So I was celebrating a Birthday. Nothing screams out birthday food to me more
than a bacon cheeseburger. Kind of hard
to do that for your vegetarian friend’s birthday though. This proved to be not as big of a challenge
that I originally thought as I found pretty good alternatives to the real
deal. For the burger I went with Gardien's Beefless Burger patty. As far as veggie burger patties go, I pass on
Morningstar use Monsanto products.
There is probably no corporation on 
earth I hate more than Monsanto but I digress. This Gardien burger isn’t my favorite veggie burger though, that title would have to go to Light Life’s burger, but vegans should steer clear of that one.
For the bacon I’m a big fan of Tepeh bacon. I actually think that tempeh bacon rivals the
taste of regular bacon. OK I take it
back, it doesn’t rival, but offers a satisfying alternative to regular bacon
that seems to be the more justifiable choice to eat when you consider the
calorie savings. This time I wanted to
try out Light
Life's Smart Bacon. The method is so
simple I’m going to abandon that typical format of ingredients and such and
just go straight to the burger making.
One of the guy’s at work is growing way too much zucchini in
his garden to eat. They made the perfect
compliment for this burger. For it I cut
the massively overlarge zucchini into large round, that ended up being as big
as my burger patty. I brushed them with
a mushroom sage infused olive oil and seasoned each side with kosher salt and
fresh ground black pepper. I’m lucky to have a specialty olive oil shop
that is not too far from me. Twisted Olive carries tons of
good ones, and this one went well for the burger. Then I just threw everything on the
grill. Yeah I know it is summer so I
should be grilling outside… but the city of Romeoville has this stupid rule
that says you can only have a gas grill in an apartment. Some genius thinks that coals are much more
dangerous than propane tanks. Anyhow my
grill of choice is Cuisinart GR-4N 5-in-1 Griddler. Vegan cheese is hard to melt, so I make a
little dome using a metal bowl and some hot water, to let the steam melt the cheese.
In about ten minutes I was taking everything off of the
grill and brushing my freshly toasted buns with a little bit of vegan
mayo. While we’re on the subject of
mayo, I just want to throw this out there.
Fresh made mayo > Vegan Mayo > Store bought Mayo > Miracle
Whip. Yeah, personal opinion but vegan
store bought mayo tastes much better to me than store bought brands made with
real eggs.
For the ice cream I decided to get a little creative. I had been wanting to try this for a
while. A long time ago, I had some
Haagen Dazs Coconut Sesame Brittle Ice Cream which is now discontinued
sadly. I wanted to do an ice cream that
lived up to that. I made a pretty good
vegan version that used coconut milk, and had the spice of candied ginger
throughout.
Ingredients:
- ½ Gallon Unsweetened Coconut Milk
- ½ Cup Candied Ginger
- 1 Teaspoon freshly grated ginger
- ¼ Cup Coconut Oil
- 2 Tablespoons Sesame Oil
- ½ Cup Brown sugar (As a warning though, I’m not a huge sweets fan so this ice cream is just barely sweet, if you like sweet desserts, you should go for a whole cup)
- 3 Tablespoons Arrowroot Powder.
- Combine all the ingredients in a stock pot reserving 1 cup of the Coconut milk, the arrowroot powder and the candied ginger. Simmer over medium heat for 20 minutes
- Whisk together the arrowroot powder with the reserved coconut milk.
- Stir the two mixtures together and let thicken.
- Strain and chill the ice cream base until fully chilled in the refrigerator.
- Throw it in your ice cream maker using manufacturer’s instructions, adding the candied ginger halfway through. My ice cream maker is Cuisinart ICE-30BC Pure Indulgence 2-Quart Ice Cream Maker.
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