#RiseUp Vegan Style

As you all know, last weekend was the Super Bowl where the Atlanta Falcons played the New England Patriots. Although my team didn’t win – and what a devastating loss it was – it was very exciting to see the Falcons play in the big game. And, let’s face it, isn’t watching the Super Bowl mainly about eating all day? Well, it definitely is in my household! With it being just me and my husband, we didn’t even make a dent in the dishes I write about in this post, but they made for great leftovers for the next several days.

“Pigs” in a blanket

During the day, way before kickoff even entered our minds, we noshed on some “pigs” in a blanket. I shared this recipe in this blog post a few years ago.

Then, as we were watching the pregame show, we moved to snacking on some layered bean dip. I learned how to make this dip from my mom and have veganized it in recent years. This is a favorite among my friends and is so easy to make. You can even put it together the night before and stick it in the fridge until you’re ready to pop it in the oven. I’ve included this recipe at the bottom of this post.

As the grand finale, we made jackfruit sliders and cauliflower wings. The cauliflower wings were a new recipe for me, which I found on Gimme Delicious’s website. I thought they were really tasty, especially dipped in Daiya blue cheese and ranch – which were both excitingly good finds at our local grocer over the weekend.

I love this recipe especially knowing that no animals were harmed in the making. This harrowing stat posted on Instagram made me pause and remember why I have remained vegetarian/vegan:

View this post on Instagram

Should we call it the superbowl of death? Or how about the superbowel? For every four wings eaten, a life was taken. That simple connection would have caused me to stop eating chicken wings years ago if I had realized that. For any human who eats meat to say they are selfless is beyond a fallacy. Why is it that virtues should only be extended to other humans? We all know better, yet most don't choose to do better. They think about how fucked up the animal industrial complex is for a couple minutes and then go right back on their merry way, eating these sentient beings. You know that factory farming is even a eufemism now? The real term for these hell holes as stated by the EPA is now Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO). Why would anyone want to participate in this? #superbowl #superbowel #superbowlofdeath #falcons #patriots #vegansofig #govegan #vegancommunity #animalrescue

A post shared by Meat Free Mafia 🌱 (@meatfreemafia) on Feb 5, 2017 at 4:54pm PST

Also, if you haven’t already seen it, Granny PottyMouth returned from her Thanksgiving video to share this special message about the Super Bowl:

OK, back to the insane amount of food I made last Sunday…

The jackfruit sliders were a big hit when we made them for one of the vegan potlucks we attended in Colorado, and man, were they even better than I remembered! I’ll be making these again soon, for sure. Jackfruit has the texture of pulled pork and works as a great vegan substitute on a variety of dishes. The Jackfruit Company makes many different flavors, and I was thinking of trying their tex-mex jackfruit in tacos.

To make the sliders, all I did was put a couple of spoonfuls of the jackfruit on the bottom slider bun, top the “meat” with a sliced pickle round, smear some Vegenaise mayo on the top of the bun, and pop those bad boys in the oven to warm them up. And, voila, you have your jackfruit sliders! Easy peasy, and so very good.

So, whether you’re planning to bring a dish to an event with a lot of people or you’re sitting at home with one other person and want to gorge yourselves, try one of these recipes and drop me a note to let me know what you (and your guests) think.

Layered Dip Recipe

Ingredients

1 (8 oz.) container of Tofutti cream cheese
1 (15 oz.) can of vegetarian refried beans
2 ripe avocados
Dried spices: garlic power, onion powder, cumin, chili powder, oregano – all to taste
1/4 tsp. dried cilantro (optional)
dash of paprika
chunky salsa (about 1/2 cup – 1 cup, enough to make a thin layer in the dip. I like to use FrogRanch salsa.)
1 bag of Daiya shredded cheddar or pepper jack cheese

Steps

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Slice the avocados in half, remove the pits, and scoop out avocado “meat” into a small bowl. Mash the avocados until smooth. Add the spices to the avocados; mix well. Add more spice if you want to kick the flavor up a notch. If you’d rather skip this step entirely, then you can buy pre-made guacamole at the store and use it instead.
In an 8 x 8″ square Pyrex dish, spread the cream cheese onto the bottom of the pan so it’s evenly distributed and covering the entire bottom of the pan.
Then, evenly layer the can of refried beans on top of the cream cheese.
Scoop out guacamole from the bowl and evenly layer on top of the beans.
Add the salsa on top of the guacamole and then layer with the shredded cheese.
Put the dish in the oven uncovered and bake for about 10-15 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the dish is heated through.
Serve warm with tortilla chips.