Post Punk Kitchen’s Homemade Seitan — Great Taste, Horrible Texture

First of all, I apologize for being an absent blogger the past 6 weeks or so. My husband and I had to put down my beloved Gladys on September 22nd and since then, life has been quite busy. To make up for my absence, I decided to present you all with a seitan recipe I found on the web from the well-known vegan cook, Isa Chandra Moskowitz. To be perfectly honest, after being spoiled with Happy Herbivore’s amazing recipes, I find her a bit overrated.

This morning, while searching for a good seitan recipe, Post Punk Kitchen’s website popped up. I figured this would be the best recipe since ICM is so famous in the vegan community. Well, I am extremely disappointed 😦

Here is the recipe:

1 cup vital wheat gluten flour
3 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes
1/2 cup cold vegetable broth
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, pressed or grated on a microplane grater

For the simmering broth: 
4 cups vegetable broth
4 cups water
1/4 cup soy sauce

Fill a stock pot with the water, broth and soy sauce, cover and bring to a boil.

In the mean time, in a large bowl mix together gluten and yeast.  In a smaller bowl mix together broth, soy sauce, lemon juice, olive oil and garlic. Pour the wet into the dry and combine with a wooden spoon until most of the moisture has absorbed and partially clumped up with the dry ingredients. Use your hands and knead for about 3 minutes, until it’s an elastic dough. Divide into 3 equal pieces with a knife and then knead those pieces in your hand just to stretch them out a bit. Let rest until the broth has come to a full boil.

Once boiling, lower the heat to a simmer. Add the gluten pieces and partially cover pot so that steam can escape. Let simmer for 45 minutes, turning occasionally. Turn the heat off and take the lid off, let sit for 15 minutes.

Remove from broth and place in a strainer until it is cool enough to handle. Slice and use as desired.

Here is the link: http://www.theppk.com/2009/11/homemade-seitan/

The flavor was good, but the texture was pretty awful. Very porous and mushy 😦

I am keeping the broth combination in the stock pot so I can make a second round of seitan later today using a different recipe. I will let you know how it goes! If you have any recommendations, send them my way!

~Kate

Brownies!

I’m making brownies for friends and family tonight. Last time I made brownies I didn’t have the right ingredients so it didn’t come out very good. They were just ok. This time I bought cake mix and a 15oz can of pumpkin and that’s all I needed. Well I did add 1/4 cup water.
This recipe is like the weight watchers chocolate cupcakes. I used gluten free cake mix from Bob’s Red Mill. They use garbanzo bean flour, potato starch, tapioca starch, and other flours. I’ll let you know how they go over tonight in the comments.
One of the best things about baking vegan brownies is batter that is 100% safe to lick off the spoon!

Product Review: Amy’s Light and Lean Spaghetti Italiano

 

Tonight, I decided to try a vegan microwaveable dinner by Amy’s. For 240 calories, the Spaghetti Italiano has a nice blend of veggies, pasta, and vegan meatballs. I wish they sold the meatballs separately because these are the best I have tried so far, and I feel like I could consider myself a vegan meatball connoisseur. Meatballs are one of the few meat-based items I miss, but these seem to be a pretty good alternative!

~Kate

One of my favorite meals

Dominex makes AMAZING bread eggplant cutlets that I love to use every now and then for an easy vegan Eggplant Parmesan.

 

I like to pan-fry the cutlets in a very small amount of olive oil and then sprinkle some Daiya Mozzarella cheese on top. Add some quinoa, sauteed onions and peppers, and a little marinara sauce. YUM!

~Kate

Beer Bread, Pasta Sauce, and Granola Bars

I recently purchased “Every Day Happy Herbivore” and LOVE everything I have made so far! Here are a few of the things I made today:

Beer bread using Shipyard’s Pumpkinhead to give it a little bit of a pumpkin-y flavor

Creamy Sun-dried Tomato Pasta Sauce with quinoa pasta. DELICIOUS!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Granola Bars

Pita Bread

I made pita bread for the first time today. They came out great, all but one puffed up perfectly, and my defected one still tasted great.

