Bryanna Clark Grogan’s Vegan Feast Kitchen/ 23rd Century Table

                          Homemade Bacon Salt in olive oil

At the Culinary Expo at the IACP Annual Conference in Portland, we tasted a delicious gourmet BBQ "Bacon Salt" (it was vegan).   Now, I know that there is a bacon-mania going on out there (you can even buy bacon chocolate bars at Whole Foods-- yuck!), but, being vegan, I haven't paid too much attention. So, it seems that bacon salt has been around for a while and I just never noticed! All the the bacon salt I have seen on the Internet is vegetarian-- it either just contains the flavorings for bacon (liquid smoke, brown sugar, etc.), or it contains some soy bacon bits, but it may contain milk products.  But, the vegan version is a wee bit expensive and I would have to order it by mail, so I thought I'd have a go at making my own homemade variety.  I knew that it would not be as complex as the expensive variety we tried at the Expo (I didn't have any smoked dried tomatoes, or smoked black pepper on hand!), but I had enough essential ingredients that I was confident I could make something really tasty.  It took a little tasting and re-blending, but it turned out really well!

The amazing thing to me was that I started with 1/3 cup of smoked salt, and ended up with 1 1/2 cups of Bacon Salt!  Consequently, the sodium content of this condiment is much, much lower than table salt-- 1 teaspoon contains 90.2 mg. of sodium; 1 teaspoon of table salt contains 1880 mg of sodium!

(How can this be so low in salt? I used Living Cookbook recipe software to do the nutrient analysis for this and all my other recipes, using FDA nutrition data. Keep in mind that most of the recipe is NOT salt-- only 1/3 cup out of 1 1/2 cups total. If you add up the tablespoons of all of the dry ingredients in the recipe, except for the tomatoes, it comes to 20.5 tablespoons. 6 dried tomatoes pieces (not in oil), ground up, make up the last 3.5 tablespoons, which makes 24, which makes 1 1/2 cups, the recipe yield.

I use Saltworks Salish Alderwood Smoked Salt in this recipe,  the "fine grain", which is actually much larger grained than finely ground table salt, and so has less sodium than table salt. (See photo below.) I used the nutrition facts for kosher salt in the analysis, because is larger-grained than table salt, but not coarse grained.)
Here are some uses for Bacon Salt:
on corn on the cob, popcorn and homemade oven-fries; seitan steaks; in BBQ sauces; in marinades for seitan TVP and tofu; in dips, spreads, and vegan mayonnaise; in baked beans; in salad dressings and on salads; as a seasoning in homemade seitan products; in mashed potatoes; on scrambled tofu; in eggless egg salad (made with tofu); roll tofu pieces in it and pan-fry; mix with olive oil for a French bread dip; on potatoes; in potato salad; on or in veggie burgers; on a grilled (vegan) cheese sandwich; with vegan cream cheese and/or vegan sour cream as a dip or spread; on steamed or grilled or roasted veggies; on pasta with a thin creamy sauce (a sort of vegan carbonara); on grits; in vegan mac'n'cheeze; on many types of sandwiches; in soups (or on them); on homemade potato crisps (chips) or other veggie crisps-- kale chips, maybe?-- I'm sure that's just the beginning!


Printable Recipe

BRYANNA'S HOMEMADE SMOKY VEGAN BACON SALT
Servings: 72 (1 serving= 1 teaspoon)
Yield: 1 1/2 cups

This stuff is addictive and the uses are endless (see above)! It is low in sodium, as well—1 teaspoon contains 90.2 g. of sodium; 1 teaspoon of table salt contains 1880 g of sodium!

NOTE: Good smoked salt is expensive, but you only need 1/3 of a cup for this recipe, and it makes alot!  You can make your own smoked salt if you have a stove-top smoker-- I'm going to try this soon and I'll report on it! I'm also going to try making my own bacon bits, and, if I'm satisfied, I'll post those as well.


Saltworks Salish Alderwood Smoked Salt, "fine grain"

Ingredients:
1/3 cup smoked salt of your choice (I used “fine grain” Saltworks Salish Alderwood Smoked Salt)
(IMPORTANT NOTE: The texture of this salt is a bit like kosher salt—see the photo above; so, if you use a granulated salt, you need to use less, and if you use a coarse crystal salt you need to use more-- see photo below.)

1/4 cup veggie bacon bits of your choice (if homemade, make sure they are very dry!) (Canadian link or try a natural foods store)
6 pieces sundried tomatoes (dry, NOT in oil), chopped (the drier the better) (OR you can use smoked sundried tomatoes)
3 Tbs brown sugar
3 Tbs granulated organic sugar
2 Tbs hot smoked paprika (pimenton)
1 Tbs sweet smoked paprika (pimenton)
1/2 Tbs granulated garlic
1/2 tsp freshly-ground black pepper (OR use smoked black pepper, freshly-ground)
1/2 tsp mustard powder
1/2 tsp onion powder

NOTE: If you want the salt to be a little more coarse, mix all of the ingredients EXCEPT the salt in the blender or VitaMix first. When they are powdery, add the salt and whiz until it's the texture you want.

