Missed You Enchiladas

This is my version of a turkey enchilada recipe from a Cooking Light cookbook that my in-laws gave me a few years before my husband and I were married. During my pre-veggie years this was one of my favorite recipes, but it took quite a while to make. It has taken me some time to figure out what to replace the real meat with, but it really is a very adaptive recipe that contains more veggies than the original! I normally don't like meals with huge ingredient lists so I've tried to break it up so it is easy to see what can be swapped with something else. Only five of the ingredients listed were things we normally don't have on hand in our pantry, there is just a lot of seasonings. It is very easy to make the spice as mild or as hot as you prefer, my version is more on the very mild side because I can't tolerate a lot of hot spice. If the burger and the cheese parts are already done it goes together rather quickly.

Okara "Burger" (or any meat replacement that equals about 3 C.):

2 C. Soy or Almond Okara (the stuff leftover from making soymilk or almond milk)

1 TBS. Poultry Seasoning

1/2 tsp. Garlic powder

1/2 tsp. Onion powder

1/2 Seasoned Salt

1 tsp. dried Dill Weed

1/2 tsp. Lemon Pepper seasoning

2 TBS. Nutritional Yeast (powdered)

3/4 C. Vital Wheat Gluten Flour (you might need a TBS or two more depending on how wet the okara still is)

Canola Oil or Pan Spray (to coat the pan and prevent sticking)

Spinach Salsa Filling:

1 (24 oz. jar) chunky Salsa (I used mild but I might use medium next time)

1 (1 lb. bag) frozen, chopped Spinach that has been thawed and drained

1 container Tofutti Cream Cheese

1 (15 oz.) can Tomato Sauce (or Enchilada sauce)

3/4 tsp. sweet Paprika

1 1/2 tsp. Old Bay Seasoning

1 1/2 tsp. ground Cumin

1 tsp. ground Black Pepper

2 tsp. Chili powder

Nacho Cheese Sauce (or any leftover cheese sauce* or grated vegan cheese):

1/4 C. all purpose Flour

1/4 to 1/3 C. Nutritional Yeast (powdered)

3/4 tsp. Salt

1/4 tsp. Onion Powder

1/4 tsp. Chili Powder 

1/4 tsp. Garlic Powder

1/8 tsp. Mustard Powder

1/8 tsp. ground Cumin

1 C. Soymilk (plain, unsweetened)

6 good shakes of Tabasco Sauce

1 TBS. Canola Oil

Other:

1/2 - 1 C. Corn kernels (canned or frozen)

12-16 (6 inch) corn Tortillas

1 (14 oz.) can diced Tomatoes, drained (or 3/4 C. fresh)

1 head Iceburg Lettuce, thinly sliced

1 head Red Leaf Lettuce, thinly sliced

1 can sliced Olives (optional)

Tofutti Sour Cream (optional)

Fresh Cilantro, chopped (optional, for garnish)

Directions:

1.) Heat a large skillet on medium high heat along with the canola oil or pan spray.

2.) In a medium mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients for the okara burger together before adding the gluten flour. Once the gluten flour is added, mix throughly so the gluten will start to develop and hold everything together. Kneed a few times in the bowl to further develop the gluten.

3.) Cook okara mix until it starts to brown, stirring and turning occasionally to cook evenly. (see pic at bottom) Once cooked, set aside in a different container and reheat pan.

4.) Add all the Spinach Salsa filling ingredients to the pan (making sure spinach is thawed and drained), cook until the Tofutti cream cheese is melted and everything is throughly mixed.

5.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Assembly:

6.) In a greased 9x13 inch baking dish (I put it into a 7x11 inch dish and it just barely fit):

Fast Method-

A.)Place a layer of tortillas, 1/3 of the okara burger, 1/3 of the spinach filling, and 1/3 of the Corn. Repeat for second and third layers. Top with diced tomatoes.

Traditional Method-

B.) Combine Okara burger, Spinach Salsa filling, and corn together, mixing throughly. Heat a cast iron pan on Medium high heat. Doing one at a time, oat both sides of a tortilla with cooking spray. Cook for 15 seconds, each side. While still hot, fill tortilla with 1/12 of the filling, roll up and place seam side down in the pan. Repeat with remaining tortillas. Top with diced tomatoes. 

7.) Bake for 30 minutes, or until throughly heated.

8.) Once done baking, let sit for 5 minutes

9.) While the enchiladas are baking, cut up lettuce and toss in a large bowl.

10.) Whisk all the dry ingredients for the Nacho Cheese Sauce together in a small pan. Slowly pour a little of the milk into the pan while whisking (to prevent lumping), continue whisking until all the milk is mixed in. Add oil and cook on medium high heat, continually whisking, until thickened. Remove from heat and mix in Tabasco sauce.

