Vegan chorizo and potato tacos

SO GOOD!

With homemade vegan chorizo, and perfect fried potatoes (parcooked with vinegar) -- all from Serious Eats.

Jackfruit carnitas

Courtesy of the new Hot Knives book, jackfruit carnitas:

I dehydrated the jackfruit (in my new dehydrator!) for about 2 hours, then smoked it (in the stovetop smoker) for about 25 minutes. (The recipe actually called for a long, slow smoke on an outdoor grill, but I don't have one.) Then it went into an ancho and chipotle chile sauce inspired by the Hot Knives recipe. This is definitely the way to go with jackfruit: the dehydration step gives it a great texture, and readies it for soaking up the sauce.

Here's the dehydrated and smoked, and then torn-up, jackfruit before it went into the sauce:

Carrot sofrito tacos

Here you see tacos filled with carrot sofrito and cashew goat cheese with cilantro and red onion, which we ate with a tomato/tomatillo/chipotle salsa. (I used this recipe for enchiladas with a carrot sofrito.)

The leftover sofrito made for some excellent tomato soup the next day -- quickly brown chopped fennel, and then some tomato paste, then add a tin of chopped tomato, water and the sofrito. Pressure cook for 5 minutes. Puree. Salt, pepper, done.

Tacos

We had these tacos three times this week. I am not one to repeat recipes, usually, so this is saying something.

In case I forget, this is how you make amazing tacos:

1. Steamed white seitan from Viva Vegan!, baked in the marinade suggested in the recipe for Chipotle, Seitan and Potato Tacos from the same book
2. Homemade corn tortillas
3. Avocado
4. Thinly shredded cabbage with a simple viniagrette
5. Essential Roasted Tomatillo-Chipotle Salsa from Rick Bayless' Mexican Kitchen
(6. Optional: sauteed mushrooms and red capsicum)

The salsa really made this exceptional. It's quite simple (just rehydrated chipotles, roasted garlic and tomatillos) but so smoky, hot and satisfying. I wanted to lick my plate to get every last drop of it when I was done with my tacos.