There should be a story behind this “meatball” recipe; I should tell you that it was my great-grandmother’s veggie meatball recipe, or that it was invented in a fit of brilliance when I had meat-eating friends coming to dinner and wanted to trick them.

The truth is less grand, even a little sad.  I lost this recipe.  I made it up 3 years ago, and I don’t remember why.  I was probably frustrated with the selection of vegetarian meatballs in the freezer section (which usually look and taste like mush), so I set out to make better ones.  I made these, or something very like them, was extremely pleased with myself, and then forgot all about it.  I even forgot how I made them.  So I felt foolish over the past several months as I kept wanting meatballs, but avoided making them because I wasn’t sure how.

Eventually I just buckled down and took my best guess, and they came out just great.  Lesson: make that food you’ve been avoiding, because you’ll almost always be glad you did.

This is also one reason I’m glad I have this blog; when I make something that comes out well, I can record it, publicly, and never forget it again.

These tofu meatballs don’t actually taste that different than regular meatballs, at least in my mind.  Tofu itself has little flavor, the nuts and mushrooms give it a meaty taste, and the seasoning does the rest.  Ground beef honestly doesn’t have that much flavor on its own – a few spices like fennel and oregano, which are often found with meatballs, are enough to trick the palate.  Crumbled tofu even has the same texture as ground beef.  They don’t behave that differently than meatballs, either, though mine crumbled more than I wanted them to.  They held together great when I baked and froze them, but when I added them to pasta sauce, they started falling apart.  I used egg as a binder, though, and I’m 99% sure that adding a second egg would solve the problem. (I know they didn’t fall apart last time I made them… Do real meatballs fall apart, too?)

On the other hand, you could eliminate the egg altogether, mix this up with tomato sauce, and have a great “meat” sauce.  Not a bad alternative.

The biggest variable in this recipe is the tofu.  Not all tofu are alike – mine was very firm and unusually dry.  If your tofu works out differently, post a comment and let me know what happens!

Vegetarian Meatballs

• 1 lb very firm tofu
• 1/2 cup walnuts, finely ground
• 1/3 cup breadcrumbs
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup vegetables, very finely chopped (I used mushrooms)
• 1-2 cloves garlic, very finely minced
• Seasonings – I used:
  • 1 tsp oregano
  • 1 tsp fennel seed
  • 1/2 tsp basil
  • 1/2 tsp salt, to taste
  • pepper, to taste
• 1-2 eggs

Crumble the tofu into small crumbs (I found that a pastry cutter made this easy).  The finer all the ingredients are, the finer the texture of the meatballs will be – see the picture below.

Stir in the nuts, breadcrumbs, garlic, and your choice of vegetables.  Any vegetables will work as long as they’re very small.  Mushrooms, carrots, and spinach should work well.  Add the seasonings, mix well, then taste and adjust the flavors until you’re happy with it.

Once the taste is right, beat the egg and add it, stirring to spread it evenly through the tofu mixture.

At this point, the mixture should be just slightly wet and sticky, so it’ll hold into a ball if you squeeze a handful. If it’s too dry, try adding some stock or even another egg.  If it’s too wet, add more breadcrumbs to absorb the moisture.

Heat the oven to 350, and lightly oil a baking sheet.  Form the meatballs by gathering a small handful of the tofu mixture and squeezing it into a roughly round shape.  Don’t try to roll it to perfect the shape, or it will crumble.  Place the balls on the baking sheet, close together but not touching.

Bake for about 10 minutes.  The outsides will be firm and lightly browned.

Serve immediately with pasta and sauce, or freeze them to save for later.  To reheat, just cook them in a pan with a little oil until they’re nicely browned.

Then, a few weeks ago, I had an idea, and this week the weather was so nice that I felt like burgers, even if I had no grill.

The idea was gluten: if you’ve ever made seitan from scratch, you know how gluten flour sticks to itself and stretches when you mix it with water.  It’s hard to shape into burgers, and wouldn’t make a very satisfying one on its own, but I thought it could be just the binder that I was looking for in my black bean quinoa burgers.

And it worked, sort of; I followed the method from the originals, and at the end, slowly worked in gluten flour until the batter got a little solidity to it.  It held together on a frying pan (the grill would be the next test), got a nice charred coating on the outside, and tasted good.  But, it was still mushy.  The next attempt might need a lot more gluten, using it as a major ingredient rather than just a binder.  But these burgers, according to Nathan, “push the little button in my head that says burger.”

