Daily Nourishment- Two for One

Dinner post number one here we go! Tonight's dinner was Pulled Jackfruit Sandwiches.....wait.... what?? Yes, jackfruit. I the lover of all faux meats was even a little scared by this. The idea of using a fruit to replace meat in this case pork didn't seem like it was a good idea. But putting my trust in the vegan geniuses that make up the vegan community I ventured out to one of my favorite grocery stores Uwajimaya, an amazing Asian store not too far from my home in search of jackfruit. I have never tasted or even seen jackfruit in person, however they did use it in an episode of Chopped (a favorite show, which I always DVR). In the episode jackfruit did not fair well, and no one was pleased to work with it. In saying that none of the featured chefs were vegan, this just goes to show how inventive gurus in the vegan community are. Who would of ever thought to use the fruit in this way? I am always in awe of their ingenuity. I’ll be the first to tell you I can cook up some amazing vegan goodness, yet I do not have the skill of seeing an ingredient for more then it is.

For those not familiar with jackfruit you can find it in all Asian markets, for this purpose I needed young green jackfruit in brine. The young green fruit is firmer and has not developed all its sugars yet. It looks like this in the can;




This what you get out of the can. Yeah I know it doesn’t look too enticing.




But here shredded it looks pretty similar to pork or chicken. This is where I was feeling less regretful for not having something else planned for a back up dinner. This is also the point I was ready to taste it, which was very mild.




The meal was easy to throw together. I put the pulled jackfruit in a crock pot, put a onion and green pepper I sautéed on top of that and then covered it all in barbeque sauce and hot sauce and let in simmer for several hours. At that point it looked like this;




I put it together like a classic pulled pork sandwich. Toasted bun, I used a whole wheat one, dill pickle slices on the bottom, then pulled jackfruit and topped with homemade vegan coleslaw. It was delicious. The omnivore boyfriend even had a second one.






On a side note tonight I am feeling so appreciative to have a meat-loving boyfriend who loves my vegan cooking.


Half way done, thank you if you are still reading!


I actually forgot I was going to post this dinner. I just uploaded photos from my camera and came across them. This was a nice dinner that was easy to prepare and the quinoa salad was very light. It would be a good one to bring to a pot luck, its simple enough to go with a spread of things yet still has enough going on to make to delicious on its own. The recipe is from a blog I read called 101 Cookbooks, you can find the recipe here.

I was wanting something heavy and sort of indulgent feeling to go with it, cornbread was the answer. I added broccoli since I had some that needed to be put to use and also thought it would bump up the healthiness of the bread. I love me some cornbread, and I think I may love it even more with broccoli. The funny thing is going into it I wasn’t so sure the addition would be one I would welcome again. To not drag out this post any longer you can see the photos below.