Vegetarian Taco "Meat" Alternative

 I recently saw a recipe for a vegan filling for tacos. I wish I had saved the site and I would share it here, but I didn't. It was a couple of weeks ago and I am sorry but I am just not willing to look through that much computer history to find it. I had remembered the main ingredients and how things were processed, but not the actual measurements or what the "real" ingredient list was, so this is my attempt to recreate what I remembered. To be honest with you, except for the nutritional yeast, this is what I use to season ground beef for tacos. The amounts are all estimates because I do not really measure seasonings, but I am pretty decent when it comes to eyeballing ingredient measurements.

1/2 head cauliflower, separated into small pieces 

1 cup raw walnuts 

2 teaspoons chili powder

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1/2 teaspoon powdered coriander

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1 tablespoon nutritional yeast

lime juice (about 1/2 lime)

couple of dashes of hot sauce

Put the cauliflower pieces a food processor and grind until you have a fine (almost powdered) raw cauliflower mixture. Add the nuts, stopping to scrape the side of the container and keep processing until the mixture feels pasty.  Add all of the seasonings and blend through. 

Now this is where it gets a little sketchy. I set the oven to 350 because I use it a my default temp for almost everything. I should have set it  to 325. 

Cover the bottom of a jelly roll pan with parchment. Put the mixture in the center of the pan, cover with another sheet of parchment and press or roll it to cover the pan.  Cook it about 15 -20 minutes then turn it over. I should've had another pan ready with parchment and transferred it to a separate pan because the parchment in the bottom of the pan I was using was damp and I think a dry sheet would have helped. Don't worry about breakage since the entire mixture is going to be broken apart anyway. Cook it another 15 or so minutes until it is nicely browned and somewhat dry. Crumble into pieces. Turn off the oven and out the pan back in for a few minutes to dry it out a little more. You want it to be approximately the consistency of cooked beef.

Now construct your taco salad however you want or put it in taco shells or tortillas. I did mine as a salad with green onions, tomatoes, avocado slices, cheese and sour cream. (I did not have dairy free alternatives on hand and was not buying them for this ) But you do you.

For me this was an experiment, and one I will most likely not do again, only because I am not a vegetarian .The flavor profile was very similar to traditional taco meat, but I found the mouth feel different. There are some really good meat alternatives out now that mimic the "feel" of beef very well, but they are very pricey. If you wanted something on the cheaper side, this works fairly well. That being said, I had about 3 pounds of walnut pieces hanging out in the freezer. If you had to buy the nuts just to make this the price might be close to the same as purchasing a meat alternative. 

Dunno! The jury is still out with this one!