustainable thing.

Every single one of these dishes was just as good as the meat version, or as was the case in the meatballs and flatbreads, it was a superior version from the ground beef version. I’m thinking it was because it delivered all of the flavor without the additional grease that could have fucked with the finished texture.

Just a working theory but it feels right.

My long journey into the world of vegetarianism officially came to a close last weekend. You’ll be reading about that soon enough too.

I lasted just 2 days shy of 8 weeks off of the meat wagon.

Final tale of the tape saw me lose right about 20 pounds. It also saw me probably add some additional days onto my existence.

Please take note that I am not done with the vegetarian thing by a damn sight. I will be a vegetarian Monday through Friday of every week but will also give myself some wiggle room to eat what I want on the weekend.

The soups I’ve been making are in a 4 soup rotation [soup 4 next week and it’s fucking killer] and they will be my work night dinner going forward. I like the feel, the taste and the effect of this vegetarian thing too much to quit now.

It has done wonders for my health and my digestive tract in particular is extremely thankful for the experience.

The cost savings at the grocery store is also pretty fucking bad ass.

I still can’t pin down the exact reason I even started this experiment but I am extremely grateful that I did.

When I was younger I was the most picky little shithead eater who never ate his vegetables and look where I am now.

Fully changed and eternally grateful. If you have any interest in giving this lifestyle a go, let me know in the comments and I’ll offer up some suggestions and encouragement.

Sunday Gravy will be back to it’s full on carnivorous, meaty-meat goodness in a couple of weeks I promise.

Have a great rest of your weekend everyone.

Always good to see you here.

Until next week.

PEACE!