Meat Recipe Converting: Tomato Bulgur Soup with Tofu & Crumbles

Some recipes just rely on meat or meat products. You can't really make a steak vegetarian. A New England Clam Bake without the clams is missing something rather vital to the recipe. Sure, there are a lot of meat substitutes these days and still more being made, but really, becoming a vegetarian may just mean giving up your favourite foods, because there is no real substitute.

It's been six years since I left meat behind, and at this point, even shrimp has finally stopped calling to me. I've found myself using fewer of these meat substitutes as well. But limiting myself to JUST vegetarian recipes is not necessarily my only option. And in these posts, "Meat Recipe Converting", I will be taking very meat-laden dishes, and turning them into vegetarian lovelies.

These posts will focus on recipes that cannot be easily converted to vegetarian. They aren't ones where you substitute veggie broth for chicken. These are ones where the meat is a key part of the meal, and thus, converting requires creating almost a whole new recipe.

Algerian Green Wheat Soup with Meatballs becomes...

This recipe comes from a large book of soup recipes called Best Soups in the World, and it features soups from all over the world. I adore this book; it is complete with good food, interesting information, and classic chef snobbery. The recipe that caught my attention, Algerian Green Wheat Soup with Meatballs, is a meat-heavy tomato soup with one of my favourite underutilized grains: bulgur (substitute for the original freekeh, but eh).

Converting a recipe like this may look as easy as just replacing all of it with tofu or vegetables, but this uses two very different kinds of meat, and replicating that sort of texture/blend requires a bit of thought. And so...

Tomato Bulgur Soup with Tofu & Crumbles



THere are two aspects of this soup that need to be replaced:

1) The broth is chicken-based.
2) The main chunky parts of the soup are two meats, one grain.

As such, here are the ingredients I used:

1lb firm tofu
7tbsp unsalted butter OR oil
2 medium onions, chopped
2lbs ripe tomatoes, chopped OR 2 cans 14.5oz chopped tomatoes
1tsp cayenne pepper
1tsp salt, if even that (I'm sensitive to the taste of salt)
6 cups vegetable broth OR 6 cups water flavoured to taste with concentrated broth. Or any mixture thereof.
1 cup freekeh or course bulgur
2tbsps tomato paste
1 package Morningstar Farms Grillers Recipe Crumbles (one of the few meat subs I still buy; very versatile and great if you're too lazy to flavour and crumble tofu or tempeh)
Black pepper to taste

The instructions to follow are a shortened version of the original recipe:

1. Add onions, tomatoes, cayenne, and salt to butter or oil and cook, stirring, for 10 minutes. You can add the tofu at this stage as well if you like firmer tofu. Pour in cups of broth and increase heat to a simmer. If you didn't add the tofu to sautee, you can add it here as well, to let it soak up the flavour of the broth.

2. Similar to step 3 in the original recipe, however, don't throw away any of the solids. Also don't grind up your tofu if you added it in the first step at any point. Grind up all of the solids if you like a thicker soup; grind up half if you want a thinner soup and like having vegetable chunks in your soup. Return blended broth and solids to pot, heat until boiling, then add bulgur and tofu. Lower heat to simmer. Halfway through cooking the bulgur, add the recipe crumbles (you can just add these frozen, or you can brown them in a pan first). Cook until bulgur is ready (as the recipe says, tender but chewy).

And there you have it. I didn't make meatballs with the crumbles because I am embarrassingly bad at making meatballs, stuffed rolls, etc; they just fall apart in the broth for me. But if you're more talented than I am, I'm sure they'd come out fine. Also I'm sure freekeh would do just as well as bulgur, especially since freekeh is the original ingredient in the first place.

As for taste? Good! The tofu absorbed the flavour very well, and the crumbles make a good contrast to tofu's texture and flavour. The broth was good if a bit thick. The flavour was nice and hearty. Overall, it's a great comfort food, especially on a cold or dreary day. It stays decent as leftovers as well. And if you replace the butter with oil and sub the crumbles for something else (crumbled tempeh?), pretty sure it's vegan!

8/10 from me. Of course, you're welcome to try out the original meat recipe as well. I'm sure it's as good as the vegetarian recipe, if not better because it's, well, the original.

Tschuess.

