Seitan Said SEITAN

Given the name of this blog, it has taken way too long, but I finally made seitan two Sundays ago! Damn, was it tasty!

I made the Simple Seitan from Veganomicon in the morning and cooked it up in Sauteed Seitan with Mushrooms and Spinach (also from Veganomicon) when I got home that evening. I doubled the recipe and ended up eating it cold most of the time because I brought it to work for lunch and still wanted to marry it.



If I knew it was so easy to make your own seitan, I would have done it weeks ago (I randomly bought a package of wheat gluten flour when I first started cooking, not that I knew what it was for or anything like that).

Somehow, I missed the part where it said to add the garlic in the instructions and didn't realize my seitan was garlicless until I already had it kneaded up in six balls. So I added roughly one-sixth of the garlic to each individual ball and re-kneaded them. I don't know if it would have been more garlicy if I'd done it properly, but the taste didn't seem lacking, so I'm not overly concerned about it.

The only other change I made to the recipe was that I used real vegetable broth, made from the Vegan With a Vengeance recipe. This made me feel bad about throwing the broth out when I was done boiling the seitan. So bad that I didn't throw it out at all. I've come up with two uses for it so far that I'll write about at some other time.

The Sauteed Seitan with Mushrooms and Spinach is ridiculously fast, easy and tasty. Now that I have the food processor, my mushrooms were sliced in about two seconds and the rest of the recipe is a "cook for five minutes" "cook for eight minutes" kind of thing, so it was done less than no time. I ended up with extra seitan so I made it again on Wednesday. I never cook during the week, but the time investment was so minimal and the tastiness so huge it was well worth it.

Mixing the seitan (not very appetizing, but as you can see in the above picture, it gets better!):



Seitan balls, pre-boiling (I just stuck in the garlic):

Holiday Cupcakes

This blog is significantly behind my bloggable life, and for that, I apologize.

Let's rewind to Saturday, December eighth, shall we?

I spent the evening baking two dozen of the Veganomicon's Jelly Donut Cupcakes for my family's Channukkah party Sunday.



These cupcakes are SO easy to make. And so unique! Also, they don't use a mixer, so you can make them at 3 AM without waking anyone. And they're so fast to make that you can bake them at 3 AM without killing a whole night's sleep. Most of my cupcakes were left with holes in the top, but most jelly donuts have holes in the side, so people actually preferred them that way. The texture and flavor were very different from the previous cupcakes I'd made (all from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World). They were a bit more dense, and definitely donuty.

When I finished making the cupcakes, I met up with some friends to go to Strawberry Fields. On my way to see them, I got the idea to add a butternut squash to my vegetable menorah, but didn't think anything would come of it because I was out. When we got together, we realized we hadn't brought anything for John, so we stopped at Whole Foods for onions. I also bought a ten-pound butternut squash. And carried it around ALL NIGHT. I think it enjoyed Barcade.

I also brought the Veganomicon Spiced Yogurt Sauce to the party as an alternative dip for the veggies (someone else brought one with a sour cream base).

Cupcakes: ready for the jelly



Jellied



Baked



The Cavern O' Jelly



Powdered



From the inside



My date for the evening: the butternut squash

Baked Beet Cakes

I've had leftover beets and shallots and and Horseradish Dill Sour Cream and things from when I made the Veganomicon Autumn Latkes sitting in the fridge for a while, so I decided to try Fat Free Vegan's baked adaptation (scroll about halfway down, they're shaped like hearts) last Wednesday.

For some reason, my brain just didn't want to follow the instructions. It seemed to think that since it had already done beet cakes once, it knew what it was doing and didn't need to pay attention to what was printed out.

It was wrong.



I kinda just shredded all the vegetables and let them cook in the water together. And my breadcrumbs were ground so fine they looked like they were flour again (I did them in advance, in the blender, because I didn't have a food processor yet. Shredding the vegetables in the processor was a DREAM). And I don't think I chopped the fennel finely enough. I may have made them a bit too big and didn't have them in the oven long enough too.

Despite all that, they were still edible. Not my favorite things, but I ate them for lunch two days in a row.

So now I know: even when I fuck them up, beets are OK.

This is the recipe as printed, not as I made it.

