Vegan Italian Sausage and Tempeh Bacon!

As a vegetarian convert, I can confess that I used to love bacon and sausage. I am happy to have given them up and don't miss them, but am always on the lookout for new delicious things to incorporate into my veggie lexicon. In a desire to work more with a new food and in an effort to re-create my delicious BLT from last week, I've been trying to approximate tempeh bacon. Zips recently gave me Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Vegan Brunch, and there are so many yummy things to try, including Tempeh Bacon! Unfortunately, though, after two approaches (one involved steaming the tempeh strips, then marinating, then frying; the other just marinate, then fry) I've decided to press on with my quest for a satisfactory recipe. There's nothing wrong with the flavor here, it's just that the texture wasn't crispy, just a little dry and crumbly.

But as I said, the flavor was just fine, very near to what D'Lish served. If you wanna give it a whack, I only modified Vegan Brunch's in a couple ways:

Marinade:

3 Tb soy sauce
2 Tb maple syrup (VB calls for 1)
1 Tb liquid smoke
1 Tb apple cider vinegar
1 Tb olive oil
1 Tb tomato paste (I didn't have any, so used *gasp* ketchup. I think it worked totally fine, though. Really.)
Whisk them all together (I omitted VB's 3/4 c. vegetable broth and 2 garlic cloves)

I used an 8 oz. package of tempeh, cut into about 16 thin slices. I laid them in a baking dish and marinated for about two hours. Then fried in a small amount of veg. oil.

I liked it, but didn't love it. The search continues. I hear light life has a nice "smoky tempeh strips" product, but can't find it 'round here. I'll have to use the rest of my tempeh for some other test kitchen adventure.

The BIG TRIUMPH of the day, though, was a happy coincidence of a recipe for Italian Sausages directly across the page from the bacon recipe. It looked weird (navy beans?!), but turned out amazingly! I can't wait to eat them the next time we make spaghetti!

Here's her recipe:

Before mixing everything up, get a steamer basket going over a pot of boiling water. I used a metal colander and lid over a kettle.

Also, get out four pieces of foil. These will be for shaping and cooking the sausage.

1/2 c. cooked navy beans, rinsed and drained (I used a can of Bush's)
1 c. vegetable broth
1 Tb. olive oil
2 Tb. soy sauce
1 garlic clove (or 2 if you like garlic) finely minced with a microplane grater
1 1/4 c. vital wheat gluten
1/4 c. nutritional yeast (I utterly forgot this, and will have to include it next time!)
2 tsp. fennel seeds, crushed (I couldn't find mine, but would have included it!)
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 tsp. sweet paprika
1 tsp. dried oregano
Several dashes fresh black pepper

Mash the beans in a large mixing bowl until every bean is completely obliterated. Add the broth, oil, soy sauce, garlic, and all the spices. (Here's where I depart from VB. She has you add the ingredients in the order listed, but once I added the vital wheat gluten, it was difficult to incorporate the spices into the dense dough that had formed.)

Pull dough into four equal portions, put them on the foil, and roll into 5" logs. Wrap in the foil (I used it to shape the dough more evenly) and twist the ends shut. Don't worry about how it looks, as she says, it will snap into shape while it steams, thanks to the magical vital wheat gluten. Place wrapped sausages into your steamer and steam for 40 minutes. You can use them immediately or saute in olive oil.

I was thriled with the results-- the texture, the spices, everything. I may even use the remaining 3/4 of the can of beans to make more on backup!

VB also has a recipe for chorizo, so maybe I'll try that too (once I have some pinto beans and some proper tomato paste!)