LAB NOTES: Vegan Bacon, Lettuce, And Tomato Sandwich

Posted On May 15, 2023

Hello, Wayne AKA the Mad Food Scientist here.
This is another slightly different post. It’s not so much an experiment as a telling of a tale.
There were a lot of moving parts. I had decided that I wanted to make pumpkin seed tofu so that I could make vegan bacon. Then I got to thinking,  “What am I going to do with the vegan bacon once I’ve made it. I’d recently made a copycat version of Campbell’s Bean With Bacon soup using tofu ( not quite vegan, but close ) and didn’t want to make it again so soon. Then the answer came to me. What’s more natural to make with bacon than a classic BLT. This is my first vegan BLT. To make it, there were other things that had to be made first. What were those things? Pumpkin seed tofu, aquafaba, vegan mayo. So, I’ll be posting about the components that I’ve not posted about before. Why did I need aquafaba? To make the vegan mayonnaise. As an added bonus, the navy beans that I cooked to create the aquafaba will become meals this week. I’ll use the beans to make vegan “tuna” salad ( A future post )  I did a lot of the prep work yesterday. So that today’s time in the DCL would go smoother.
I made the pumpkin seed tofu. Then after I’d put the pumpkin seed “curds” in the tofu press, I turned the remaining liquid from the tofu making process into Pumpkin seed milk. This morning’s activities in the DCL began with straining the aquafaba from the beans. I do have to say that this is the best batch of aquafaba that I’ve had when using navy beans. The next step was to make the vegan mayonnaise.

Have I said how glad I am that I have an immersion blender? It makes making things like vegan mayonnaise and vegan butter. After that, I put the vegan mayonnaise in the refrigerator and gathered up the ingredients for the marinade that would flavour the pumpkin seed tofu. The marinade was fairly easy to make.

After I made the marinade, I sliced up the pumpkin seed tofu.I placed a layer of the tofu slices in the bottom of the container that I was going to marinate the tofu in, then I grabbed a brush, brushed some marinade over the slices and flipped them. I repeated the marinade brushing. I set the next layer of tofu slices over top of the other ones and brushed marinade on top, then flipped those too. A final brush of marinade and then I set my timer for five minutes. While the tofu was marinating, I set up my skillet and washed up things that I was done using.  While I was washing up, I put the heat on low under the pan. When the timer went off, I turned the heat to medium low and put in the first batch of bacon.
I left it alone for a couple of minutes then I flipped the slices and let them cook on the other side. Once they were done, I let them drain while the pan came back up to heat. I fried off the second batch. After the vegan bacon was done cooking and drained.

 I put some vegan mayonnaise on a couple slices of bread.

I sliced up a tomato and got the lettuce ready. 

Then came assembly. I put the tomato on the bread first.

Next time, I’ll probably put the lettuce down first. Next, I put the lettuce on the bread.

Finally, it was the bacon’s turn.

I closed up the sandwich and cut it in half. By this time I was drooling from the bacon scent in the air. I took the first bite and that first bite made every step to get here so worth it!

There’s more vegan bacon left so I’ll be enjoying more vegan BLT’s. That is, unless I try something else with it.
Thank you for letting me share my culinary adventure with you.
If you have any comments, or suggestions please feel free to use contact and drop me a line.

Keep Safe!