Sausage, Pepper, & Onion Hoagie

The faux meat products in the vegan aisle are increasing in numbers and while I seldom venture into experimenting with them, I do occasionally purchase something just to see if it tastes like the real thing. I'm usually disappointed. For while the vegan meats are alright, few reach my standard of what tastes like the real thing.

As I did last week, I want to introduce you to a product that is new to me and which will now always be in my refrigerator. While I've tried other vegan sausages and been disappointed, I cooked up some of this sausage and did the happy dance all over the kitchen.

First off, I cut off a good portion of the sausage roll, flattened it into a patty and cooked it over low heat so it would get hot all the way through. All I added to it was salt and pepper. Doggone, it smelled like sausage, looked like sausage and tasted like sausage. I was a happy camper. I made myself some toast, spread it with jam, poured myself a fresh cup of coffee, and sat down to what, in my world, is called breakfast.

The next night I decided to make sausage, pepper, and onion hoagies. I even fed them to some friends who stopped by. We all made pigs of ourselves. The sausage is so perfectly seasoned that all I added was a pinch of fennel seeds to the stir fry pot and then scooped all that deliciousness onto some warm, crusty hoagie rolls. I served a side of fresh fruit and called it good.

SAUSAGE, PEPPER, & ONION HOAGIES

Break the sausage roll into small pieces and fry in 1 Tbs. of olive oil. Don't use a cooking spray. The sausage needs the oil to brown up and give the faux meat the mouth feel of real sausage. Set the sausage aside.

Slice:

2 red bell peppers

2 green bell peppers

1 large onion of your choice

1 zucchini--just because I had it and it needed to be used

Salt and pepper to taste

Stir fry in the same pan you used to cook the sausage. I used a bit of vegetable stock to help with the stir fry so the ingredients wouldn't stick to the pan.

Add the sausage back into the skillet. Add in a pinch of fennel seeds if desired. Cook everything together for about 5 minutes. 

Scoop the mixture into crusty rolls and enjoy. You'll need a good supply of napkins. These things are messy. But they sure are good.

Serves 3

Vegans are always on the lookout for something new to try

Once A Week Vegan wants to state that we do not advertise on this site, nor do we receive free products to try and write about. Any product written about in this blog was personally purchased and our reviews are forthright and represent the blogger's personal opinion.

Pepper Steak With Tempeh

I have my favorite vegan cookbooks and I use them all the time. I also have my favorite family recipes that I've been missing from my "now" medically necessitated vegan world. How to combine the two separate ways of eating into one lifestyle has long set my mind a thinkin'. After all, in my 53 years of marriage I gathered a lot of recipes that were worth making again and again. With the kids grown and parents in their own right and my hubby gone off to heaven before me, I yearned for the "comfort" foods of my old days.

I know it sounds silly, but I've been missing Pepper Steak. You can tell by the recipe card sitting in my big blue recipe file box that it has been used over and over because it is stained to the point of being nearly unreadable. In the days when two kids and hubby were around the table with me, I had to double the recipe because we all loved the dish to the point of  being pigs about the whole thing. But that's another story.

This particular recipe is a delicious blend of round steak, vegetables, and spices that cooks into a fragrant, saucy mixture that I always served over mashed potatoes. My taste buds been longing for that old favorite from the time in my life when I was surrounded by a happy and loving family. So I set out to veganize it. Nobody was more surprised than me when it turned out to be nearly as good as the real thing.

For the mashed potatoes, I just did them the old way. Peeled, cut into chunks, and boiled to tender. Then I warmed some rice milk, which I find far more palatable than soy milk, with some vegan margarine and whipped them into fluffy clouds. I added salt and pepper and sprinkled them with paprika just before serving. Doggone good if I do say so myself.

As for the Pepper Steak itself, I changed nothing except for substituting tempeh for the round steak. Who knew the whole concoction would be good enough to deserve its own blog? Happy chomping.

PEPPER STEAK/TEMPEH

1 package tempeh

2 Tbs. olive oil

1 Tbs. flour

Cut tempeh into bit size pieces, dredge in the flour, then brown in the hot oil in an oven-proof pot with a lid. The tempeh will look and taste more like the real thing if it has a good crust on it. Remove from the heat.

Add to the pot:

1/2 cup catsup

1 cup No Beef broth (use vegetable broth if you can't find the other)

1 large onion, chopped

2 green peppers, sliced into rings

1 cup mushrooms, sliced (I used baby bellas)

3 Tbs. soy sauce

salt and pepper to taste

Mix everything to distribute the seasonings. Cover and cook in the oven at 350 for an hour. Serve over the mashed potatoes. Enjoy.

Vegans never sleep; we are always thinking up
new ways to veganize old favorites