Finally...

We've been eating a lot of fake meat over the last few months. Fake burgers are a no brainer and they seem to please my meat eating boy, but at five bucks a pop (yeah, prices in Seattle are nuts) they were getting kinda expensive.

But after making the awesome chickpea cutlets from the Veganomicon last week, I've been thinking that there's a better, cheaper option.

I should also mention at this point that I received the awesome gift of a green apple colored KitchenAid mixer for my birthday, complete with several attachments to play with. I've been staring at the grinder attachment (pictured with chunks of raw meat hanging out of the top) trying to think of a use for it that didn't involve weird meat chunks hanging out of it.

So today I made my first attempt of cheapy fake meat. Ground "beef". I made it with wheat gluten (pretty cheap and available in bulk) and a couple of pantry staples, cooked it, ground it and browned it. I ended up making sloppy joes, but I think it would work in tacos or maybe a meat sauce. I'm pretty happy with it.

My next project: burgers.

Ground "Beef"

2/3 cup vital wheat gluten
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon paprika
a shake or two of cayenne pepper (more if you're feeling daring)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon soy sauce (very important for color & umami)
1/2 cup vegetable broth (plus a little more if its looking dry)

Mix together all the dry ingredients. Add the wet all at once. Mix with a spoon until combined and then start kneading together (this stuff feels really cool while you're mixing, kinda rubbery). After it starts sticking together into a rubbery ball thing, start pulling it into a log shape.

At this point, I rolled it in foil that I sprayed with oil and then placed the roll seam side up into a pan with some water at the bottom and baked it at 350 degrees for twenty minutes. I think you could probably bake it without the water or boil it in some water.

Run it through your handy dandy grinder and brown the grounds in some olive oil and use as you would ground beef...or at least the fake kind.