gardein chorizo and eggs

So, here's my first post. Recently, I bought a four pack of Gardein Meatless Ground from Costco which was a pretty good deal if I remember correctly. I made some tacos with this meatless ground a few nights ago and it came out super tasty, minus the fact that I made it way too spicy..

anyway, I came up with the idea of making chorizo-flavored ground to go with some eggs. I figured I could probably find a recipe for similar spices used in chorizo.. and sure enough I did! This recipe is sort of adapted from VeganHelper's Chorizo Seitan. Instead of using the seitan, I simply substituted it with some of the Gardein ground. I used half a package of the ground, this made about 3 servings.

First I started out with mixing the dry ingredients together (I eye-balled the amounts but I'll post what was on the original recipe):

1 or 2 tbs nutritional yeast

2 1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1/4 - 1/2 tsp cayenne
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder

Wet ingredients:

3 tbs water
2 tbs ketchup
1 tbs apple cider vinegar
1 tbs canola or olive oil

Whisk these ingredients together in a bowl until fully mixed and set aside for a moment.

Heat some olive oil or whatever oil your prefer to use in a pan over medium/high heat. Get the oil nice and warm, in the meantime, cut open your package of Gardein ground (I'm sure you could use a different brand) separate it in half unless you're trying to make lots of it. Once the oil is nice and warm, toss the chunk of meat into the pan. You'll probably need to break it up into smaller pieces, so just use your wooden utensil or whatever you're using to help the pieces break apart. Cook the ground in the oil for 2-3 minutes, you can turn the heat down to medium-low after this. I added a little salt to it before adding the spice mixture but that's up to you. Now you can pour in your ingredient mixture, stir the mixture into the meat really well and just let it soak up all those yummy flavors. I'd say another 2-3 minutes on medium heat would be perfect. At this point, I turned the meat down to medium-low and covered my pan, this will allow for some browning/crisping action. 

Now I just made some easy scrambled eggs! Since I was feeding myself and my boyfriend, I just used 3 eggs between the two of us. One tip I have learned from watching too much Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network is:

when cooking scrambled eggs, after whisking eggs together, simply pour the mixture into a hot, buttered (you could surely use earth balance or any butter alternative) pan and let it sit there. Almost like making an omelet, waiting just a minute or two for the edges to cook, then take your utensil and gently scrape the eggs back and forth until you begin to form scrambled eggs. 

This makes perfect scrambled eggs everytime! Add a little salt and pepper and you're good! By this time, you can check on your "chorizo" and move it around a little. You should see some nice crispier pieces which just adds to that chorizo effect. 

Now you just gotta plate and eat! I had a piece of Dave's Killer Bread with this bomb breakfast. This really did taste a lot like chorizo and I am definitely using this recipe again. 

Here's a photo of the masterpiece: