Vegetables+Pasta+Seitan=Dinner

I promised I would a post something on the blog using the seitan. I am sticking to that promise.

My daughter saw me pull the seitan log out of the fridge and got nervous. She asked me if it was food. She politely whispered in my ear that the log o' fake meat "looks like poop." She's right. It doesn't look pretty. What's a mom to do? If that isn't a ringing endorsement, then I don't know what is!

Tonight's dinner was easy and tasty. I fooled everyone with the seitan! Even my super picky 8-year-old who complained about the look of the seitan, boldly said that this fake meat stuff was "really yummy!" She picked out all the seitan pieces from the vegetables and ate it. My 3-year-old also gobbled the seitan up.

I had some fresh basil that I had to use. So I quickly threw some basil, garlic, olive oil, and pine nuts into the Cuisinart and chopped away until it became a yummy pesto. I tossed some whole grain pasta into some boiling water and got to work.

In a pot, I sauteed up some garlic, tossed in the cubed seitan (about half a log), threw in some sliced mushrooms, zucchini, peas, and a can of chopped tomatoes. Added in about half a cup of the pesto. Tossed in some shredded Parmesan. Steamed up some broccoli - dinner was done! Under 30 minutes, and I had dinner on the table! Woohoo! None of it came from a freezer! Go me! I highly recommend a dinner like tonight.

Categories: main course, pasta, seitan, vegetarian

Yummy Seitan Goodness

I like seitan, yes I do! I like seitan, so should you! It's hard to convince people to delve into the world of phony meat products. Carnivores aside, seitan isn't pretty. Really though, seitan is a wonderful, versatile fake meat product. It's so easy to make, and so easy to use. There is no reason why you should have to buy those little, expensive plastic tubs of wheat gluten product, when it is so simple to make it at home.

The recipe I am posting is of the baked seitan log variety. Some seitan is boiled, but I prefer it when baked. There are many versions of this recipe out there. After cooking, this seitan can be cut up and cooked up into a variety of phony beef style recipes. I like to chop it up and use in place of meat in stir fries, or pasta dishes. The way I present it below would be great in place of sausage crumbles. You can play with the spice combination as well to get to the desired "meatiness," or lack thereof.

Seitan - adapted from the Post Punk Kitchen
Ingredients:Dry
1.5 cups vital wheat gluten
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp salt
2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cumin
a few grinds of pepper
a bunch of red pepper flakes
1/8 tsp allspice
2 tsp garlic powder
fennels seeds
1 tsp. bacon salt
Wet3/4 cups water
4 tbsp tomato paste
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp olive oil
It would be great with some liquid smoke, but I didn't have any. So I used the bacon salt in it's place. You could also throw in some smoked paprika.
Preheat the oven to 325°. This comes together fast, so be prepared. Have a couple mixing bowls ready, a fork, a cutting board to knead on, and some foil.

Dry Ingredients in one bowl, whisked wet ingredients in the other bowl.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mix quickly with a fork.

Turn the blob of dough onto a cutting board, and quickly mix and knead the dough together. You do not want to overknead the gluten, otherwise you may end up with a beef scented piece of shoe leather.

Form the gluten dough into a log and wrap tightly in some foil. Bake in the oven for 90 minutes.

When it comes out of the oven, it will look like this.
Slice up and use in any recipe. I hope to post some recipes this week with my bounty of seitan! Stay tuned!

Categories: main course, sausage, seitan, vegan, vegetarian

Babkalicious!

We eat very few baked good around here, despite my urge to master the realm of baking. So, I bake, and then I bake some more, and then I dump said baked goods on unsuspecting taste testers. Such was the case with the babka.

Babka is one of those things that has to be perfect or else it really sucks. It's also one of those things that comes in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and flavors. One person's babka, is another person's coffee or bundt cake. My mission was to accomplish a successful chocolate babka in a similar realm of the infamous Green's Babka. That stuff is awesome.

I ended up with the babka over at the Smitten Kitchen blog. Because the recipe is over there, I will not repost the recipe, but I will share some photos. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, and it came out great. I highly recommend the recipe, and Smitten Kitchen in general. Everything I have made from that blog comes out great.


Count the sticks of butter. You know it's gonna be good when there is that much butter and chocolate in a recipe.



You could probably put this together by hand, but it's much more fun with a mixer.

Ball of kneaded dough in a butter bowl, ready for some rising...

I normally detest any recipe that requires me to pull out the rolling pin and actually use it, but this wasn't too bad. It was actually very easy. Probably has something to do with all that butter.



mmmmm....chocolate....




Now go on over to Smitten Kitchen and get that recipe and make babka! It's so good!

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