Beet Cakes

2 cups peeled shredded beets (about 3 average sized beets)
1 cup peeled shredded carrot (or parsnip) (about 1 average sized carrot)
1 cup peeled shredded sweet potato (1 average sized sweet potato)
1 shallot, finely chopped (about ¼ cup)
½ teaspoon salt
several dashes fresh black pepper
1 teaspoon fennel seeds, chopped (or caraway)
1/2 cup rolled oats, quick cooking
1 cup homemade whole wheat bread crumbs, plus additional for covering

Took the grated beet and carrot and just about covered with water and cooked for 10 min until it was soft. Drained well and reserved the liquid to use for the sweet potato. Cut this into smallish cubes, cooked just covered with the liquid for 15 minutes until soft, drained (reserving liquid - I hate to throw away cooking water if I can find some use for it) and mashed with a little of the liquid. Mixed these two together and let cool for 10 minutes. To this I added the shallot and seasonings as well as 1/2 C rolled oats (quick cooking but not instant) and 1 C Homemade WW breadcrumbs. Mixed well until combined - it was a little moist but not sticky. I used a 1/4 C measuring cup and scooped out 1/4 C fulls which made a nice patty shape, covered in breadcrumbs, flattened a little and baked on a tray lined with tinfoil for 30 min at 400F, turning them after 15 minutes. They didn't brown up or anything but were very good!!

Shells & Chreese

As of last Tuesday, my friend with the busted paw was still in the hospital. She'd undergone surgery, was well on her way to recovery and even had her appetite back. The problem was the hospital's food sucked. Before her surgery, I'd noticed my friend ogling the macaroni and cheese another friend had brought her mother, but she hadn't been digesting dairy very well since returning from a trip to Asia, so I decided it was vegan mac and cheese time.

I got home from the hospital at roughly ass o'clock, which was no time to be playing with Mac Daddy or some other vegan-macaroni-and-cheese-from-scratch recipe, but I had a box of Road's End Organics Shells & Chreese in the cabinet, so I decided to make that (I'd never had it before).

I followed the instructions on the box and nothing stuck to the pot, which was awesome (I've never been able to make macaroni and cheese from the box without losing half of it), but it didn't look very tempting, so I added a bit more soy milk. That made it look a bit better, so I decided it was done. Then I tasted it.

It tasted kind of like a cross between dirt and nothing. Seriously. It was so bad. I had been discussing the product with my lactose-intolerant friends a few weeks earlier and the first thing I did was email them all saying "DO NOT BUY! NOT RECOMMENDED! YUCK!"

After that, I checked The PPK boards and saw that people suggested adding things like oil and garlic to it to get it to taste good. That's too much like cooking for instant food, IMO. If I'm going to start chopping things, I want the sense of pride I get from making a dish from scratch, not boxed macaroni and cheese.

Thankfully, my friend was released from the hospital on Wednesday and her mother took her directly upstate, so I was spared the embarrassment of either giving her the Shells & Chreese or explaining why I could not. I attempted to eat it myself because I hate to waste food, but over half of it went in the trash. Ugh.

Happy Channukkah!

I still have food from last week to discuss, but the holiday is almost over and I want to post this before I miss it.



Vegetable Menorahs! A cute idea, executed less than skillfully. I probably should have asked someone who can cut in a straight line to do it.

Made of butternut squash roasted with rosemary and thyme, zucchini roasted with garlic, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper and asparagus grilled with garlic and salt, according to the recommendations in Veganomicon.

And in case anyone's wondering, my parents got me a food processor for Channukkah and I love it. My life has changed already!

(kinda)

My First "Ethnic" Dish

I can't believe I'm still posting about what I made Sunday on Friday.

Anyway, before I cooked the Big Family Dinner (now to be known as the BFD), I made my food for the week: Cornmeal-Masala Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Spiced Yogurt Sauce over basmati rice, all from Veganomicon. This was my first time cooking with anything beyond the typical parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. I'd picked up a couple of packets of garam masala at The Brooklyn Kitchen (they have a nice selection of spices, one tablespoon for $1. That way you get to work with the spice a little and see if you like it before committing to a whole jar. I love the idea. I used less than one packet in everything I made Sunday, so it may seem expensive, but it's actually not a bad value for spices that aren't usually used by the boatload) and was really excited to have the opportunity to use some.



See that picture up there? I wish you could taste it through your screen. Hell, I wish I could taste it through my screen because I ate the last of it on Wednesday and could go for more right this minute. I don't know when I'm going to make it again, though, because I'm trying to get myself to keep trying new things. But I will be making the Spiced Yogurt Sauce on Sunday to accompany a vegetable plate for my family's Channukkah party (I'll also be making other things, but my mother is bringing a dairy dip for the vegetables, so I decided to whip up something quick that I can eat too).

My family was not pleased when I told them I was making Brussels sprouts. My mother complained that the whole house would stink while my father whined that he hates Brussels sprouts (he had no answer when I pointed out this was to be my lunch for work, not for him. He's gotten used to having some of whatever I cook, which is great, really). I told them to shut up and wait until it was all done before complaining.

