Week 2: What to do when you have a vegetarian MIL?

Aug. 21, 2010 10:32 pm
You do Portobello Mushrooms!!!

Have you ever eaten at "Islands"? They have a veggie Hawaiian Burger that is to die for! Tonight I attempted to create my own - It worked out well - photos of it are forthcoming!....

First off, I don't usually cook vegetarian, I made 1 mistake, my aioli sauce had eggs in it... DOH!!!! Fortunately for me, my MIL will eat eggs, I got lucky!!!

The problem you'll find with me and my recipes, I don't measure anything, usually....

Back an hour or so, I soaked the shrooms in a Teriyaki/Pineapple sauce , these things need to take on a flavor regardless of who you are serving them to, 1 hr + will yield the results you seek....

Meanwhile deep fry some yams/sweet potatoes - cut them to fry size and drop them in - they take a Looooooooong while to cook, I was surprised, be patient.... use some salt and the Aioli sauce you created to make a dipping sensation - while I prefer a whole wheat bun, w/ provolone some tomato and a slice of romaine, lets get get creative, you have time - the fries take about 15-20 min per batch... Once you have a batch of fries and a shroom per person, you are ready to go....

I need to make these again to detail the recipe as I did indulge in a few libations before, during and after and my notes were about as clear as mud, however here is the gist for 1 serving and some extra sauce:

The Burger:
Whole Wheat bun
1 Burger sized portobello mushroom cap
1 deli slice of provolone cheese
1 hot house tomato slice
1 slice pineapple
1 leaf romaine lettuce

The Fries:
1 julienned Yam ( McD's Fry size, you can do steak fry size but I imagine those will take forever!)

The Sauce - This is the one I need to re-make but the components are:
Make a mayo/aioli or just use mayo from the store
mix in some teriyaki, some pineapple juice, some garlic powder (i did fresh finely minced garlic, but powder would work too) - my teriyaki wasn't too salty and the sauce was too sweet so I added some Lawry’s seasoning to bring it back down a bit, just keep tasting it every 10-15 min to let the flavors meld and go to your taste - mine got a bit runny but since it was cold I used some corn starch to thicken it up, it was used on both the burgers as a dressing and as a dip for the fries...

Both my MIL and myself tried the burger w/ the wasabi honey sauce (from week 1) on the extra one and that was awesome too!!!

Happy Vegetarian cooking!!! I actually liked it!

~Jeff