Veggie Update

Well, I'm almost two weeks into my vegetarian-for-a-month experiment and all is well. I have intaken no meat. It's not really as hard as I thought. All I do is take what I ate before and add a protein substitute. This means I eat more eggs and tofu. It's good.

One aspect of vegetarian eating deserves special mention at this point: boca products. These are faux meat products made of vegetable pieces and parts. They taste, oh, how shall I say, like a cardboard steak rolled in dog crap. They are amalgams of fiber and proteins so lifeless and devoid of flavor Amnesty International considers their forced consumption state-sponsored torture. But like any other food not worth the calories expended eating it (celery anyone?), boca products can be made edible by adding other stuff. In the case of boca chicken patties, I suggest the following:

Ingredients

1 boca chicken patty

1 bun

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 onion sliced
1/4 anaheim chile sliced
1/8 fennel bulb sliced
4 slices tomato

1 tablespoon mayonnaise
horseradish (to taste)
2 squirts worcestershire sauce
salt (to taste)
pepper (to taste)

Directions

Place mayonnaise horseradish, worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper into small bowl and combine. Let stand while you prepare everything else.

Place olive oil in sautee pan over medium high heat. Add onion, anaheim chile, and fennel and sautee for 5-7 minutes.

In another small sautee pan, place boca chicken patty over medium high heat. Turn ever two minutes until cooked through and there is some browning on the oustide. The patty should finish approximately the same time the vegetables finish.

Slather mayonnaise mixutre onto both sides of bun, and assemble in the following ingredients on the bun from bottom to topy in this order: (1) two tomato slices, (2) the boca chicken patty, (3) vegetables, (4) last two tomato slices.

The result is actually pretty good. It would be tastier with a real deep fried paillard of veal or chicken, but we'll leave that for next month ;)