Summer lunch: Vegan BLT and gazpacho

BLT with gazpacho, and scissors...

We went to the farmer's market last weekend hoping for some good tomatoes, but it looks like this weekend or next weekend would be a better week for that--one stall was selling them, however, and we managed to get three good red tomatoes and one yellow, as well as a cucumber and a multigrain bread loaf elsewhere at the market. We then picked up lettuce and LightLife® Smart Bacon from the grocery store. Then we came home and immediately made BLT sandwiches and gazpacho!

The gazpacho was made up of about two and a half tomatoes (yellow and red), one cucumber, some seasoning, a half piece of bread, and onions (which we cooked first, because I don't do well with raw onions/garlic.) The BLT had the Smart Bacon (fried lightly in a pan), those amazing tomato slices, lettuce and veganaise. Together, the soup and sandwich made for one of the best lunches we've had this summer! So, next time you're at a farmer's market, we recommend that you pick up some tomatoes and cucumbers and bread and make this for yourself...

Vegan egg-less salad

I'm the type of vegan who doesn't really miss cheese or milk at all. Even before I was vegan, I would take the cheese off my pizzas and only eat the ice cream toppings, leaving the ice cream to my friends. I'm guilty, however, of having a thing for egg salad sandwiches when I was younger. I'm not sure if Dan feels the same way, or if he ever spent his summer lunchtimes boiling eggs for an egg salad sandwich, but I definitely did. When I moved to London I would buy egg and cress sandwiches daily from the local Pret A Manger. I thought going vegan meant saying goodbye to the precise taste of egg salad, which I admit isn't super appealing, but it was comfort food nonetheless.

I was wrong! I saw a recipe for vegan egg salad with tofu and black salt (kala namak) and it totally tastes like the egg salad I remember.

This tofu is cage-free!

My version is a little less firm than "authentic" egg salad, but that's because I skipped some refrigeration steps out of excitement. I also added about 4 tbs water (recipe calls for 7, but with the potato flakes I used, I actually should have used about 2). Mine has a teaspoon of brown mustard and a few teaspoons of relish as well, which I think made for the perfect final touch. We were out of bread but had some leftover hot dog buns, which is why that's not quite a sandwich in the photo.

If you are like me, and miss eggs and egg salad, you should make this -- the kala namak (black salt) is pretty much necessary for the eggy taste, but if you're turned off by eggs and want to try this anyway, you could do without. I admit that the kala namak smells kind of gross, but the taste is less overpowering than actual eggs, so it works out really nicely. Keep in mind the tips about the amount of water or it'll be really runny, but still good! Here is the recipe--it comes highly recommended!