Gooeyness, Creamyness, Deliciousness, and a Rant

A vegan equivalent to eggs benedict isn't just a fantasy. It's real, and it's delicious.

I made another quiche this morning. This time I didn't have any artichoke hearts and not a whole lot of spinach, so I was forced to branch out. Besides the small amount of spinach I did have, I ended up adding some well-chopped broccoli, cauliflower, yellow carrot, and a few heaping tablespoons of fake parmesan. Now, when the quiche first comes out of the oven, it's super creamy and thick, and reminds me of a hollandaise sauce. That's where the benedict inspiration strikes. Hungry for lunch, and unwilling to wait the time it can take for the quiche to completely cool and set, I ran with it.

I had some apple-smoked fake sausage in the fridge that I cut into slices lengthwise and laid across half a piece of naan. I broiled this until it was warm and crispy, then smeared some fresh-from-the-oven still-gooey quiche over the top of it and broiled for a few more minutes.

It didn't taste a whole lot like traditional eggs benedict, but the mouthfeel was creamy and the flavor was savory and salty in the most perfect way. Mm.

I would also like to share my recent pinto bean revelation. I like to make them from dried when I can, but wondered why my beans never came out as nice as canned. The texture was never quite creamy, they would go from hard, to soft and a little grainy, to mushy. I had a different experience altogether the last time I made them, though, and let me tell you what I did. I soaked the dried beans overnight in cold, salted water. I did not boil the water, and I did not rinse the beans after soaking. I cooked them the next day until they were soft. They came out perfectly cooked, with the skins nicely intact, and the loveliest creamy texture, even nicer than canned.

Now please allow me a moment of complaint. Yesterday, I shared my dinner plans with a neighbor and he got super rude. It went like this:

Me: We're grilling hot dogs tonight! I've got an urge for a chili-cheese dog and we got all the ingredients vegan! I'm excited!

Him: Oh. (face-making)

Me: It'll be good!

Him: That's an oxymoron.

Me: What is?

Him: "Good" and "vegan". Those don't go together in a sentence.

Me: Aw, don't be closed-minded! That's sad!

I was trying to stay jovial about it, but it still devolved into him calling vegans rude and angry, and me saying I've met way more rude meat-eaters than vegans (CASE IN POINT), to which he replied that he was happy for me??? Which I guess is sarcastic, but I'm too old to give a fuck frankly, so I gave up and let the other meat-eaters nearby (who had heard this bizarre exchange) school him for me. And later that evening, one of them tried a vegan chili-cheese dog and proclaimed it delicious! SO I WIN! :D

I'm proud of my mostly vegan diet; I don't hide my preference for avoiding animal products, and I can get excited when I tell someone about some tasty dish I made entirely from plants that I perhaps could not have even conceived of in my pre-vegan days. It's a thing that makes me happier. Now, I don't shame others for consuming animal products (I'm only mostly-vegan myself, anyway) or intrusively inform people about my morals regarding their diet, but it sometimes seems like an impossible request to ask some meat-eaters to give me the same respect. I got comments as a vegetarian, but now that I am rejecting the cheese and ice cream, it is really being taken personally.

Happily, there are so many more people who don't make weird comments, who don't make fun of me, who ask perfectly polite questions or who simply ignore our dietary differences, because it's no one's business but our own what we eat, amirite? Those people are delightful, and if you are one of those people, we should be friends.