Dont Fear the Seitan

So I was all psyched up to make Julie Hasson's famous sausages this weekend when my friend said she'd gotten BBQ seitan at a restaurant. Follower that I am, I wanted BBQ seitan too, so I made the BBQ Seitan and Crispy Coleslaw Sandwich from Veganomicon. Isa and Terry say the sandwich is based on one they had at 'Snice and few things can recommend a recipe to me more strongly than a comparison to 'Snice, so I was sold. I made Simple Seitan, Backyard BBQ Sauce and Home-Style Potato Rolls (all from VCON), put it all together with some coleslaw (included in sandwich recipe) and a bit of Vegannaise and died and went to heaven.

I know a lot of people are wary of making seitan. After The Lambs' Brains Debacle of '08, I understand why (thanks to Trina for that visual). But this was my second time making the Simple Seitan, and it's wonderful yet again. Clearly, it wasn't beginner's luck. This is just a fool proof way to make seitan. And to prove seitan making isn't scary or difficult (just time consuming), I'm going to take you through it with pictures (I think I did this last time, too, but I definitely took more pictures this time). In case you're not interested in all that, here's what my mouth is going to see as soon as this is posted:



The beginning of making seitan isn't much different from baking. Mix your dry ingredients (in this case, vital wheat gluten and nutritional yeast):



Mix your wet ingredients (oil, garlic, soy sauce and some other stuff):



Combine your wet and dry. Mix it up, knead it for a while and cut it in thirds:



Throw it in a pot with some broth, bring it to a boil, simmer for a while, drain:



Tada! Your seitan is done and ready to be used in the recipe of your choice. It was my choice to slice it up:



And grill it in a grill pan brushed with peanut oil:



I think grill marks are sexy:



I tossed the grilled seitan in the Backyard BBQ Sauce and re-grilled:



Hot grill lines:



Don't forget to make your coleslaw:



Then, slice a roll in half, give it a little shmear of Vegannaise, a drizzle of BBQ sauce if you have bigger balls than me (the Backyard BBQ Sauce is too spicy for me plain, but it's perfect in the sandwich), pile on your coleslaw, top that with seitan, squish down the top bun and have the best lunch ever. It's one of the many recipes I've found in Veganomicon that leave me thinking "I can't believe this came out of my kitchen!"

This is How I Roll

I figure if I keep using that joke, someone is bound to find it funny, sooner or later.

Right?

Whatever. Even if you don't share my sense of humor, I bet you want to share my Veganomicon Home-Style Potato Rolls.



I was really nervous about making these because they were my first time working with yeast. I thought something would go wrong for sure and I'd end up with flat, hard non-rolls. And if that was the case, I wouldn't be able to make sandwiches and I'd just have to go hungry all week. Or something.

Luckily, everything went well and I now have two dozen tasty potato rolls (well, probably 20ish, by now). I didn't think the cupcake shape would be conducive to sandwich making, but didn't know if the rolls would come out OK if I just put them on a baking sheet, so I did half in the pan like the instructions said and half straight on a sheet. I also braided three to see if I could make challah rolls out of them. That didn't go over so well, but the cupcaked and flat rolls are both great.

The recipe is very easy to follow, but I had to use way more flour than indicated to get the dough to stop sticking to my hands and dough mat. And these aren't like the Vegan With a Vengeance biscuits that you can make really quick, if you're feeling sort of bready. The dough needs to sit two hours before being formed into rolls, then another 30ish minutes in the cupcake pans, then they bake for 30ish minutes. That's not including the time you spend actually working on them. They're well worth the time spent, though (and you can go out and do whatever you want while they're sitting around rising; it's not like you have to watch them the whole time).

Before they hit the oven:



The cupcaked rolls, minus a "tester":



All the rolls. The semi-failed attempts at challah are at the top:

"Its everything I could ever hope for...

...in a banana bread."

That's what my mother had to say about the banana bread from Papa Tofu (a superawesome cookzine).



My mother had a bunch of extra bananas hanging around the house this weekend and asked if I could do something with them.

Me: What? Like juggle?
Mom: No...maybe....food something.
Me: Bake?
Mom: Yes. I want banana bread (it sometimes takes her a while to stop beating around the bush).

So I brought down my cookbooks and tried to talk her into all sorts of other crazy banana-related sweets, but she insisted on plain banana bread. I'm glad she did because this stuff rules. In the zine, kittee suggests toasting the walnuts, which really brings out their flavor and makes every nutful bite a treat (I don't usually like nuts in my baked goods, but looked forward to finding the walnuts in this bread). My mother liked it so much she doesn't want anyone else in the house to eat it (since I made it for her), but she reserved a large piece for my grandmother, who loves banana bread.

When I said I really liked this bread and I'd definitely make it again, there were cheers all around. That's two baking successes in one week. Wooha!