And they were great with blue cheese.

So this isn’t yet the ultimate veggie burger – but I think it’s the next incarnation beyond my previous attempts.

(Apologies for the lack of pictures – I actually took some, but my camera cable got packed away somewhere, so they are stuck in my camera.  I will share next time!)

But the turkey is problematic.  It’s the centerpiece at most Thanksgiving dinners, it’s what everyone oohs and aahs over, and it’s the focus of the meal.  If you’re vegetarian, you’re left out.  It can be sad not to eat turkey, especially if you substitute something mediocre in its place.  I’ve tried Quorn roast, and it was unsatisfying.  I’m not excited by Tofurkey, either.  These are kind of pale substitutes that don’t really taste like the real thing.  They don’t fool you.

So the trick for a vegetarian Thanksgiving (as with so many vegetarian adaptations) is to prepare something so great in its own right that you don’t miss the turkey.  Don’t fake it; just choose something that fills the same role: hearty, moist, delicious, pretty.  In a perfect world, for someone who likes to cook, the veggie alternative should be a complex preparation, something mirroring the effort that goes into roasting a turkey.  It’s not always possible, though – this year, we’re traveling to visit Nathan’s family for Thanksgiving, and with the number of people and kitchen constraints, we can’t do much more than heat up our vegetarian dish when we get there.

That’s not a problem, though.  There are many good veggie options that can be prepared ahead of time without too much effort, and reheated after the turkey comes out of the oven.  I’ve assembled this list in my own search for this year’s turkey alternative.  Hopefully it’ll help you if you’re in a similar situation.  (Warning: some of these may be so good, you’ll have to fend off meat-eaters to get your fair share!  Also, these are just ideas – I haven’t personally vetted these recipes unless otherwise indicated.)

• Stuffed squash, filled with well-seasoned rice and veggies, is both filling and seasonal.  You could bake the squash half-way and prepare the stuffing at home, then assemble and finish baking just before dinner.
• Spanikopita is rich and festive, and complicated enough to feel special.
• Lasagna is a classic vegetarian entree, with lots of room for variation.  I like these suggestions for something more interesting than your standard tomato-ricotta-mozzarella lasagna.  (Mushroom goat cheese lasagna?  Yum!)  This is also easy to prepare ahead and bake at the last minute.
• This sweet potato gratin sounds delicious and healthy to boot.  It’s also appropriately seasonal.
• If you do go for a simple tofu or seitan main dish, serve it with a good gravy.  I made this mushroom gravy a couple years ago and loved it.  I substituted veggie stock for the water, and added a few tablespoons of cooking wine.
• Baked “veggie loaf” is an easy and semi-traditional option, though your mileage may vary depending on your recipe.  I’ve done this on past Thanksgivings with mediocre results.  Then again, I may just not be a “loaf” person.  I never liked meatloaf very much, so the veggie equivalent isn’t stirring any nostalgia for me.
• This article on Chow has ten tasty-sounding suggestions, complete with make-ahead tips.  (Apparently this concern is not unique to us!)
• You don’t have to go traditional or seasonal, either.  I know one vegetarian who likes Indian cuisine a lot, so her Thanksgiving dinners have a lot of curry and rice.  Try something a little different – you could start a new tradition!

One year, I hope to host my own all-vegetarian Thanksgiving, with no turkey in sight.  On that day, I’ll prepare something exciting and involved, like Hezbollah Tofu’s Roulade of Wild Seitan.  (Doesn’t it look gorgeous?)  It would be great fun, I think, to plan a less traditional Thanksgiving dinner with a full spread of festive vegetarian/vegan dishes.  But for now, I feel good that there will be something delicious to eat this year, and good company to share it with.

Are your Thanksgivings vegetarian?  What do you eat in place of turkey?

Results: not promising.

My method was to crumble the tofu very small, and mix with veggies, herbs, and some flax to hold it together.  The trick with the flax is to simmer it in a little water until it turns sticky; it makes a good egg substitute in baking, but apparently less so with tofu patties.  The patties just didn’t hold together.  I think the only way to make them stick would have been to add lots of rice or some other grain, and use a softer tofu.  Using eggs instead of flax might have worked as well – I suspect the flax works better with grains.  Though the “burgers” I made were too crumbly, I think that making them softer and wetter would make them more inclined to fall apart on a grill, though it might help in a frying pan, which is what I used.  Most of all, they were lacking the heft and substance that I look for in a cow-free burger.  I don’t think tofu is the main ingredient that I’m looking for.

