Meatless Monday "Crabby" Cakes

This is really more of a summery dish because it's on the light side, but I had a bunch of zucchini a friend gave me, and I could use something light after the gluttony of the holiday season.  The cakes have an oceany flavor from seaweed snacks-you can get them at Trader Joe's, or Wegmans.  If you're not familiar with them, they're just flat little sheets of seaweed.  I'm not a big fan-they're very fishy, but they come in handy when you're trying to give something a seafood taste.  I have a side of smashed carrots.  A little baked potato would be nice too, but I'm trying to keep the calories under control.

"Crabby" Cakes 

makes about 7 cakes

2 1/2 pounds zucchini (I had 8 smallish ones)

Kosher salt

1/2 box silken tofu

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1 sheet seaweed snack

1/2 small onion, minced

1 teaspoon (vegan) Worcestershire sauce 

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1 Tablespoon parsley (optional)

1 teaspoonful Old Bay seasoning, plus more for coating

1/2 cup bread crumbs, plus more for coating (check labels, many breadcrumbs are not vegan)

Kelp powder (optional, more for "fishy" flavor)

Grate the zucchini, place in a colander in the sink or over a bowl, sprinkle with some salt and allow to drain for at least 1/2 hour.

Meanwhile, make a binder for the mixture with the tofu.  Blend the tofu, lemon juice and seaweed snack sheet until smooth-about the consistency of mayo.  This is what the snax look like-I don't have the package anymore.  Honestly, you could leave it out if you don't like fishy tasting stuff (or you can't find them).  

  

Squeeze as much water as you can out of the zucchini and place in a mixing bowl.  Preheat your oven to 375 degrees (disclaimer-my oven has a really stupid temp control on it, I don't really know if I had it set at 375 or 400, to be honest.  There are more little setting marks than there are temps.  I mean really, this is dumb, amirite?)

It says 400, yes, but if you count the little lines, it would be 375, probably.  I should get an oven thermometer.

Anywhoo, oil a baking sheet.

Mix all the remaining ingredients (except the extra breadcrumbs and optional kelp powder) well.  Mix some more bread crumbs, a sprinkling of Old Bay and kelp powder and put into a shallow pan to bread your cakes.  Use an ice cream scoop to scoop out the cakes.  Make them into patties, coat with bread crumb mixture and place them on the baking sheet.

Bake at 375-ish for 15 minutes, give them a flip and bake for another 15 minutes, until the crumbs are starting to get browned.  Alternately, you could pan fry these in some oil, which I'm sure would be scrumptious, but seeing as how my jeans are already too tight, I baked mine.  Serve with lemon and enjoy!  

"Thanks for not eatin' me friends!!"

Happy Meatless Monday!!!-w

  

Why Vegan? Gingersnap sammiches, that's why.

So, welcome to my blog, thanks for coming.  I've been kicking around the idea of starting a blog for almost a year now, but I'm a bit of procrastinator.  But here it finally is.  I'll be sharing recipes to hopefully encourage people thinking about going vegan, or at least considering limiting their consumption of animal products and living a more compassionate life.  It took me a long time to finally get here, and I thought I'd share a bit of my story on my first post, but before that, gingersnaps.  The snaps above are from Vegan With A Vengeance, with a lemon filling (just store-bought vegan icing-shhhh!) that I made to take over to friend's house.  My friend's mom is decidedly NOT vegan, but she adored these cookies-so much so that she gave me $20 for bringing them!  Unsolicited, so I donated the money to a dog rescue.  It cracked me up-I love showing people that being a vegan is not all about eating sticks and twigs.

So anyway, why am I a vegan?  I was a vegetarian for a long time, but I was in that same type of "vegans are weirdos" mindset.  I didn't like tofu, and I thought buying "cage-free" eggs and other "happy" animal products was ok, plus how could I live without ice cream, seriously?  Well, that changed in September of 2011.  Long story short, there was a flood in the town I was living in then.  In that town was a small "zoo".  In the zoo lived two bison.  Their enclosure flooded, and they drowned (one of them was "euthanized"-shot-before it could drown).  Many people in the area were outraged...including a lot of people who ate meat.  I was really very sad about it, but it struck me as really hypocritical for anybody who ate animals to be upset about this, and I was all full of indignation and ready to post a rant on Facebook when I realized that I was no better than anybody else, when I ate and used products that I knew also led to animal suffering and death.  So instead I went vegan.  I don't get all uppity with people about it-I ate meat for nearly half my life, so I don't think I have a whole lot of space to criticize other people's food choices, but I do take any chance I get to show them that there are so many delicious plant based foods available today that eating meat really isn't necessary.  I know having the choice of what I'll eat is a huge luxury that I don't take for granted.

I'm planning on posting some easy Meatless Monday recipes to try and goad omnis into giving this a try every once in a while, and I'll also be posting some more adventurous fare for current vegans, too.  I hope you enjoy it, please let me know what you think!