I just mixed everything in the DRY VitaMix (or use a good blender) and blended on high, stopping now and then to stir everything up (because it tends to clump together), and then blending again. When I couldn't feel any tomato bits anymore, I stopped. I scraped the mixture into a dry bowl and mixed it with a spoon to fluff it up. Then I scooped it into a dry 1-pint canning jar with a tight lid.You can put some in a shaker-jar for table use.

Coarse crystal salt-- in this case Saltworks Salish Alderwood Smoked Salt

Nutrition Facts
Nutrition (per teaspoon): 7.6 calories; 15% calories from fat; 0.1g total fat; 0.0mg cholesterol; 90.2mg sodium; 23.6mg potassium; 1.5g carbohydrates; 0.2g fiber; 1.2g sugar; 1.3g net carbs; 0.2g protein; 0.1 points.

Delicious on popcorn!


And on a baked potato, too:



***********************************************
PART 4 OF MY FOODIE TRIP TO PORTLAND: DINNER AT THE BLOSSOMING LOTUS

Friday night, as I mentioned before, I went to dinner with Kittee and Julie to The Blossoming Lotus, a very popular vegan restaurant in Portland (there was a sister restaurant in Kauai, now closed, unfortunately). It has a lovely, casual atmosphere and the staff was very friendly.





We had a hard time choosing what to order.

Julie and Kittee both had the Crispy Thai BBQ Salad (Romaine, mixed greens, shredded cabbage, carrot, cucumber, raisins, crispy rice sticks, curried cashews and thai spiced barbecue soy curls, topped with creamy ginger dressing, fresh herbs & toasted coconut):





I tasted it and it was delish!

I had the Four Cheese Lasagna, which contains no cheese! They make their own! (Layers of fresh seasonal vegetable marinara, semolina noodles, herbed tofu ricotta, roasted zucchini & almond mozzarella, and sesame-nutritional yeast parmesan, served on a bed of steamed kale, topped with lemon-basil cashew cream)



Here are some close-ups of the interior:





It was very good and very filling-- I couldn't finish it and took the rest home!

We regrettably passed on dessert and retired to a bench on the street to chat, meeting some Portland interesting characters as well, including a lovely little Pomeranian dog!


Kittee and Julie, replete with a yummy dinner, on the bench outside the Blossoming Lotus

Then Julie and I had a hunt on foot for her car (we couldn't remember where we had parked it!), were rescued by Kittee, who drove us around until we found it, and, after that adventure, we headed home to bed!

Tomorrow I'll report on a bread workshop with Peter Reinhart and Nancy Baggett, the Willamette Food Cart Festival, the Farmers' Market, and a visit to Whole foods (Saturday was a busy day!).

Cheers!

                           
(Not familiar with smoked tofu? Check out this post. It includes updated info on available commercial brands.)

Last year, one of my readers very kindly gifted me with a Cameron stovetop smoker:

This handy-dandy Cameron stovetop smoker, which comes in two sizes, is so easy to use! It comes with little wood chips of a few varieties. You sprinkle about 1 1/2 tablespoons in the bottom of the smoker, cover that with the tray, and then add the food rack. You place the food on the rack, slide the cover in place and put it on your stove burner over medium heat. Foods take from 10 to 30 minutes to smoke, depending on how cooked and how smokey you want it. You can smoke eggplant, peppers, potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes, and many other vegetables as well as tofu.


You can download the Cameron smoker instruction manual here. There are no instructions for smoking plant-based foods, but amazon has the book "Smokin' ", which was written for using the Cameron Stovetop Smoker. Despite the emphasis on meats, there are veggie recipes in it. Amazon has many other books on smoking, too. There are some smoked veggie instructions here.)

The Cameron stovetop smoker is available many places online-- just "google" it!   (If you are a really serious smoker, Cameron makes a larger electrically-heated "Smoke'n'Fold" portable smoker.  It's still pretty inexpensive and has 4 racks, but is only 27.5" high, 16" wide and 12.5" deep, all stainless steel. Hmmmm....)

This smoker has been a great boon to me because I LOVE smoked tofu! Soya Nova Tofu has been making great smoked tofu on Salt Spring Island, near us, for years, and it is fabulous, but a little pricey, so I looked into making my own.

I had devised a recipe for tea-smoked tofu, a Chinese invention, for one of my newsletters, and it was tasty, but I've been working on a way to make my homemade smoked tofu taste more like the Soya Nova brand.

This time, I purchased super-firm tofu. I got Sunrise Soyganic Organic Super-Firm Tofu, but a number of brands carry that variety-- Wildwood, Nasoya, Nature's Soy, Pete's Tofu...

I marinated it overnight in a mixture of 2 parts soy sauce (use Kikkoman Lite, which is low-sodium, if you wish), 2 parts dark sesame oil, and 1/2 to 1 part maple syrup (you could use brown sugar mixed with water instead). You have to cover the tofu (I cut the cubes in half) with the marinade, but you can refrigerate leftover marinade in a covered jar and re-use it. It will keep for several weeks.

Then I smoked it with hickory wood chips for about 30 minutes, turning them over half-way through. It is really good! I just eat it plain, or in a sandwich , or on a cracker (chutney's good with it!). Mmm-mmm-mm!



Enjoy!