Hickory Pear Links

I don't know about vegans and their former carnivorous lives, but when I was a kid, I loved sausage. Loved it! So when I discovered homemade vegan sausage links about a month ago, I was in heaven. I've made several batches, some spicy, some mild, both links and patties. I'll soon be trying Vegan Dad's bratwurst and pepperoni. But I haven't yet made what I've been dreaming about - smoked apple links. And, although I have a fine substitute, I'm still dreaming.

While the rest of my household set off for the peace march downtown, I took some much needed personal time to clean the house and putz around in the kitchen. Using the lovely vegan sausage recipe at Everyday Dish, I set out to make lovely apple sausages with a hickory smoked flavor. I gathered all the dry ingredients and spices.


As I was about to add the wet ingredients, I reached for the Cameo apple I knew we had hanging in the fruit basket--only to find it had been eaten sometime this week. Crushed, I looked sadly at the last of the fruit--a honey tangerine, a navel orange and two pears. Oh, what the hell, I thought as I picked the pear out of the basket.

Instead of the lovely, crisp apple I envisioned, I instead diced this much of a ripe pear.


To offset the sweetness, I made sure to include plenty of kick--paprika, crushed red pepper, freshly ground pepper, 4 cloves of garlic. I added one tablespoon of hickory smoke instead of the 2nd tablespoon of soy sauce.

I steamed them up and had a quiet lunch with another of the morning's brownie waffles and the last of the pear that sacrificed itself for my experiment.


These actually turned out okay. The flavors blended well and the sweet-hot balance was all right. What they needed was more hickory smoke to add even more smoky flavor. Next time I'll omit all the soy sauce and just go with hickory smoke. And hopefully I'll have an apple on hand when I try next time.