Vegan Blue Plate Special

Today's Mofo prompt is to re-create a restaurant meal. I kind of struggled a little bit with this one because I actually don't eat at many restaurants. I also had to replace some food that I lost in the power outage last week, so buying extra food was not an option. I have worked in a million and one restaurants however, and last week I got brave and bought a can of vegan tuna at Target, so I figured why not re-create a tuna melt, but make it kind!

Sold at Target!

The brand is Caroline's and it was at Target right above the regular tuna. It's made from textured soy flour, and as soon as I opened the can it had a strong TVP type of smell. It kind of looked like cat food and to be honest, I was more than a little frightened. I was ready to heat a frozen veggie burger, and call it a restaurant meal from any chain restaurant ever. But, I decided to go ahead with my plan of a classic tuna melt. I made a "tuna" salad using Just Mayo, lots of Dijon mustard, celery, red onion, and a little sweet relish. And salt and pepper, of course.

I went heavy on the red onion and Dijon to really make sure it was safe.

I decided to use tomato cayenne Chao for my melt, because every restaurant I've worked at uses cheddar on the tuna melts.

I assembled my sandwich, and spread some Earth Balance on both slices of bread, and cooked it until the Chao was melted, and the bread was toasted/grilled. I served my sandwich blue plate style with some thick oven fries, and a side salad. It was a nice, comforting meal. The vegetarian "tuna" was good enough when mixed with all of the salad ingredients, and the Chao and bread. I would not eat it on it's own ever, and to be honest I will never buy this again. I will make another no-tuna melt in the future with my favorite chickpea no-tuna salad. I kind of think companies need to give up on the vegan canned tuna thing. I feel like it's okay, we don't need substitutions for every meaty thing out there. The tuna thing seems to be pretty difficult. It should also be noted that all of my felines gave me the peppermint face when I let them smell this product.
Speaking of cats here is a bonus picture of this new habit of drinking out of the bathroom sink. It's like a new obsession. They haul ass into the bathroom if they think I'm headed that way. Sometimes I have to evict them from the sink when I have to use it for human purposes. When I go in and close the door, they wait outside of the door so expectantly.

Total Dorks.

It has become close to impossible to keep my bathroom sink paw print free.
I picked up a yellow watermelon from Trader Joe's last week, and I finally opened it now as I'm blogging.

It is a watermelon.

It's okay. I googled these puppies, and according to Albert's Organics they are supposed to be sweeter than red watermelons. I don't know if I got a dud, but this one tastes less sweet, like the flavor is in the red or something. Still tasty, and a nice treat for the end of summer, but I'll probably stick to the traditional from now on.
I can't wait to see some of the beautiful restaurant meals re-created today. Mofo has been a lot of fun so far, and I'm having fun and getting inspired by all of the posts!