Anyhow, we had tofu scramble on hamburger buns, and some braised beets that convinced me once and for all that I just don’t like beets.  I was pleased with how they came out – braised in a mixture of stock, balsalmic vinegar, and white wine, with rosemary, they were some of the tastiest I’ve had.  And I still didn’t like them – the beet undertones in the flavor just didn’t sit right with me.  I’ve been trying to work myself up to liking them, recently, with no great results.  So, I’m going to take a vacation from beets, and just settle for the fact that they’re not for me.

Next steps in the veggie burger challenge: I’m going to go back to the legumes-and-quinoa theme that I tried at first, and see where that takes me.  I have some ideas for improving on my last attempt.  I will report back with my findings.

His burger concept is based in ground seitan, with a myriad of ingredients to give flavor and texture, some of which I wouldn’t have thought of (raisins? peanut butter? surprising, but they work).  He also used egg as a binder this time, but we’re both hoping to arrive at something vegan in the end.  His burgers were very tasty, even meaty, yet still a little too moist and crumbly.  Definitely looking in the right direction.  I’m looking forward to the next iteration.

Moistness continues to be an issue for both of us.  We discussed a few possibilities for sucking out extra moisture (but not too much!), such as adding mushrooms or other absorbent foods.  I think this idea has some promise.  I’ve also half-decided that our big old grill (one of the boxy kind you usually find at campsites) has bars that are too big and too widely spaced.  I’m thinking of getting something with finer spaces to set on top, so the burgers stick less.  The moistness might be less of an issue if they don’t stick as they cook.

It’s not surprising to find that others have tried this challenge before me: the folks at Chow say they’ve made the Ultimate Veggie Burger.  Their recipe looks tasty (I haven’t tried it yet), but isn’t quite what I want.  For one thing, they use egg, which I’d like to avoid.  It is also a very complex recipe: it has half again as many ingredients as my first attempt, and takes over an hour to make, assuming you have cooked lentils and rice on hand.  Many of the ingredients, such as beets and fresh parsley, require planning to buy ahead of time, since they aren’t usually kitchen staples.  I’m also not excited about their use of zucchini, but that’s just because I don’t like them.  Most of all, I’d like something that can be thrown together in half an hour with ingredients on hand; we’ll see if it can happen!

I do like how they started with a desired ingredients list, and refined from there.  So, here’s my list of ingredients that might find their way into a good burger (but not all in the same burger):

• Tofu or black beans as a base
• mushrooms (fresh and/or dried)
• quinoa
• greens (probably spinach, finely chopped or pureed)
• banana?  (this is a theory only, but I’m curious)
• walnuts
• garlic
• onion
• herbs: basil, oregano, thyme, marjoram, tarragon, cilantro
• salt and pepper
• maple syrup
• flax seeds (in place of egg)

I’ll be trying another round this week, based on this list; stay tuned!

Last but not least, here’s my spur-of-the-moment potato salad recipe from last night.  Note that I cooked the potatoes ahead of time, in the slow cooker, one night when it was very hot out, and then kept them in the fridge until I was ready to use them.  This plan worked well; cooking time is usually a limiting factor in using potatoes.

Potato Salad

• Boil potatoes until tender, then chill.  Chop into bite-sized pieces.  Stir in some chopped onion.
• Combine equal parts sour cream and mayonaise, about half a cup of each.  (I used creme fraiche, because I had it, and vegan mayo)
• Add a good spoonful of crushed garlic (the more, the better), a little salt, lots of dried dill, some good mustard, and fresh chives.  Adjust seasonings to taste.
• Pour dressing over potatoes and stir well.

Thus, I propose the Great Veggie Burger Challenge.  Every week (or so), I’ll make veggie burgers from scratch, seeking the Perfect Veggie Burger.  I’ll try different ingredients, different flavors, and different methods in the search, looking for that just-right combination.  Feel free to share your own recipes, too, or comment with your ideas; I suspect there are many satisfying variations.

A good veggie burger need not taste like a hamburger.  In fact, it’s better if it doesn’t — I was never crazy about hamburgers.  But it needs to be burger-like in the important ways.  To my mind, the criteria for a great burger are that it should be:

• substantial: hefty enough to make a good meal
• solid; holding together on its own
• moist; not dry or tough inside (but well-done on the outside)
• flavorful; we’ll be missing the meat juices, so give our taste buds something to be excited about!
• healthy (at least, relatively so); this has always been one advantage of veggie burgers over the originals
• easy; obviously making veggie burgers will take more work than shaping ground beef into patties, but it should still be simple enough for a casual meal

Bonus points if the burger is vegan.  This is an extra credit category just because eggs are so often used as binders in these sorts of things.