I got the recipe from Pinterest. The author says it it important that the dough be rolled evenly to ensure proper puff  levels. Mine here were about 1/4 of an inch. I made a few large ones for dinner and some small ones to snack on.

It was really fun watching them puff up in the oven.

I will be making these again because they come out really good and they were super easy.

Pretty much all you do is make a simple dough of yeast, water, salt and flour, roll into small discs, les sit for 35 minutes and pop them in the oven for 10 minutes. The simplicity is beautiful!

-Kerri

End of August

Well we did it! One blog post everyday in the month of August! Most days we had two posts. What a wonderful and fulfilling challenge. It was a great way to kick off the blog! I’m really pleases with the positive response we’ve gotten. THANKS.

I hope you all have a great weekend and nice (US) holiday. Take some time over the long weekend to smell the flowers (like Lucy here)
-Kerri

Restaurant Review: Spoon Revolution Vegan Bistro ****

Today I finally made it to Spoon Revolution in Concord! Their dishes are 100% vegan and gluten-free. Their menu is very limited so don’t expect a lot of choices if you visit. Today, they had 1 soup (Vegetable Bean), 2 salads (Hummus salad and a garden salad), 3 entrees, and 1 dessert. Each day, they offer a 3 course meal for $8.99, which is what I opted for: Soup or salad, entree, and a dessert, plus iced tea. If you choose something outside of the designated 3 courses, you pay an “a la carte” price. Check out their site for more information.

Mixed greens salad with fresh hummus

Courgette and quinoa cold casserole (Grated young zucchini, quinoa lightly cooked in house vegetable stock and seasoned with walnut oil, fresh oregano and lemon juice, blended with uncooked fresh organic tomato and basil sauce.)

Iced Tea

Mango Madness Mango, banana and apricot with coconut milk, oats and brown rice syrup.

I will definitely go back to Spoon Revolution! Three things stood out to me, though, that prevented me from giving them 5 stars: the limited menu, the sluggish atmosphere and the lack of organic ingredients. Sorry, Spoon Revolution… you just can’t compete with Susty’s!

Throw everything in the pan curry

I am a firm believer that great things come from one pan. I will throw everything i have in the fridge in a pan and serve it up about once a week or every two weeks.
This time I also used up a can of pigeon peas that I bought for the first time. I’ve never eaten them before so I didn’t know how I would like them. Turns out they were the perfect thing for my vegetable curry.
I cooked onion, garlic, pigeon peas, tomato, carrot, and mushroom in one pan and added a couple scoops of curry powder and soy milk. Simmered for 10 minutes and devoured! I will be buying more pigeon peas next time I go shopping! Next time I’ll use a little less curry powder and I think this meal will be perfect. It’s great for leftovers too!
What do you add to your curry?
Or what’s your favorite one pot meal?
-Kerri

Frizzled Cabbage and Smashed Bean Club

I recently received a massage head of cabbage in my CSA and wanted to make something interesting with it. After requesting help from my facebook friends, I decided on the following recipe. Unfortunately, I got nervous with using 8 tablespoons of butter, so I tweaked it a bit. Still delicious, but not quite “frizzled.” If you would like to try the true frizzled version, click the link below. Otherwise, try out this sauteed “frizzled” cabbage alternative:

Frizzled Cabbage

(Adapted from Food.com)

1 head of cabbage

2 tablespoons of vegan butter

Salt

Pepper

1.Core and very thinly slice the cabbage.

2. Melt the butter in a large skillet (I use non-stick) over medium heat.

3. When it is bubbling, add the cabbage.

4. Salt and pepper the cabbage.

5. Stir occasionally and cook until mostly wilted, about 10 minutes.

6. Turn the heat down to medium-low and let cook, stirring frequently, until cabbage is starting to caramelize (brown), about 10 minutes.

7. Do not let burn.

Read more at: http://www.food.com/recipe/frizzled-cabbage-83524?oc=linkback

For lunch today, I followed another one of the Happy Herbivore’s meal plan recipes: Smashed White Bean and Avocado Club. Definitely one of my favorites!

~Kate