Baked vegan zucchini fries

I am so excited about sharing a recipe that I found for zucchini fries!! They were surprisingly AMAZING!

I can't remember where I first heard of zucchini fries, but I did a search for a vegan recipe the other night and came across quite a few different ones from these following food sites: Trans-planted, The Vegan Pact, Chocolate Covered Katie, and Laws on Wellness.

You might think that it is a waste of time looking through all these different recipes, but I'm all about being resourceful and using up what is in my kitchen before going out and having to buy more ingredients. Plus I like to hunt around and look at all my options before picking one to make. 

I ended up choosing the recipe from the Laws on Wellness website because it was the only one that did not require a vegan egg substitute. Although I have flax seeds at home, in order to use them as an egg substitute, I have to grind them up and I just get too lazy sometimes. Mind you, I REALLY REALLY liked this recipe and I highly recommend it to everyone!

Even though these fries would have tasted fantastic on their own, I didn't want them to be lonely on my dinner plate so I also made up a giant vegan burger using a new veggie patty that I found in the frozen food section of Woolworths. 

I'm always looking in the cold food section of the grocery store to find all of the vegan/vegetarian food items (e.g. tempeh, falafel, vegan sausages etc) but I never stopped to look in the frozen food section. The other week I found some great vegan food as I was searching for vegan puff pastry to make an apple strudel. Along with the pastry, I picked up a box of vegan veggie patties made by the company Syndian. I've never heard of them before, but what caught my eye was how unprocessed all the ingredients were. The ingredients list all pretty much just vegetables and other things that you would find in your pantry like brown rice and spices. There was nothing artificial about it and so I though it was a healthy choice. 

The burger patties turned out to be very tasty. Be very careful to follow the cooking instructions though. With these patties, you are meant to cook them on a pan without thawing them, and it is strongly recommended to not cook them in a microwave. I think it's because there aren't many ingredients that bind the patty together. But if you follow the instructions then they stay in shape. 

This seriously was a great dinner tonight. Try the zucchini fries! If you don't like them (which I highly doubt), then call me over and I'll finish them for you ;)

My burger was a veggie patty on a multi grain bun with lettuce, raw mushroom, tomato, dill pickle, white onion, green relish, tomato ketchup and vegan mayonnaise :)

 
Baked Vegan Zucchini Fries

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1 cup plain almond or soy milk
• 1 1/2 tablespoons dijon mustard
• 2 cups Panko breadcrumbs
• 1/2 tsp Kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 large zucchini (mine was about 12oz), cut into any thickness you desire

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F (200C).  Line a 12×18-inch baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Whisk the almond or soy milk and mustard together until combined in a shallow pie dish or bowl.  In another shallow pie dish or bowl (glass baking dishes work great too), stir the breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and cayenne pepper together until well-blended.  Set both dishes aside.
3. Place the flour in a large zipper bag and toss in all of the zucchini sticks.  Seal the bag well and shake up the zucchini until all of the sticks are coated with flour.
4. Taking a few sticks at a time, roll them around in the milk-mustard mixture then coat them in the breadcrumbs, lightly patting the breadcrumbs onto the zucchini if needed.  Try to not to handle the zucchini too much at this point or the breading with fall off.  Carefully transfer the sticks to the baking sheet, spacing them about 1/2-inch apart.
5. Bake for 18-22 minutes until golden brown and delicious-looking. Turn the fries half way through the cooking time so that they are crispy and golden on all sides.
6. The best way would be to reheat leftovers would be to pop them in a 375 degree F (180C) oven for 5-7 minutes until they are heated through.