I’m constantly on the lookout for new and interesting ways to challenge my palate, while still eating well. I love Turkish flavors, especially after having had the opportunity to spend about three weeks there a bunch of years ago. So I sort of came up with this. I think it turned out pretty well.
The Beginning of the Sauce
- plenty of olive oil to on hand to saute with
- 2 small onions, chopped
- fresh garlic to taste, chopped
- 1 – 14 oz can petite diced tomatoes
- 1 small can tomato sauce
- 1 Tbsp Aleppo pepper
- 1 Tbsp dried mint
- 1 Tbsp cumin powder
- ¼ cup water
- salt to taste
Filling (for the sauce, but later)
- 1 lb mushrooms, chopped
- 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
- 1/2 cup T.V.P. (soaked, drained according to instructions)
- 1 Tbsp dried parsley
- 1 Tbsp Bragg’s Aminos
Sun choke Cheez Sauce
- 1 lb sun choke
- 2 cups unsweetened, non-dairy milk
- 2 Tbsp nutritional yeast or to taste
- Salt and/or pepper to taste
Noodles
- 2 5″ or so zucchini
- 1 med eggplant
Assembly
- Begin by sauteing your onions and garlic with a bit of oil, until tender, about 5 minutes or so. Add tomatoes, sauce, pepper, mint, cumin and water.
Sauce Stir to incorporate all well. Allow to simmer very low for the flavors to incorporate. This can quietly sit to the side doing its thing. Check it here and there.
- Add a bit more olive oil to another skillet, and once that’s hot, add the chopped mushrooms and chopped walnuts and saute with the aminos to taste until the mushrooms are cooked, 5-10 minutes. Add the T.V.P., stir and cook on low for a bit. Once the T.V.P. has incorporated most of the liquid, turn off the heat and all it to sit aside for a moment.
- For the sun choke puree, peel 1 lb sun chokes and chop them into comparable pieces, dropping them into 1 1/2 cups of the non-dairy milk as they’re peeled and cut.
Filling – a mixture of mushrooms, walnuts and textured vegetable protein Salt/yeast to taste. Allow that to very gently boil until the sun chokes are tender, about 12 minutes or so. Once they’re done, transfer them to a food processor and process until a creamy consistency. If it’s too thick add additional amounts of the remaining, room temperature non-dairy milk.
- Add the filling to the tomato sauce. Stir to incorporate. Check the seasoning. Turn off the heat.
- Using a mandolin set at about 1/8″, slice the vegetables in half long ways to create strips. Set them aside. Oil another skillet with olive oil, and once the pan is piping hot, cook each of the pieces for just about a minute on either side to tenderize a bit. Cool on sheets of paper towels. Salt to taste.
- Grease a 9″ x 13″ baking pan or whatever you have and begin by laying strips of eggplant, and then strips of zucchini to cover the bottom. On top of that, split and evenly layer half of the tomato sauce. On top of that, add 1/3 to less than a half of the sun choke mixture. Repeat, but this time with remaining sun choke mixture, try to cover the top.
- Bake 35-40 minutes at 350°F. Allow to cool before consuming, if you can.