Recipe 85 - The ever popular, 'Meat' loaf.

Bless you, my sweet vegan readers.  The reason I'm even doing this is to prove that we can eat what everyone else eats, deems to be gross, etc, and fall in love with it all over again - vegan style.


I had so many responses (many of them off the record) to my 'meat' loaf recipe that I was floored!  I personally can't recall ever having meat loaf (or at least too much of it) to miss it so much, but apparently you guys DO miss it!  And I'm excited to have re-created it for you, in a very yummy format!


So, without further ado.. let's talk about it!
I had a pretty busy weekend, and I knew it would continue to be as such, so I decided upon taking a rainy Friday evening and making this.  I had no one to share it with, so I halved out my recipe and went to town gathering up my items




I knew ahead of time I was going to pair this with some baked mac and cheese.  My recipe told me to turn my veggies halfway into the baking time (which was an hour or so) so I knew that by half an hour I had to start baking some mac.   Regardless, let's get started with the star of the show.



I took a shortcut and used the ground beef style gimme lean.  I'm kind of glad I did.. I've created fake meats before and it takes forever in a day.  I also initially considered making this out of quinoa.. but I changed my mind there too - OBVIOUSLY.   The closest vegan recipes to this used chickpeas... and while I love those - I still wanted to make this more realistic, so Gimme lean it was.

I threw that into my mixing bowl and started adding all the rest of the goodies.. the fun part was just about to come up.  I had to get my hands icky.  
Now, if you've ever used 'gimme lean' products, you know how weird of a texture they have.  It's sticky and almost just plain gross. No matter.. it still tastes yummy.
This was super easy.. mix, mold, fwap in my baking dish, cut veggies, pour tomato sauce..

OVEN

I waited.
Put the macaroni on for mac and cheese..
waited.
Mixed in my cheese
waited.
Then it was time to turn the veggies and put my mac in.. 
And I..
well you get the picture.

Finally, I was famished and it was done!
It cut like I imagined a meatloaf would cut, and was easy to remove from my pan.  Nothing fell apart. (Most of these things just crumble in your hands.. not this). 
It was also very 'melt in your mouth'.


I was impressed.
You guys seemed to be impressed with the pics!

Now, this isn't the first thing I'd make again because it's just not something I really ever crave, but if I'm going to a potluck, this seems like it would be a great addition!
SCORE!

So, Meaty May (and the edumacation part) continues on this week..
Our next stop - IKEA... (I need a bookshelf).

Stay tuned!


Music enjoyed while blogging:
Nothing

Current Craving:
Nothing

Curretnt Motivation
Nothing

(I'm really uplifting today, aren't I?)