Citrus spare ribs

This time, I followed directions. The second product I picked up with the coupons VegeUSA sent me was the Citrus Sparerib Cutlets. And I just followed the easy microwave directions. Combine with rice and steamed broccoli and Boom! dinner! Oh, and I sprinkled mine with gomashio because I do that.

The sweet, chewy nuggets are mostly soy based which is nice if you have issues with eating a ton of wheat gluten. The texture was fine microwaved, but I’ve also had these pan fried in the past and you can get a little crispy edge to them when you do that, but you also sacrifice some of the sauce.

The package ambitiously says there are 2.5 servings inside, but not in this house. It was a solid two servings for us though. The main downside to these is the price. At around $7, it’s more than I would normally pay for a fake meat for 2, but it’s still cheaper than ordering out. And I know there are a ton of people out there that don’t cook like I do and rely on prepared foods or eating out. So you might find this handy. In Atlanta, I found these and the pepper steak at Whole Foods on Ponce.

Black Pepper Steak and Noodles

vegeusa black pepper steaksWhy is it when I don’t have time to blog, I get a bunch of folks wanting to send me products to try? No worries, I’ll eventually get to talk about the goodies. This time VegeUSA offered to send me coupons for free product. I got excited cruising their website. I’ve had a few of their products, but they have a ton I haven’t tried. Sadly, when I got to the store, they only carried two I’d already had. So I decided to get a little experimental with one of them, the Vegan Black Pepper Steaks.

So, I took a partial bag of Trader Joe’s stir fry veggies, fried them up with some onion and then added the black pepper steaks and their juice. Then I added maybe a 1/4 cup of stock to make the sauce thinner. Then I mixed it up with some cooked rice noodles.

It was pretty good, but I think the sauce was diluted too much. Here’s what I should have done. Dress the cooked noodles with a little sesame oil and soy sauce, stir fry the veggies as I did and cook the pepper steaks separately according to package directions. Then mixed the veggies and noodles and put the pepper steaks on top rather than trying to make the sauce cover everything. Oh, look, I’m eating kale again.

The steak has a really nice texture. The sauce is asian-inspired, so you’ll want to keep that in mind when using this in a meal. The next product I try will be the Citrus Spareribs.

Trader Joe’s Chicken-Less Mandarin Orange Morsels

Trader Joe's Chicken-Less Mandarin Orange MorselsEvery once in a while, new vegan products show up at Trader Joe’s. Recently there were the falafel balls. And the latest find was these Chicken-less Mandarin Orange Morsels. Yes, more lazy food!

So, I made some brown rice and steamed up some frozen Trader Joe’s mixed vegetables and baked up the nuggets. Pretty lazy! And really tasty! The chickeny bits had a nice texture and the orange sauce was good. It seems like more and more lazy food is happening these days…

 

 

Lazy dumpling soup

This is only slightly less lazy than eating peanut butter out of a jar with a spoon. And of course I forgot to take a picture of the end result. That’s how lazy I was that day. But I do like to share good food that doesn’t take a bunch of prep so here ya go.

You’ve seen these right? They’re pretty cheap, less than a dollar certainly.

These are great to keep around for quick meals. Throw in some frozen veggies or tofu or shredded lettuce, cabbage, etc. and you can make it pretty filling.

I also keep these in the freezer for quick sides to Asian dishes. Trader Joe’s has some vegan ones, I think. You can usually find a few varieties at any Asian grocery that are vegan.

So, combine these things. Throw a few of these into your soup while it’s cooking. I tried it with the curry version and it was delicious!

 

Kooksu at Takorea

While I do love the tofu tacos and sesame fries, the Kooksu (soba noodles, cucumber, cabbage, lettuce, Korean red pepper sauce – ask for no egg and it’s vegan) at Takorea hits the spot when you’re looking for a healthier option. Of course, I then end up destroying this and taking more than a couple of Kevin’s sesame fries. It cannot be helped. Heads up, they do trivia on Thursday evenings. It gets loud.

The lighting outside the window made the trees look all spooky.