Using my knife tonight!

I love using knives. I do. Knives, forks, spoons. It's the cutlery set I grew up with. Remembering that the sharp side of the knife should face the plate was a badge of honor in my table setting skills. Anyone remember the superstition that if you drop a knife, it meant a man was coming to visit? (A dropped fork meant a woman, by the way. I don't remember what a spoon foretold.)

Even though I don't use them to cut steak anymore, sometimes, I need to pick up a knife-originally-meant-for-steak, and cut into something with a little chutzpah. Tonight, I said, "Urge to use a knife? Meet Chickpea Cutlets!". To make dinner even more comforting, I added Sage Gravy (fat free, bonus!), sauteed mushrooms, garlic, and onions, and steamed green beans.

Easy stuff out of the way first - Green beans. Cut the ends off. Steam 'em. Mushroom, garlic, and onions? Cut any bits off that you don't want to eat, like stems and ends. Saute in whatever oil you like. I'm lucky to have a well-seasoned cast iron pan, so a smidge of oil goes a long way.

The cutlets. The main event. The reason I needed a knife. I used the recipe from Veganomicon, but doubled it. The recipe makes four. Four is ok. Eight is better. I made these cutlets once before and they were good, but I flattened them out too much. This time, I left them a little plumper. Me, I want to be not so plump. My cutlets? Plump is good!

I added a few different spices to some to see how it tasted. A couple have fresh cilantro and red pepper, a couple have dried oregano and red pepper. I also used a bit less oil than the recipe calls for and everything was fine. Here are the balls of "dough" first:

Flattened them out, like I said, not too much:

Then I baked them for 20 minutes on one side, and about 15 minutes on the other, at 375 degrees. Here are the finished cutlets:

Gravy, baby! I followed the recipe straight from the Happy Herbivore. Here's a link!

Put it all together, and could barely keep my mitts off it! BUT, I needed a decent pic or two, and I really didn't want to bother figuring out how to hide the fact that I bit off a chunk-a chunka vegan love before I took a picture!

I'm seeing green! Not with envy though, with "Hello, Mother Nature!" goodness!

Ooooo... one more pic!