Veggie BBQ Ribs with Grilled Brussel Sprouts

These recipes are from fat-free vegan kitchen and Alton Brown.  The sauce was Guy Fieri's bourbon brown sugar BBQ sauce.

Vegan BBQ? Guy Fieri is rolling in his grave.

Allie: Whoa, this recipe was great!  I can't believe it's not ribs!  Ever since we got a container of Spanish smoked paprika from Penzey's spices, I've been looking for recipes that use this delicious product and these ones didn't disappoint.  The seitan ribs were extremely meaty, with a very convincing carmelized BBQ sauce crust on the outside.  The sauce was sweet and delicious, even though Guy Fieri is a ridiculous person and the packaging made me nauseous (Is "sticky" ever an appetizing adjective if it's not associated with Cinnabon?).  The brussel sprout recipe has been a go-to grill staple for us, we even made them on Thanksgiving with great results.  They got super crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.  The secret is microwaving the sprouts for a few minutes before trying to skewer and cook them.  If you don't microwave them, they will be rock hard and you will end up with skewered hands and that's not vegan.  Also they won't cook through.  We didn't want anything complicated, and this was very simple and quick.  I rate this meal 5 out of 5 slices, and I'd definitely make this at any barbecue.


Brian: The thing I miss the most about not eating meat (besides fish) has always been barbecue. Despite various products claims to be convincing vegetarian BBQ equivalents, I have always been unsatisfied (and I like riblets as much as the next guy, if that guy likes vegetarian BBQ equivalents.) This recipe, however, not only met my expectations, but greatly exceeded them. So delicious! When we first started making seitan we would always boil it, which would lead to a soggy product (duh) but at some point we discovered that baking seitan led to a much meatier texture. Baking this seitan and then grilling gave it a very genuine BBQ meat texture. While one would expect a Guy Fieri sauce to fall somewhere between mediocre and crushingly disappointing, it was actually deliciously sweet and spicy and worked perfectly on the ribs. Grilled brussel sprouts are fast becoming my favorite vegetable to do on the grill, second only to asparagus. As Allie said, you need to soften them up in the microwave first, but done properly they are crispy on the outside and tender in the middle (and tasty all the way through.) I have no qualms about giving this meal a solid  5 out of 5.