Vegan day 156: Quinoa mushroom meatballs

This was much more intense than I thought it would be. 
I’m not sure if it’s because of the fine chopping, the trial and error vegan binding substitutes or the fact that I was simultaneously making sour dough bread. 
I will tell you this though- I have a new found respect and love for the baker! If I ran into one right now, I might just get on my knees and bow. I just don’t know how they do it and sell their bread for a dollar. Ok maybe bread it is 2.. 3.. 4 dollars. I don’t know because most of my life I just ate junk. When I ate bread it was probably Wonder. When I ate fresh bakery bread it was most likely in a restaurant. I’m exhausted right now- I made a complete mess of my kitchen and ruined one of my rugs lol. Don’t ask! Maybe I’ll tell.. but hopefully I don’t or people will really think I went off the deep end.. or perhaps I just need a bigger kitchen. 


It begins with a friend asking me for a quinoa meatball recipe. I do love quinoa and I am forever trying to re-create the meatball lol- but I didn’t have one ready so of course.. but of course.. I had to look for one! Not only did I find a few recipes but I set out to make it tonight thinking it wouldn’t take long! Wrong!
Meatballs are a project I think- no matter what they consist of. When I used to eat meat, I made excellent meatballs but they were time consuming for sure! 

Today I picked the ingredients that I wanted to use based on a bunch of online recipes. 
I used quinoa and mushrooms as my base.


First things first, I had to make the perfect quinoa. I have blogged several times about quinoa, the last blog being about the “how to” for perfect quinoa. I researched it because I had still not gotten it right. I either make it too mushy or I straight up burn it! lol Hey.. I was multi-tasking! Today is the very first day that I nailed it- hardcore! I made the perfect quinoa. 


The tricks were just as stated in that previous quinoa blog I just mentioned. I used the ratio 1: 1 1/2 quinoa to water- that was important. Then I covered it with a lid and set it on low heat once it had come to a boil. Ok so.. it was simple lol! I love quinoa! It was fluffy, light and tasted great without any seasoning at all. 

Next it was chop city! It’s a good thing I pay attention now when I take classes. I haven’t learned professionally yet how to use a knife. There are courses alone involving knife skills! I did however watch my teacher and class mates as they chopped away last week in school. I watched how they positioned the knife and worked with skill and precision in an almost meditative way. Just for the record, I never chopped like this until today. I was more of a hacker! 


Today I chopped slowly and finely. I have to say that the food tastes better when chopped finely. The flavors really pop out and blend. I know this sounds silly and impossible but it’s true! My sautés never tasted as good as today. The only difference was the chopping! Ok- I chopped up the mushrooms (white), bell peppers, carrots, onions, garlic and basil. I threw them in a pan with just enough olive oil to coat the bottom. I didn’t want excess liquids because I knew these meatless balls had to stick – AND WITHOUT EGGS I might add. This is where it gets interesting… I don’t know why this is not covered in elementary science. I feel like this was just that… a science experiment. So I have perfect quinoa and a mix of mushrooms, vegetables and spices. Now I need it to stick .. but how? I few things crossed my mind so I tried them: flax, baking powder, walnuts and breadcrumbs. Mind you, it tasted incredible before I started adding these things. The first was flax- one tablespoon of the ground flax. That seemed to work nicely and didn’t change the flavor much. The baking powder was next. Honestly… what the heck is in that stuff and why do we consume it? It was very weird. There was a creamy and steamy bubbling effect as I was like WHAT DID I JUST DO? How could this possibly taste good now- it just didn’t look right. I don’t think I will be adding that again any time soon! The flavor had changed but luckily… only slightly. It still needed more firming. I grounded up some walnuts and then added breadcrumbs. I had a dilemma at the health food store earlier today. They didn’t have any whole wheat breadcrumbs which is what I had wanted. They had organic ones made with white flour and then gluten free made with corn- GMO corn. hmmm… white flour or GMO corn… which one would I choose? I was in an anti-white flour mood so I went for the corn. In retrospect, I’ll take the white organic flour next time! I was lured in with the term gluten-free! I love marketing!

In the end, it worked. I packed the meatballs and set them up in a big frying pan. I said I wouldn’t fry them this time but the oven was already occupied with the bread. I actually squeezed a tiny dish with a few quinoa balls to see the difference between the fried and baked. 


My timing was perfect. The quinoa balls finished first and then the bread. I was able to eat a mini quinoa ball sandwich on sourdough bread with a dash of tamari. I was full from tasting things earlier but it was a double score.

Ok.. I’m going to take the odds that not many people read far enough to hear my embarrassing story. I burnt my rug making bread! My rug! Who does that? Who even has a rug in their kitchen? Who uses the floor as a countertop anyway? Me… guilty as charged. 


All I can say …  is that the dutch oven which I just bought.. and for $79 at that.. is the most amazing piece of cookware. It’s my hero lol! I thought I broke it.. or ruined it for sure once I realized it was sticking to my rug because it was hotter than a freshly paved blacktop street directly under the equator at high noon. The oven was on 470 degrees. I had to preheat the dutch oven, pull it out and insert the dough. I was making meatballs so all the counter space was a mess. I figured since it was insanely hot and heavy- I would use the floor. Until I tried to pick it up and it was stuck! 


Well, this dutch oven is amazing because with a drop of patience and some cleaning skills, I was able to remove the marks on it so I didn’t start a chemical fire in the oven! Long story short- my bread that took 24 hours to prep and ferment and cook… came out perfect again! It was a miracle! 


Follow the long instructions if you want- 
here are the ingredients again:
quinoa
mushrooms
onions
garlic
red bell peppers
orange bell peppers
carrots
cilantro
basil
flax seed
walnuts
whole wheat bread crumbs


* My “sourdough bread” blog