Cooking Light's Hot and Sour Soup

Late Friday night (it was early Saturday morning by that point actually), my throat and chest seemed to burst into acidic flames. Pain burned at the base of my throat and seemed to travel until it ignited in my sternum. Recognizing it as heartburn, I tried my usual routines. They failed. And so, come Saturday morning, I found myself in the ER, pain radiating from my chest and back, absolutely miserable.

I have never had heartburn so awful before, and apparently it was awful enough to actually cause damage. A diagnosis of reflux esophagitis followed after they determined that my cardiovascular system is as healthy as a horse, and I was sent home with prescriptions for some heavy-duty acid-reducers and the instructions to eat a bland diet, without coffee, tea, chocolate, peppermint, tomatoes, citrus, or anything acidic.

Usually I ignore those types of instructions, since my GERD is usually not triggered by acid. But in this case? I am following it, because my esophagus needs a break.

Bland diet doesn't mean it can't be tasty, though, and so I present...

Hot and Sour Soup

There are millions of recipes for hot and sour soup out there, each with their own variations. I know I probably have at least three or four recipes among my books alone. This one is from Cooking Light Vegetarian, and it's incredibly simple. The soup's biggest player is its broth, with mushrooms, tofu, and egg being the only chunky aspects. I followed this recipe exactly, except I used only shiitake mushrooms (fresh, so no reconstituting in water), used ground ginger instead of fresh, and skipped on the scallions, cilantro, and sesame oil (sesame oil is strong stuff, and I thought it may be a bit much for my poor esophagus).



Does this not look like something you'd order at a Chinese restaurant? Though I do recommend you beat the egg white a bit like it recommends -- I didn't, and I had giant glomps of egg white in my soup.

This soup? Tastes incredible. It honestly tastes like something I'd order at a restaurant. I'm usually awful at making broths, but this has a very nice, earthy flavour that is perfect if you've spent the entire morning in the ER and need some comfort. The mushrooms add a unique meaty taste, and the tofu actually absorbs a decent amount of flavour, leaving it not tasting like water.

The only thing I will note is that is neither hot nor sour. Definitely add ginger or sesame oil to taste if you want something spicier. Also consider adding white vinegar in addition to rice vinegar -- the latter is known for being quite mild. Also, you can definitely use less than the number of egg whites requested; I cut the recipe in half, and as you can see, two egg whites took over the soup.

Otherwise though? 9.5/10. It was just what I needed to assure myself that bland does not have to mean "tastes awful".

Tschuess.

A Very Vegetarian Christmas

I have about five days to try and write five stories for a prompt event, because depression sucks and made me lose a ton of time. I'll be spending today try to get at least one or two of those done, but first, I'm going to make a very quick Dinner Time post.

A Very Vegetarian Christmas

For those who haven't figured it out yet, I'm a vegetarian, and have been for coming on six years now. This means that I can't have the traditional meat that our culture enjoys associating with holidays. For this holiday, my mother and I worked together to make Christmas dinner -- she made the meat and potatoes for my brother, I made the vegetarian options for us.

The pictures are unfortunately quite crappy, as I was in a hurry to take them so we could start eating. But here it goes.

Roasted Vegetable Bisque

This recipe has been on my list for AGES to try out, and I finally chose it for this Christmas. Funny story while I was chopping the vegetables to make it: my sister, who has Down Syndrome and autism (this is an important point for this story to make a bit more sense), was wandering around the kitchen trying to find food. Typical behavior, she loves to eat. She walked over to me chopping vegetables, then reached out and snatched a vegetable from the plate -- again typical behavior; stealing food is a habit we can't seem to break her of. The thing is, she had grabbed 1/8 of a whole raw onion, and she shoved it into her mouth.

She didn't seem to like her choice very much, but she DID eat it, which is more than I could do if I shoved a raw onion into my mouth. I gave her some water after that adventure, and then she left my vegetables alone. XD



Why does my food always look so much more disgusting than the original maker's does? Hers is all red and lovely; mine looks like baby vomit. Good news is, it didn't taste like that.

This soup tasted very light, even with the cream cheese added in. It also is a very sweet flavour, which I think comes from using so much butternut squash in it. It was a bit too sweet for me -- I like my soups to be very rich and savory. However, I also failed at using the pepper shaker, so I imagine with some pepper and salt, this would taste fantastic. For the record, dried herbs work just fine if you don't have fresh, as do canned tomatoes.

