Maggie's Vegan Korean Beef/Rice Bowls

Hi friends. It's been a while. A looooooong while. The longest while between posts on my blog since I started it. So, here's the LesVegan scoop. 

1. Late last spring, our dean announced she was leaving. She and the president worked on figuring out who could take on parts of the dean role, as it would have been impossible to find a permanent person to start by July first. Two colleagues and I were asked (and agreed) to split the role. That's taken a lot of time and has been a steep learning curve. 
2. I've been, like most folks, bogged down by the emotional weight associated with swirling currents of a global pandemic, political uncertainty, and civil unrest (for good reason, when we look at continued pressure for racial justice in the US). 
3. Shana and I separated and are finalizing a divorce. The separation was sudden and the number of adjustments one makes after being with the same person for 16.5 years leads to a lot of mental and emotional work. I'm thankful to have supportive friends and family and that I'd already had a well-established relationship with a therapist. I'm well-loved and thriving. 

All of those things, plus more, led to shifts in my cooking and not enough time or energy to keep posting recipes. BUT, I think I'm back (at least sporadically), even though all of the things above are still happening. 

Thus, here's a new recipe that's easy and speedy and delicious: vegan Korean beef & rice bowls. I was inspired trying to use up food I had in my house, which included a weirdly large number of bags of Gardein Beefless Ground. I didn't want tacos or sloppy joes or chili, so I turned to the internet, found some ideas, and a delicious dinner was the happy result. I hope it's a great weeknight meal for you!

Maggie's Vegan Korean Beef & Rice Bowls

Ingredients

1/4 c. brown sugar, gently packed

1/2 c. soy sauce (or Tamari, see Helpful Hints)

2 tsp. sesame oil

1/4 tsp. black pepper

1 tsp. sriracha sauce

1/2 tsp. ginger

1 small zucchini, diced

1 small bell pepper, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed

1 bag Gardein Beefless Ground

rice for serving

Directions

1. Sauté the veggies in a bit of oil in a large skillet. Meanwhile, combine the ingredients for the sauce - brown sugar through ginger - in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. 

2. When veggies are getting soft, add frozen crumbles to the skillet and cook until heated through. 

3. Add the sauce (and microwave the rice, see Helpful Hints), stirring and cooking for a couple of minutes to let the flavors combine. 

4. Serve over rice and garnish with toasted sesame seeds.

Helpful Hints

• The beefless ground I use in the recipe is gluten-free. If you use tamari in place of soy sauce, this is a gluten-free dinner. 
• You can certainly dial up or down the heat to make it work for your tastes. 
• Most grocery stores have frozen bags of brown rice that you can just throw in the microwave. This is such a help to make dinner speedy, but you can make this speedy by freezing (and then remembering to thaw) your own rice, too. 

The post "Maggie's Vegan Korean Beef/Rice Bowls" first appeared on Maggie's LesVegan Kitchen.