I'm not sure if I did the Brussels sprouts right. When I mixed everything together for the crumbs, I didn't get crumbs. I got a mush similar to the consistency of matzo ball batter (is it called batter?). I added some extra cornmeal and chickpea flour to dry it out a bit before adding it to the sprouts. I also kept them in the oven significantly longer than indicated in the recipe. This was partly because my mother kept saying "They can't be done, I don't smell them yet!" and partly because the crumbs didn't seem to get brown. I took them out of the oven when the sprouts' top leaf layer started scraping off when I mixed them around. I don't know if that's considered overdone, but I really liked the texture they came out, so I think I'll be using that as my personal guideline from now on.

The consistency of the sprouts was great, but the crumb topping was sometimes a bit too gritty for me. Again, I'm not sure if I did something wrong, but I felt like it was exfoliating my teeth. It wasn't uncomfortable to eat, but it did feel a bit weird. I probably just need to get used to it.

Tastewise, it was AMAZING. My father tasted one sprout after telling me a long story about his traumatic childhood sprout-related event and started laughing because he liked it so much (but not as much as the asparagus) and couldn't understand how something could taste like such crap when one person prepares it and so much awesome when someone else does. My mother really liked them and kept going on and on about how they taste like they came from a restaurant. My brother kept coming down to the kitchen to try to steal more while I was preparing dinner.

The Spiced Yogurt Sauce takes about 15 seconds to make and tastes just like the sauce you get at an Indian restaurant. I wanted to drink it out of the prep bowl (but didn't!). I've been putting it on everything, all week (it's great with the Brussels sprouts, other vegetables, bread and melba toast but didn't suit rice cakes so well).

And I love basmati rice. It's so buttery and fluffy and...perfect.

The funny part of all this is that as I started cooking, I asked my mother if she likes Indian food. She said no, of course. As soon as I opened the packet of garam masala, I thought "Oho! That's Indian food, right there, in this packet. This is going to be great" and held it up for my mother to smell. She liked it. And when I cooked everything, put it all together and had her taste it, she liked it. I asked her what happened, I thought she doesn't like Indian food. She shrugged and replied: "And I thought you couldn't make matzo ball soup without chicken and eggs, that asparagus is gross and cheese made from nuts is disgusting."

Plated:



Raw:



Braaaaaaains:

Thanksnowing

New York got it's first snow of the season Sunday. I knew I was going to spend most of the day cooking anyway, but I took advantage of my family staying in the house, hiding from the elements, to make them all sit down and have a vegan family dinner.

I made the Tofurky Roast with vegetables, Panic Pepper Potatoes, the Baking Powder Biscuits from Vegan With a Vengeance and Sarah's Gravy. I also put out the Pumpkin-Apple Butter from Fat Free Vegan I made Saturday night. Yum!



So, what are Panic Pepper Potatoes? They're the best way I could think of to use up some extra potatoes and the contents of a McClure's Spicy Dill Pickles jar (cayenne peppers, garlic cloves, dill, vinegar). I used about ten potatoes and they were still too spicy for my parents and I to eat a full serving off. A forkful or two was very tasty, but beyond that, it was just too hot. My brother inhaled them, but then again, he eats wasabi raw.

My family still can't get enough of the Baking Powder Biscuits. We had some with gravy, some with pumpkin-apple butter and some plain. All caused joy. My brother put a tiny dab of the butter on a biscuit "just to taste because I'm not feeling pumpkiny right now." He took a bite, grinned hugely and proceeded to pile the butter onto his biscuit. That's what I liked to see (as long as it's not real butter)! I doubled the biscuit recipe this time and am shocked that there are still a couple left right this minute (unless someone ate them while I'm typing this at work).

Sarah's Gravy is a gravy recipe from my friend Sarah (duh). She made it up while standing in front of her stove and wanting to make something quick, easy and tasty. She succeeded. I think I overheated mine a bit because it was thicker than gravy should be, but everyone loved the flavor. The recipe I include below is how I made it, not exactly how she sent the recipe to me (she lists a bunch of optional ingredients and I don't want to give away all of her secrets).

Panic Pepper Potatoes (don't worry, I know this isn't an actual recipe):

Buy a jar of McClure's Spicy Garlic Dill Pickles.
Eat the pickles.
Boil about ten potatoes in the brine with as much water as necessary added.
While your potatoes are boiling, puree the remaining contents of the pickle jar.
Drain the potatoes.
Mix the cayenne/dill/garlic puree into the potatoes while mashing.
Eat.
Cry.

