Some cuisines are known for being super vegan-friendly. Brazilian is not one of them. When I lived in Philadelphia, I got sucked into visiting a popular Brazilian restaurant several times. Servers walked around offering big hunks of meat to anyone and everyone. I had to politely wave them away. Know what though? I loved the salad bar at that place. It had, like, everything good you could possibly imagine at a salad bar. I remember there being polenta involved, and really tasty asparagus. So as long as I could keep my distance from the big hunks of meat, I didn’t mind going there too much. There’s always potential, even among the most seemingly non-vegan friendly of cuisines. Feijoada, for example, is a super meaty Brazilian bean stew. Brazilian pork and beans. Most recipes call for several kinds of meat. But I realized recently that even if you take away all of that meat, there’s still plenty of substance to the meal. Stewed black beans, lots of spices, sometimes greens, and it’s all served up alongside some rice with a few orange wedges. Perfect vegan bowl material if you ask me, so that’s what I went and did with it. Black beans, even on their own, have a pretty heavy smoky flavor to me, so some subtle seasonings were plenty here, but just for fun, I replaced the bacon with tofu bacon. It’s a bowl meal, so why not go all out and throw everything in there? You can skip the tofu bacon if you aren’t into that, but either way, I promise this is an easy and super delicious meal.
