Vegan Football Sunday: Potato Skins, "Wings," and Guacamole

The Eagles were televised yet again, so I thought it would be fun to have a few friends over to watch the game.  I decided to do a number of vegan friendly and football friendly finger foods for the occasion: "wings," loaded potato skins and guacamole.

The wing recipe is from the October 2011 Vegetarian Times.   I used Upton's Naturals original seitan, Cholula hot sauce, Whole Foods maple syrup, Original Vegenaise and the smoked paprika we had handy in the spice cabinet.  The wings needed to marinate for two hours before being breaded and cooked, so I did that step first and then popped them in the fridge.

Next, I started the prep for the potato skins.  My husband had picked up a five pound bag of medium potatoes for me earlier in the week, so I baked those in the oven for 45 minutes at 425, and sent them on a wire rack to cool.

While the potatoes were cooking, I made tempeh bacon crumbles.  The October 2012 Vegetarian Times had a recipe for Warm German Potato Salad that included directions for the "bacon" crumbles, so I decided to try those for my skins.  The recipe's not online yet, but it includes tempeh, low-sodium soy sauce (I used Bragg's Liquid Aminos), blackstrap molasses, ketchup or tomato paste, and liquid smoke.  I ended up using both ketchup and tomato paste to get the crumbles to a more "bacony" color, and also cooked them in the pan a bit longer than the recipe called for to get them to crisp up more.  There is a TON of "bacon" left over, so I'll likely sneak it into recipes throughout the week.

To finish the potato skins, I used this CHOW recipe as a guideline, but veganized the ingredients. Instead of butter, I used Earth Balance, and I stuffed the potatoes with the vegan bacon crumbles and daiya cheddar cheese, then topped them with freshly chopped chives.  The potato skins were definitely the hit of the party - my non-vegan friends couldn't believe they were vegan, and especially that I didn't use real cheese.  When I explained what daiya was, my friend Greg joked that I have "gone to the dark side."

To make the guac, I used four ripe avocados,three roma tomatoes (diced), two serrano peppers (seeds removed, minced), half a red onion (minced), four cloves of garlic (minced), the juice from one fresh lime, fresh cilantro (chopped), sea salt and freshly ground black pepper,  I set out the guac with some Garden of Eatin' Multigrain Blue Corn Chips for my friends to eat while I finished the skins and wings.  I also had a tray with carrots, celery and hummus.

After the potato skins were out, I finished up the wings, using whole wheat panko for the breading.  The breading really didn't stick as well as I would have liked, but they had a nice golden exterior.

 

For dessert, thanks to my friend Carol, we had Football Shaped Oreos.  Did you know Oreos are vegan?  (My friend Valerie describes them as "accidentally vegan.")  That's yet another example of an everyday food that non-vegans eat that's vegan friendly.  I'd put them in the same category of pasta with marinara sauce, PB & J, rice and beans and the guac I made today.

Are you a vegan football fan?  How do you veganize your favorite football snacks?