thing 20: vegan runzas

most people in minnesota don’t know what a runza is.. but some of my childhood was spent in nebraska.. where you can even find a fast food chain based on this food originally from russia. it’s basically a pocket of yeasted dough with meat and cabbage. i based my version on this recipe. i managed to turn it vegan without much trouble with egg replacer and upton naturals vegan ground beef-style seitan. i actually made half the traditional way, and half i used italian sausage style and added green peppers, spinach and some daiya vegan cheese. wound up with 4 of each.

i don’t often make yeasted doughs.. usually i’m just too lazy, but it was a snow day, so why not? it wasn’t really that hard, and it worked well. surprisingly, i like the original version, which is fairly plain, better than my modified cheesy one. not sure if the flavors were just a bit off, or if i’m just excited by the memory of a food i haven’t had for probably 20 years. not something i’ll make too often, but it was a fun experiment.