Dinner in a Snap: Mexican “Chicken” Tacos & Organic Bean Sprout Salad

So, Monday night, I had dinner at a friend’s house. This friend is a meat and potatoes kind of guy, a staunch “meatitarian”. I don’t think he’s ever tried vegan in his life, nor thought of it. His idea of our “dinner together” involved two separate menus, one with grilled prawns (for him) and one with something else (for me) that he wasn’t quite able to conceptualize. Ha! I showed him.

We started by doing a quick survey of what his kitchen already had in stock. Not much in the home of this bachelor: taco shells, Aunt Jemima pancake mix, mustard, a whole bunch of meat in the freezer (which he kindly apologized about). That was about the extent of it. I felt that the taco shells were a good start, so we decided to work with that.

We went to the local Caper’s in Kits and picked out our filler for the tacos:
- Yves Ground “Chicken”
- Avocado
- Tofu-rella Jack Cheddar “Cheese”(see NOTE )
- Salsa
- Taco seasoning (we found it in his cupboard and fried it with the “chicken” in olive oil)

Then we proceeded to make:
- Organic Spring Bean Sprouts
- Crumbled Organic Corn Tortilla Chips
- drizzled with Olive Oil and Balsamic

For dessert, we enjoyed:

- Coco Orbs (raw, chocolatey balls of vegan goodness, brought to you by Caper’s) (see PS below)

- Vegan Chocolate Mousse Cake (again, brought to you by Caper’s)

We topped it all off with a glass of Cabernet-Sauvignon.

This kick-ass dinner was quick, healthy, and tasty to boot.

NOTE: I am mad at Tofu-rella cheese and here’s why: the same company has other cheeses called “Vegan-rella” and they are all stacked together in the vegan cheese section of grocers. This blinded me. The following morning, low-and-behold, my clever roommate, who seems to have an unconscious ability to always know everything about what’s going down, alerted me to the fact that Tofu-rella contains “Casein” – a milk protein and one of those evil hidden ingredients that bites us vegans in the bum when we least expect it. At Caper’s I had had my cheese-tinted glasses on, too excited about all the vegan cheese options I saw to realize that the one I chose, nestled amongst them all, was not vegan at all. Boo.

PS: The deli girl at Caper’s was stoked when we asked her what vegan desserts she had. Turns out, she was a vegan too. She was also a fellow ginger (we gingers have a certain unspoken ‘understanding’). She had sampled each and every one of the vegan delights there, and was able to direct us to the yummiest.