Wednesday 26 October 2011

Vegan MoFo - Nooch makes everything better

A couple of days ago, I made the Bacon and Egg Burgers from The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet by Joni-Marie Newman for the cookbook challenge.  I didn't love them, but I really wanted to.  Despite not being great, they made an excellent breakfast - I eat breakfast between 8 and 8.15am, and when I ate these, I wasn't hungry until about 12.30 or 1pm.  So I was determined to make them more than just edible, and I think I've accomplished that!

One thing I realised is that the imitation bacon bits available here are far less salty than the ones available in the US.  You see, in the UK/Europe, the government actually regulates the food industry in a meaningful way, so they have limits on, for example, how much salt can be in food.  So my burgers were a little bland because I didn't account for the lower salt level.  The other thing I realised is that these are basically tofu scramble burgers.  As far as I'm concerned, it's not scramble if it doesn't contain nooch, and there's no nooch in these.

So I made the burgers again, this time adding about a teaspoon of liquid aminos (for the saltiness) and 1/4 cup of nooch.  I managed to get away using slightly less flour this time as well (and I only used 1/2 cup of flour last time, which is the low end of the range for the recipe).  They turned out great!  I actually want to eat another one right now, but having just calculated the calories (roughly 186 each), I can't really afford to after all those Manner wafers I ate this afternoon.

I'm really glad I gave these another try, because I can see them becoming a breakfast staple.  They're really easy to make and take relatively little time, and, as I said above, are filling enough to get you through to lunch.  They're a little more calorific than my usual breakfast (cereal and soymilk), but I think I'll make that up by not feeling the need to snack between meals (I hope - abundant Manner wafers notwithstanding).  Oh, and they freeze well, so you could make a couple of batches (I managed to fry the whole of one batch in one go) and pop a bunch in the freezer.

Mike's taking me out to dinner tomorrow, but I need to check that I haven't already reviewed this restaurant (I have a feeling I have).  If I have, I might make something between getting home and going back out so I have something to blog about!

2 comments:

  1. I agree! If you put NY on cardboard it would taste good :)

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  2. I need to make those! I will definitely add nooch, it seems like they would be too plain without it.

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