Like this:

I did something brave… At least, I think it was pretty brave. I attempted to make my own veggie meat. And *shock*, it turned out! No way! haha.

I was inspired to do this mostly because I’ve been craving veggie meat. But as anyone who eats it knows… it can be really expensive. And I’m broke. So I figured it was worth a try. I really didn’t think this would pan out, but yeah.. I’m happy with it.

I got the recipe from this site, which also has a lot of great info about the veggie meat and why its actually pretty good for you. (Provided I can resist the urge to bread and fry it now… haha)

Ingredients:
2 cups of Gluten Flour
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 1/4 cups vegetable stock or broth (not pictured.. I forgot it
when I took the photo… but I definitely used it)
3 tablespoons of soy sauce
2 teaspoons of sesame oil

Broth Ingredients:
4 cups of water
1/4 cup of soy sauce

Materials:
Medium Mixing bowl
Small mixing bowl
Mixing fork
Cutting board
Very sharp knife
Large stove top pan

Start by mixing the three dry ingredients together in the medium mixing bowl.

In the small mixing bowl, mix up the vegetable broth, soy sauce, and sesame oil.

Once they’ve been well mixed (as best as it all can… the sesame oil won’t really mix well. But i suppose that’s pretty obvious. It IS oil, haha.)

Start to mix right away. And be quick about it! Seriously, it’ll be really hard to get it all together after a couple seconds. I only was able to use the fork for a couple mixes and then it was too stiff. So then you’ll have to use your hands. Mine involved a lot of pulling, twisting, and forcing more of the flour into the batter. Try to use up as much of the flour as you can by kneading it into the dough ball.

Let it rise in the bowl for about five minutes. Then knead the dough ten times or so. If you don’t do a lot of ‘kneading’ or don’t know how to do it, just pretend you’re punching the dough. That’s really the concept of kneading anyway, haha.

Let the dough rise again, this time for 15 to 20 minutes. This time I put it below a towel to keep it moist and warm. Now knead the dough about 20 times. (My hands were kinda hurting by the end if that gives you an idea how much you should knead it up, haha.)

This is a good time to get the ‘broiling broth’ ready. With the water and soy sauce in the pan, turn the stove up so the broth boils. You’ll add the veggie meat dough as soon as its boiling.

The next part was in the recipe instructions that I had, but I must say.. I think it may have been added as a joke. It said to roll out the dough with a rolling pin. Here’s my attempt at that…

Basically, its so elastic that it just pops back to where it was. But I spent about 3 minutes working on it. I honestly don’t know if it made a difference or not.

So I gave up and starting cutting the dough up. A word of warning (is it just me or is this blog ridden with warnings? haha), you won’t have success with the cutting unless your knife is VERY sharp. And even so, it was a little tough. Its sort of like trying to cut a piece of chewed gum. Gross analogy, I realize… but unfortunately accurate…

So I cut it into strips…. Then I separated the strips…

Once the pieces are a manageable size, place them one piece at a time into the soy sauce/water broth. You want to do it as individual pieces because otherwise they will stick together. When the soy sauce covers all the surface, they won’t stick.

When all the veggie meat is in the pan, turn the stove all the way down to a simmer. I covered the pan and then let it slowly cook for about an hour.

Drain the broth off the meat and then let it sit out to dry for about 15/20 minutes. Then its ready to put in a dish/meal or the fridge for next time. I’ll be honest… this was all I could handle for one night, so mine went into the freezer to be used later.

But I will say… it tastes suprisingly well. And if you were raised on veggie meat like I was this, these taste almost exactly like the canned ‘scallops‘ by Worthington/Loma Linda foods. Which means they’ll be pretty unbelievable breaded… haha

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