Wheatball Mania

Plate of wheatballs

A new job has been keeping me busy and away from posting about my VegCookbook Club cooking experiences. However I did find time to tackle one "Basics" recipe from Robin Robertson's Vegan on the Cheap, the May cookbook. Introducing...The Wheatballs.

This quick recipe requires a food processor and a skillet. You make the balls from chickpeas, mushrooms, bread crumbs, and vital wheat gluten, adding various Italian spices. (Also soy sauce, which I was out of, so I subbed lemon juice.) After two minutes of kneading the dough mixture, you pan-fry the balls. The finished wheatballs are light and airy, not dense and "meaty."    

Minestrone with wheatballs

The wheatball is a "component" recipe that works with other recipes in the book. So I tried using it two additional ways. First, I used it in minestrone (above). This is a freestyle minestrone, but Robin Robertson does provide her own recipe in the book. She suggests adding small wheatballs to the bowl. I had made regular size wheatballs, so I just halved them. I liked this addition to the soup and never would have thought of it on my own.

Next I made a wheatball sandwich (below) because how could I not? I began by whisking up the fast, tasty, and healthy Cheezee Sauce. It is an oozy nutritional yeast-based sauce that thickens with cornstarch. Then I warmed up the wheatballs in jarred marinara sauce--a suggested convenience "splurge." 

Assembling the sandwich on a roll was easy. Eating it was not. What a mess! (I think this was because the balls became even softer in the tomato sauce. Or maybe the bread was too crusty?) It was the kind of sandwich that just went "splurt!" all over the plate. I recommend serving it with a fork and knife. 

Wheatball sandwich with Cheezee Sauce