These burgers were a satisfying first attempt, but they need some work.  The flavor was very good: full of garlic and onion and herbs, and the quinoa gave it a hearty taste.  And they were healthy, full of protein and vegetables.  They took a little longer to prepare than I would like, but the big problem was the texture.  They were wet and doughy, and our little grill didn’t get hot enough to cook them properly.  They kept sticking to the grill, and never really turned into burgers, just patties of mush.  The mush looked weird enough that I’m not posting photos this time.  (I will in the future, I promise.)  But, it was tasty!

The problem, I think, was using flour as a binder.  The combination of flour and quinoa made them more like sticky biscuits than burgers.  Next time, I think I’ll investigate eggs (despite my fear that the result will be too wet) or flax.  I might also try using more beans compared to the quinoa, so the quinoa is more of a binder than the substance of the thing.

• First, I combined some dry quinoa, a can of black beans, vegetable stock, and salt/pepper in a pot and cooked until both the beans and the quinoa were slightly over-done.  My theory was that this sticky, starchy product would hold together better than other bean burgers I’ve had.  I was sort of right, and sort of wrong.  They held together, but stayed mushy.
• While the quinoa cooked, I sauted some very finely-chopped vidalia onion and a few cloves of garlic in olive oil.  When they were nice and soft, I added some finely-chopped mushroom, frozen spinach and dried oregano.  I continued to saute until everything was soft; my goal was to have the ingredients meld together, rather than have the separate components stand out.
• I combined the quinoa-mixture with the veggies, adjusted the seasoning, and added some maple syrup.  This sounds weird, but just a little sweetness was absolutely key to the flavor.
• Finally, I added flour until the big, wet, sticky mess was thick enough to hold together on a grill.  The consistency was close to biscuit dough.  And they did hold together, and didn’t fall through the grate, but they were soft enough that they were hard to work with.
• Served them on kaiser buns with cheddar cheese.  Ate them at a picnic table outside my apartment and watched the fireflies come out.  Yes, summer is here!

Taste buds: Mmmm, meat.
Brain: Meat?!?
Taste buds: Tastes like meat… but, oh no! Not supposed to eat meat!  What have we done?
Brain: It’s ok, they people in the store said it isn’t really meat.
Taste buds: Ok, then. It sure is tasty.  Mmm, meat. Are you sure they didn’t lie?

And so forth.

Vegetarian food is its own unique style of cooking, and one that I happen to like.  I don’t think a meal is necessarily missing anything if it lacks a central course of animal flesh (I know some people feel differently, and that’s part of why I’m vegetarian and they aren’t).  At this point in my life, after almost three years as a strict vegetarian and two more as a mostly-vegetarian, I rarely have meat cravings like I used to.  It also helps to be aware that I’d probably be physically ill if I ate a real ham sandwich, since it’s been so long since my body has digested animal protein.

(A side note: let me be clear that I have no problem with other people eating meat around me.  I have great respect for anyone who educates themselves about the social and environmental consequences of meat-eating, and thinks about how much meat to include in their diet.  And I’m understanding of those who don’t care to know where their food comes from.  I’ll respect your dietary choices if you respect mine.)

Why mock meat?  Why eat stuff that my hero Michael Pollan would lump with McDonald’s Hamburgers and Twinkies under the “not food” category?  Because, like many vegetarians, I know that meat tastes good.  I was an omnivore for 21 years — I haven’t forgotten what it tastes like!  Because sometimes, even when I’m satisfied with veggie fare, I miss the flavor of ham or chicken.  And most of all, because it makes me feel normal.  At a barbecue, I can eat a soy dog just like other people are eating hot dogs — it’s not “that vegetarian food,” but something that looks and feels like what everyone else has.  At a normal restaurant, there are often only one or two vegetarian options, a half dozen at most (caprese, anyone?); imagine going to Java Green and choosing from a whole menu of sandwiches that anyone can eat!  It’s immensely satisfying.

So, no, I wouldn’t make a habit of mock meat, but when I’m in the mood, I’ll eat my veggie ham sandwich with great pleasure.