Serve with bread or something else absorbent (Tofurky!) to take care of the oils from the peppers. Do not drink, that will only make it worse.





Sarah's Gravy

2 Tbsp Olive Oil
3 Tbsp Nutritional Yeast
2 Tbsp Flour
1 Cup Water
2 Tbsp Soy Sauce
1/2 Tsp Black Pepper
1 Tsp Garlic Powder

Whisk together first three ingredients over medium heat until they bubble. Continue whisking for an additional minute. Add water and whisk to dissolve. Bring to a boil, whisking occasionally. Lower heat and whisk in remaining ingredients.

Tofurky!

I made a Tofurky Roast (mine came stuffed but gravyless and was meant to serve four) on Sunday. I also made a bunch of other things, but this post is dedicated to the Tofurky.



That there is really what you see when you take it out of the box. Looks kind of like a football, kind of like a ham, and just kind of funny, doesn't it?

It doesn't look much more appetizing unwrapped, though:



The box tells you to surround the roast with one quartered onion, two quartered potatoes and two carrots. That leaves you with really enormous potato pieces, so I halved some of mine again.



Then comes the "baste": one tablespoon olive oil, three tablespoons soy sauce (I use nama shoyu, even on this) and some dried sage. Mmmm.



Then you cover it up and throw it in the oven for an hour and fifteen minutes. When it comes out, it looks something like this:



Add more baste, put it back in the oven for ten minutes, uncovered, and (if one is to believe the packaging) it's done:



It kinda looked done and felt done when I stuck a fork in it (not that I really knew what "done" would look and feel like), but the vegetables were nowhere near cooked, so I wrapped the Tofurky in foil and left it on the stove top to be warmed by the heat of the oven and the pots on it while the vegetables cooked.

I make fun of Tofurky and similar mass-produced synthetic meats a lot. I call them science experiments, Igor food and other insulting things. But look at the Tofurky's ingredients. I can pronounce everything on that list. They even go the extra mile to let you know their stuff isn't genetically engineered. Pretty responsible, I think.

I served the Roast as part of a family dinner of sorts on Sunday night (more on that later). My brother was first to try it and exclaimed "Wow! It's turkey!" I was shocked! "Really?!?" "No, but it still tastes good," he laughed, finished off his portion and asked for more. My mother actually liked the included stuffing better than what we had at Thanksgiving. Surprisingly, I enjoyed it too. So much that I spent all of Monday looking forward to eating the leftovers when I got home from work (with a biscuit, not in a sandwich). It was still tasty after two minutes in the microwave. I don't think the texture changed much either.

Carving the Roast (which kept rolling away until my brother held on to it while I cut):



Sliced. Mmmm....stuffing.



Looks kind of like a hard-boiled egg, doesn't it?



Thus concludes our photo essay on the Tofurky Roast. Have a good night, get home safe and don't forget to tip your bartender.

A Toast!

To demolishing the toaster oven!

Ummm....so....it may be possible that I still can't make toast.

I went to a late concert Saturday night and knew I wanted to make a lot of things this weekend, so I decided to do some work before the show. The plan was to make some breadcrumbs and Pumpkin-Apple Butter (damn, do I ever love that butter. I think it was better last time I made it, though. I used apple cider and nutmeg this time. I also burnt it ever so slightly. Oops!

ANYWAY! While I was working on the butter, I loaded up the toaster oven with whole wheat bread. I then ignored the toaster oven, since it's supposed to ding and stop when it's done, right? I did check it once because it seemed like it was taking ages to get done, but the bread didn't look particularly dark. The sides of the toaster oven itself looked a little brown, though, and I was surprised I'd never noticed that before. I finished making the butter and went upstairs for a second. When I came down, there was smoke pouring out of our (now very brown) toaster oven, which contained several rectangular slices of charcoal. Obviously, the house stunk and needed a good airing (and it was FREEZING that night). I'm kind of concerned the smoke detector didn't go off, though.

Personally, I blame the toaster oven. I did the same thing the next day and had no trouble. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The Mini Pie Revolution

Check it.

Like pies? Like cupcakes? They're two tastes that go great together and now they're a December challenge. Vegan cupcakes may be taking over the world, but mini pies can certainly have this month. I'm definitely going to participate and I think my submission will have cranberries in it. That's all I'm going to say for now.

And I kind of like this monthly challenge thing. November: VeganMofo. December: mini pies. Let's hope January is something like Low Fat Dishes That Take Ten Minutes to Cook and Taste Like Sunshine.