11.) Place a cup (or so) of lettuce on each serving plate. Place 1/6 (or 2 if rolled) of the enchiladas on top of lettuce. Top with olives, sour cream, cheese sauce, and cilantro. Enjoy!

Serves 6

Meat Alternatives:

-Sautéed Peppers, onions and Crimini mushrooms

-1 can (approx. 2 C.) each of cooked Garbanzo, Black, or Red beans and make a 3 layer casserole, using one can on the bottom of each layer

-any other kind of seitan, sauteed tofu, refried beans, TVP, or prepackaged meat replacement 

Cheese Alternatives:

-Grated Block Uncheese

-Sliced Vegan Cheese

-Any leftover vegan Cheese Sauce *(just add the chili powder, Tabasco, and cumin to sauce)

Browned Okara Burger

Mrs. Claus' Favorite Parfait

It's hard to tell, but the "white" parts actually are a very light pink

I've had quite some time now to get used to our new soymilk maker and I'm just as thrilled with it as I originally was. We have no severe shortage of uses for soymilk but this was something I thought would be fun to try. It's been a while since I've had homemade pudding and decided that I'd make some tonight.

Just before Thanksgiving I found out about Ricemellow Creme, even though I had noticed it at our local health foods store a few times before. It wasn't until I had seen the reviews about it on Vegan Essentials did I really become interested in trying it. A fair amount of the reviews mentioned that when they opened their tub of Ricemellow that it was tan and had a bunch of syrup on the bottom, looking nothing like the white cloud drawn on the front of the carton. (It melts when it stays too warm.) Luckily another reviewer mentioned that it just needed to be re-whipped because something that looks like tan foam is not appetizing. So I dumped my Ricemellow (that had at least 1 inch of syrup on the bottom of the container) into my Kitchen Aid mixer with the whisk attachment and turned it on full blast. In about 5 minutes I had something that looked convincingly like the stuff you find in a jar of traditional marshmallow creme.

I've had a tub of Ricemellow in the cupboard intending to make a batch of vegan "Rice Crispy Treats" but it kept tempting me to play with it. This stuff is seriously fun, and it tastes good too! I've used it in hot chocolate and I don't have to lament not having marshmallows anymore. I was just in a seriously cooking mood today and happened to catch this recipe trotting across my brain.

Peppermint Ricemellow Creme:

3 Peppermint Candy Canes

1 TBS. Powdered Sugar

1 tub Ricemellow Creme

Chocolate Pudding (this is NOT instant):

6 TBS Cocoa powder

1/2 C. granulated Sugar

5 TBS Cornstarch

2 3/4 C. Soymilk

1 1/2 tsp Vanilla

1.) Unwrap and break up candy canes into approx. 1 inch pieces and place into food processor with a cutting blade, then add the powdered sugar. Process into a fine candy cane powder. I used a fine metal sieve to "screen" the powder through and had to run the larger chunks through the food processor again two more times until it was almost all powdered. I ended up with about 1 TBS. fine bits and close to 1/4 C. candy cane powder. Reserve the fine bits for garnish.

2.) Dump the tub of Ricemellow into a medium size bowl (or the bowl of a stand mixer and use whisk attachment) and add candy cane powder (1/4 C.) to Ricemellow. Beat until very stiff and fluffy. Place into a quart size Ziplock bag, seal, & set aside.

3.) Place remaining ingredients (except soymilk and vanilla) into medium size pan. Slowly whisk in soymilk, making sure to whisk out any lumps. Cook on medium hight heat, stirring continually until pudding has thickened. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Cover top of pudding with plastic wrap (directly on top of the pudding to prevent a film forming that would make the pudding lumpy) and refrigerate until chilled.

4.) Snip off the corner (about 1/8 to 1/4 inch) of the plastic bag to make the Ricemellow easy to use. Remove plastic film from the top of the pudding and stir to smooth out the pudding. In dessert dishes, layer pudding with Peppermint Ricemellow (or just blop a serving of the pudding in the dish and top with Ricemellow). Garnish with a tiny pinch of cocoa powder and the remaining fine bits of the candy canes before serving.

Note: This is a very sweet dessert and there was about 3 servings in the glass in the picture, unless you have a severe sweet tooth. The glass is about 7 to 8 inches high so a little bit definitely goes a long way.

Suggestions:

Using Almond milk might make a slightly richer pudding because of the almond oil.

The granulated sugar should be able to be reduced to 1/3 C. and still be sweet.

For the Chocoholic- Add 1 to 1 1/2 C. semi-sweet or unsweetened (vegan) chocolate chips/chunks to the hot pudding after taking it off the burner.

Any leftover Peppermint Ricemellow can be used on hot chocolate!

Mmmm... Peppermint Ricemellow Creme...