Recipe #14: "Sausage," Peppers & Onion

I went to Whole Foods after work today. I'd never been. The aisles were very small, and I didn't know where anything was. I found it extremely overwhelming. A panicked voice inside my head kept saying, "What is all this stuff for? Are you supposed to be eating it? Are you missing vital nutrients? What do these people know that you don't?" A very nice woman in the bakery asked if I needed help and took me across the store to the nutritional yeast flakes. She was extremely kind, and I had a strong desire to attach myself to her arm, hand her my list*, and just follow. She struck me as the kind of person who would have taken such behavior in stride, but I didn't push it that far. I just thanked her for the help and let her get back to her job.


I didn't find everything I wanted--I was looking for some weird spices--but I found most of it. I bought the fake sausages that Kelly mentioned on her blog along with tempeh (try, try again), the nutritional yeast, and curry. I plan to try a recipe based on her fake chicken salad and possibly a casserole from Susan at Fat Free Vegan. (I realize I end up using recipes from the internet more than I do recipes from my fancy cookbooks, but that makes sense for someone who sits in front of a computer for most of the day.)


Anyhoo, I arrived home hungry and cranky. I resisted the urge to pull another frozen meal out and instead boiled fresh peas from the bin and cooked an onion, a red bell pepper, and the fake sausage in a skillet with some garlic. We ate the sausage, peppers, and onions on our normal nutty oat bread, and it was pretty fabulous.

However, Andrew and I both thought there should be some sort of sauce. We carefully thought back to the cheesesteaks we had enjoyed in Philadelphia--yes, the protein was different, but something else was missing. What was it?

Not pretty, but tasty all the same

Cheese Whiz.

Cheesesteaks in Philadelphia often come covered in Cheese Whiz. That was the creamy sauce we were missing.


Ah, well. Cheese Whiz is not a viable option--I find it very helpful to visualize a jar of Cheese Whiz literally stuck to my ass as this is what would basically happen to it if I ate it--, so I'll just get used to this dish as is or find another way to jazz it up.

Andrew and I both enjoyed the sandwich, which was a pleasant surprise. Being an omnivore, Andrew much prefers the pig kind of sausage, but this fake version has a nice texture and taste. I'm excited to have another food option for the grill, and I would definitely eat this sandwich again.


Even if it isn't covered in Cheese Whiz.

*When I proofread that paragraph, I found I had typed "life" instead of "list." That, also, is true, but a bit too much of a Freudian slip.