Lunchopolis #85

Vegan ham and cheese onigirazu, a simple carrot salad on a bed of lettuce, Honeycrisp apple slices, some traditional Korean rice cookies, and peanut butter.

This onigirazu was pretty great, and I did better with getting more of a balance of rice this time, though it was somewhat too much rice and it was hard to wrap everything in nori properly. I will get that part right eventually! This one was made much more like a rice sandwich--not with seasoned sushi rice, but with just plain medium grain rice as the "bread."

The ham is Tofurky's new ham roast, which I bought around Christmas and kept in my freezer for one of those frigid days when having the oven on for hours on end sounds appealing. It was utterly amazing. I felt immediate sadness that there is no Tofurky ham roast to be had in stores right now. I hope they'll reappear at Easter and I can buy a year's supply or something. At home, I had it in all sorts of ways; you'll see some of the ways here. It was so much like the ham roasts I remember us having for holidays growing up, though fortunately much smaller and vegan. It is still seitan--one is not going too far into the uncanny valley--but it was perfect in a ham and cheese sandwich, with bread or otherwise.

This onigirazu was nori, steamed medium grain white rice, a bit of Vegenaise, green leaf lettuce, sliced tomato, sliced Tofurky ham, Violife cheddar, and some dijon mustard. I highly recommend this combination!

And because the onigirazu is gluten free, and the rice cookies are naturally gluten free, the meal is gluten free, if you need gluten free options. [Edited to add: Thanks to the anonymous commenter that pointed out that seitan is not gluten free. I usually catch such things before they make it into the world. Onigirazu can definitely be gluten free; Tofurky is not.]