So about 7.5/10 for this one, and I'll try to make it again and see if I can improve on it.

Portabello Salad with Maple-Mustard Dressing

Hari knows I'm in love with portabellos and linked this recipe a while back. I decided it would go well with the bisque, and red onions excluded, even followed the recipe near-exactly, despite my dislike for cooking wine.



The pictures don't get better.

So yeah. I don't really like salad dressing, or cooking wine, or vinegar. And you know what? This salad was fantastic. It's given me faith in salads. I feel like salads can be more than just rabbit food now. The mushrooms added a nice meaty texture to the salad, while the dressing turned the leaves from rabbit food to actually edible. The whole family enjoyed it (brother excluded. Vegetables are POISON don't you know?)

I can't say how well avocado goes with though, because our avocado was NOT ripe and I refused to eat it hard as a rock.

So yes. 9/10 is what I'm thinking. I'm not sure why not 10/10, I think maybe because it IS still a salad.

Baked Beans with Mint, Peppers, and Tomatoes

Some recipes you just can't get right. This recipe is one of them. A year ago I tried making it, and the beans were not soft at all, and I had to basically force it into my meals for a few WEEKS. I decided to give it a second shot.



I think it went even WORSE this time around.

Compared to the rich salad and soup? This was bland. No flavours stood out, not even any richness from the tomatoes. The beans were not soft once again, and if it is all because I didn't use mint (mother hates it), then that's stupid because foods should rely on more than one flavour.

There really isn't much to say here. I've given up on this recipe. 3/10.

Bonus picture!



Dinner candle trying to set the house on fire. It LOOKS like it is sitting up straight and tall. Looks are deceiving.

And now to shower and laundry and write. Until next time...

Tschuess.

Arabic Lentil Soup with Mushroom Schnitzel

So to kick off going through the recipes I have saved, I decided to make TWO of them last night using ingredients I had available: Mushroom schnitzel with some arabic lentil soup. I've actually made both of these recipes before, but things didn't work out as I wanted, so I tried them again.



Tada.

Mushroom Schnitzel

So when I was in Germany, I fell in love with schnitzel. The problem is it is a meat dish, and while Germany had some great vegetarian options for it, The US does not. I found this recipe to my delight and was like "OMG FINALLY."

I didn't have scallions so I just subbed pearl onions that I managed to haphazardly chop up, while the matzo meal is actually matzo ball mix. Also, no lemon, and egg whites instead of whole egg.



I'd love to sing this recipe's praises. But honestly? It really didn't do much for me. First, do not cook mushrooms for 10 minutes! They will become gross! I cooked them for only a few minutes and got them to be tender but still able to hold form, same with the onions. But I had to use twice the amount of matzo ball mix recommended to make the patty stick in any way decent, and so in the end the flavour was sort of odd -- kind of salty, a bit dry. Most of the flavour seemed to come from the butter.

I imagine some more spices may be able to help it out, but I'm not sure which, and honestly, I'm willing to just let the recipe go and search out another vegetarian schnitzel. All the same? It wasn't horrible, just rather meh. Thus, 5/10.

Arabic Lentil Soup



This recipe is from here, and it was followed exactly except pepper instead of carrot, and also I forgot to add the cumin in until half-way through cooking (whoops).

I'd like to sing the praises for this recipe too, as I love lentils, and soup, and lentil soup. But unfortunately? It's very watery and the only real flavour is the earthy lentils. I did not find that mashing the lentils up added any sort of thickness, and I did not add any water from the initial 3 cups, and it STILL doesn't have good body to it.

However, I think this could be easily fixed if a) some additional cumin, along with a bit of pepper and salt, was added and b) if less liquid is used. The option of chili flakes that she recommends sounds like a good idea, and I'd try halving the amount of water, and just doing what she recommends and adding some as needed. Also, instead of water, using a high-quality broth should add some great flavour.

So basically, I think this soup recipe is a good starting point, but needs some changes to make it truly slurpable. These changes are pretty easy, though, so I'll still give it a 6.5 or a 7/10. I may keep a hold on the recipe and try fiddling with it again later, and report if it helps.

There should be another post from me later today or tomorrow, as I am currently making some Coconut Farro Porridge, another recipe I needed to use. Stay tuned!

Tschuess.