It’s the night before your friend’s barbecue or party and it dawns on you that there will most likely be nothing for you to eat tomorrow. You grow frantic and nauseous at the thought of suffering through another get together satisfying your hunger off of those damn bagged chips again and the obligatory assorted raw veggie plate. Just like the rest of your friends attending this party, you want to have a good time without having to compromise your health. Like the old saying goes, if you want to have something done right, you have to do it yourself.

With a crunch on time, I opened my refrigerator and kitchen cabinets hoping to scavenge some of my leftover ingredients from previous recipe adventures only to find a few raw vegetables, vegan staples (nutritional yeast, garlic, flax seed, spices, etc), and non dairy milk. When I was in college, I often ran into similar obstacles where I was starving and could only scavenge a few ingredients to whip into a meal. Supercook was my go-to back when I only maintained rudimentary culinary knowledge. The website works by accumulating whatever ingredients you have or want to incorporate then mixing it into their database and populating recipe suggestions to try.

I have withstood enough kitchen fires, failed cooking attempts, and wasted groceries to know now how to create something out of nothing that is edible and within my dietary preferences. This new series of recipes is titled DVF, which stands for Dirty Vegan Food. These recipes are easy to make and perfect for your those who are looking to incorporate less processed foods and more natural ingredients with a lack on creativity and time such as myself.

I found a single head of cauliflower, garbanzo bean flour (which can be substituted for another flour or meal like almond, coconut, or spelt if that’s all you have), the staple spices, and non dairy milk. With those ingredients, I whipped out my food processor and chopped up the cauliflower, mixed the garbanzo bean flour in with garlic, nutritional yeast, cumin, salt, and pepper topped with a splash of almond milk to bind the mixture together and pulsed it until it created a dough-like consistency. Taking my hands, I scooped out the mixture and rolled it into balls then flattened to resemble bite sized patties and popped it into my air fryer for 15 minutes, flipping it over in between the cooking time. If you don’t own an air fryer, a bake in the oven would work just as well here. I’m not joking when I say this literally took 20 minutes to make including the time in the oven/air fryer and I was out the door with a snack to share for my friend’s barbecue.

These hash bites can be recreated with any vegetable theoretically as long as you stick to the base of veggies, flour, and spices. The veggies need to be strained of liquid if your dough looks too moist before adding in the milk (and perhaps you may not need the milk at all if there’s already a wet consistency here. Exercise your judgment). For my own concoction I didn’t add in oil because the air fryer doesn’t require any however if you do decide to bake these little gems then a small bit of oil brushed on each side will perfect the finished texture.

My friends were surprisingly pleased with what I brought to our little gathering and there were no leftovers when I left that night — feedback I will deem as positive. If you’re ever in a hurry and want to look like a pro, these bites might be your next kitchen endeavor.

CAULIFLOWER HASH BROWN BITES

Yields: 12-14 bites | Time: 20 minutes

INGREDIENTS

A head of cauliflower (or any vegetables)
2 tbsp your choice of flour (I used besam)
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tbsp garlic powder
1/2 tbsp cumin
salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 400 degrees (you can also pan fry these later and skip this step)
Break up the cauliflower into smaller florets and place into a blender or food processor
Take the cauliflower out and press with a paper towel or dry towel to squeeze the liquid out
Place the cauliflower back in and add in the other ingredients then blend together
Take the dough-like consistency out and began to shape them one by one into golf balls (you can choose the size but I made smaller bites to share with more people)
Place the ball on a pan with parchment paper or a silly pat and flatten
With a little bit of olive oil, lightly coat or brush the upside of the hash brown
Place all of the hash brown bites in the oven for 15 minutes, flipping in between or pan fry until golden.

Cauliflower Hash Bites (V, GF, SF)