Vegan Bacon Bits - Steel cut oats experiment

Let's face it.  Fresh ripe summer tomatoes need bacon.  It doesn't need to be pig based bacon, but a salty smoky accompaniment is required for summer eatin'.

Steel cut oats bacon - Take 1

1 TBS Liquid Smoke

1 TBS Soy Sauce

1 tsp salt

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp hot paprika

1/2 cup hot water

1/2 cup steel cut oats

Mix together liquid smoke, soy sauce, salt, onion powder, paprika, and water then add the oats.  I used a pint sized wide mouth mason jar with a lid.  Shake it around a bit and let soak until the liquid is absorbed (I left it overnight.)  Stir or shake occasionally to evenly distribute the marinade.  I made this last weekend before my new Excalibur dehydrator arrived (more on that later,) so I dried the mixture in the oven.  Turned it on to around 200 degrees for an hour, then turned it off and let them sit.  They weren't quite crunchy, so I did the same again - 200 degrees for an hour then turn off.

Not a bad experiment and I used them in chopped salad all week for smoky bacony flavor, but they were still on the chewy side and not quite perfect bacon bits just for snacking.  Also quite tasty on a fBALT sandwich (fake bacon avocado lettuce tomato.)

I'm clearly on a mission to make anything taste like bacon, so I'll work on it
and keep you posted.