Vegan TVP Sauce and Cheeze

"How is that vegan?" is what you're probably thinking right about now.  "It looks like meat sauce, noodles and shredded cheese!" 

That's exactly what one of my friends who follows an omnivorous diet said when he tried a similar dish back in December.  At that time, I had made us a "meat" sauce out of Yves' veggie ground, which I don't have very often, but that I enjoy.  Not quite sure what to eat last week, I was inspired by that memory.  This time, however, I decided to try my hand at TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein) rather than Yves' veggie ground, and make a simple vegetable sauce to compliment it rather than using a jar of the home-made tomato sauce I made with my sisters last fall.

TVP is a high-fiber, high-protein "meat analogue" or "omni-sub" as I prefer to call them.  Made from defatted soy flour, a byproduct of extracting soybean oil, they are dehydrated flakes of protein.  Once rehydrated, they resemble ground meat.  And, like tofu, they absorb almost any flavour you soak them in.  It's not my favourite thing to eat in the meal, but it is an interesting soy product worthy to try out.

TVP Sauce, Noodles and Cheeze

This recipe serves four and freezes really well!  Do not freeze with the cheeze, though.  I just had leftovers of it last night!  YUMMY!

Ingredients:

Noodles, enough to serve four (I used organic rotini from my local health food store; depending on your strictness to a vegan diet, check the ingredient list for eggs as this can be a common ingredient.)

1 cup TVP granules (these can be found in most grocery stores; check your health food aisle.)

1 1/8 cup boiling water

1 Tbsp Tamari sauce

1 Tbsp canola or other vegetable oil

1 onion

3 - 4 medium carrots

7-8 mushrooms

1 can tomatoes, chopped coarsely

1 Tbsp Italian spice (or a mixture of oregano, basil, thyme and cumin - 1 tsp each)

Cook noodles as per package instructions. (Boil water, add noodles, reduce heat, cook until desired tenderness.)

In a small bowl (your average soup bowl), place 1 cup of TVP granules.  Pour 1 1/8 cup of boiling water over top of the granules.  Cover with a plate for about ten minutes (while you prepare the vegetables is fine).  Splash tamari sauce over top of the granules, stir and let sit for another five minutes or so to soak up the flavour of the tamari.

Heat oil over medium heat in a medium sauce pan.  Chop onion to desired size (I always aim for the smaller the better in sauces; longer and leaner in stir-frys) and add to the heated oil.  Stir occasionally to avoid burning.  Chop carrots to desired size (I chop a full carrot in half, then cut each half lengthwise into quarters.  From there, I can get a smaller-sized carrot as well.) Once onions are translucent, add carrots to sauce pan.  Chop mushrooms to desired size.  Search through your fridge for any other vegetables that you may also find delicious in your sauce. (The joy of cooking vegetable sauces is that you can put almost anything that is almost past its expiration date into the pan and they are yummy and nutritious! If I had had leftover brocolli, I would have put that into the sauce in a flash as well!)   Add mushrooms or whatever else you have found to the carrots and onions.  Let simmer for a few minutes until vegetables are tender.  Add chopped tomatoes (if they're in season, definitely use fresh.  In the winter, I tend to avoid fresh tomatoes so that I can more fully enjoy the first ripe tomatoes of the spring!) either from a can or from  your fridge.  Bring to a gentle boil.  Reduce heat.  Add Italian spices.  Let sauce simmer for another five minutes or so, for the flavours to all co-mingle.  Add TVP granules to the sauce.  Again, more simmering to allow the TVP to soak up more flavour.

Place noodles on plate.  Scoop or pour sauce over the noodles.  (As this is a vegetable sauce rather than tomato sauce, it will be runnier than you may be expecting.  To avoid that, you could always add tomato paste to thicken it up, and run it through a food processor to make it creamier.  Add TVP after running it through the food processor, though, to maintain that texture pictured above.) Sprinkle with my current favourite non-dairy cheeze, Daiya.  (Unlike most other earlier vegan cheezes, Daiya is made from arrowroot, and is able to melt more like the cheese you may have grown up with or that you eye with envy as you pass the local pizza shop.  It is scrumptious!  And produced by a Canadian company!)

Check out some photos of the process:

After adding the TVP to the vegetable sauce.

A close up of the sauce.

On my plate, before adding the Daiya.

After adding the Daiya!

Daiya, in its package.  Absolutely delicious!!!