Sometimes I surprise myself and tossing crap together turns out freaking incredikittens! David and I are Old Mother Hubbarding it at the moment; our cupboards are quite bare. At the moment the only thing in my freezer is some vegan, gluten free meat substitute crumbles from Beyond Meat, a half eaten pint of D’s black cherry ice cream from Oikos and two gluten free hamburger buns that need to stay frozen until used. Our dry goods pantry is no better; it has a box of sugar cereal of D’s, a bunch of baking goods, tea, tamari packets, vinegars, soy sauce, diced tomatoes, vegetable broth and refried beans. We will die of starvation in a natural disaster or zombie apocalypse. As of this morning we ran out of cat food, we make our own and I’m actually more worried about them than us.
We do have a bunch of fresh vegetables in the fridge though. So fear not, we have a lot of perishables on hand. I’m praying that no power outages occur or we will be effed in the A.
Under advisement of my psychologist I live a rather structured life. I’m bipolar with a freaking extreme social anxiety and to keep me balanced I keep to a schedule that makes me rise every day between 5-6 am and do constructive, productive things from 7am – 3pm and then relax before going to bed about 8-9pm. Yesterday, my cat and business partner convinced me to take a mental health day so I cooked lunch. It was more or less “potluck”, meaning I tossed things willy-nilly in a pot and hoped for the best fortune. As our freezer, pantries and cupboards are sporting the random of goodies it was sort a “some of these things are like the other” deal.
Ingredients:
olive oil
1 package Beyond Meat Beefy Crumbles
1 14.5 oz low salt diced tomatoes
1/2 16 oz. jar banana peppers strained
1 small yellow onion
Destructions:
Douse your saute pan with olive oil, I tend to be liberal with mine, olive oil is good for you so I do it up. I heat my pan to medium or medium-low. I like my onions cut chunky in rings, you can cut them to your liking; cook them until they are transparent and then add the frozen crumbles and the banana peppers. Cover and let the crumbles thaw before you mix all that together and add the tomatoes. Then let all those goodies cook together for about 15 minutes.
While they are cooking you can decide if you want to add any extras to your chili nachos I heated refried beans and added them and then spinach. Once the “meat” was ready I layered that over the top of the refried beans and spinach and added olives, because, as I already stated–this was really me combing my fridge and cabinets for something to eat and it sounded like it might work. It did.
If there was one thing that I wish I could have added to this, I wish I had some avocado or guacamole. It would have been really great. I also think that some mexican corn would have been super yummy! But, this was a pantser meal so there was no planning here and it turned out really good!
About Beyond Meat:
I found Beyond Meat a few weeks ago and was in love after my first bite! Since becoming gluten free, getting my test result and finding that I do have celiac disease, I have consigned myself to not having real bread but I’m heartbroken about not having my normal meat substitutes. I’ve been vegetarian for almost 25 years, again for health reasons, and I love my meatless meats, but most use gluten as a binder. When my husband brought Beyond Meat Beefy and Feisty Crumbles home I was a little worried they would be “weird”. I tried the feisty with some tostadas and fell in lurve. These are better than Morningstar Crumbles which is what I’d used before I had changed my diet in both taste and texture. I really have enjoyed cooking with this product.
As far as their other products go, I will say that their Beyond Chicken products are a strange texture but I still liked the dish I made with it. I like that they have a three different flavors: South-western Style, Grilled Strips, and Lightly Seasoned. At the end of the day however there fact remains that they are the most tasty gluten free, vegan meat substitute I’ve found.
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