Field Roast Meatloaf

Hope you all had a happy New Year. Teddybear and I did absolutely nothing this year. We didn’t even stay up till midnight or drink any Asti. Maybe I’m getting old?

I also haven’t been cooking a lot. I was sick the week before Christmas and then spent the week before New Year’s planning for when I went back to work in January. I also spent the last two weeks of last year worrying about my new job. Being a new tax preparer is bad enough, but running an office just adds to it. So far it has gone fairly well, but the rush starts next week, so we will see how things are then.



The Field Roast Meatloaf was something I picked up, thinking it would make a nice, quick dinner. Little did I know at the time, it would be a perfect comfort dinner for a cold week in Florida. And if you like the sausages or the Celebration Roast from them, you will love the meatloaf. If you fed it to an omni, they may not believe it is vegan. The directions suggest that you coat it with something when heating it, so I made a sauce of equal parts of some Annies Original BBQ sauce and some leftover cranberry sauce from Christmas. It added a nice touch of a little sweetness and a little spice.

On the side are some corn and an interesting little side dish called Korean Style Romaine, part of my plan to get more greens in the diet. It is basically sliced romaine lettuce that is seasoned with a hot dressing of sesame oil, garlic, ginger, soy sauce and hot pepper flakes. You pour the hot dressing over the lettuce and let it sit for 30 minutes, and then it is ready to eat. It is a bit spicy, but it could easily be made without the pepper flakes; if you want it milder. It is also a different way to eat your lettuce.

I also have some other things to show you this week, including an interesting new product that is made in Florida. So see you all later.

Thanksgiving 2009

Well, Thanksgiving 2009 has come and gone. I hope yours went well and you were able to gather with family and friends. My fiancé and I had a simple dinner, but that is all you need when it is only the two of you.



This is the first plate I had yesterday. On it is Celebration Roast with Vegan Brown Gravy (from Lindsay at Happy Herbivore), candied sweet potatoes, potato roll (from Wal-Mart), and some steamed corn. If you have not yet made Lindsey’s gravy, please give it a try. It has very few ingredients and comes together quite quickly and is also quite flavorful. The candied sweet potatoes were simply a roasted sweet potato, candied with some brown sugar and water then drizzled with some marshmallow ice cream topping. Perfect for a serving of one, since they were only for my (my other half won’t eat sweet potatoes).



On my second plate, I had another potato roll, mashed potatoes and more of the brown gravy as well as finishing up the last of the Cranberry Waldorf Salad in the refrigerator. After all that, I was way to full for desert; but since I have been eating Lindsay’s Pumpkin Brownies all week don’t feel sorry for me since I have not been deprived of having pumpkin.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

Things I Have been Cooking Lately

Sorry to be away for so long. Due to my tax class, I really did not cook at all the first week of the month. But that is now completed (I passed) and may result in some work starting in January, but I won’t know about that till December. And I have been cooking a lot, since my refrigerator totally ran out of food.



The first thing I made was on November 6, the only day that week with no class. I decided to make the Curried Udon Noodle Stir Fry from VCON, which had been on my list for the past few weeks. It turned out fairly good, but I did make a few errors. The first was making the roux for the gravy; I don’t think I did it correctly. Either that or it is supposed to be much thicker than I realized. The second error was in trying to warm up my precooked udon noodles in a colander under hot tap water, when I should have used a pan with hot water instead. As you can see, they all broke apart. I will just have to try again, because even with all those errors, it was quite good. But a visit to Just Hungry may be in order to learn more about Japanese curries.



The next time I was able to get some cooking done was after the class was over, last Wednesday. I made the Seitan & Polenta with Fresh Greens from Vegan Express again. This time I got the bok choy, but decided to use Vegetation’s variation of seitan sausage. The sausage I used was the Field Roast Italian Sausage. They had been sitting in the freezer just waiting for it to cool down a bit (and it has finally) so that I could make this again. I think that Vegetation may have been onto something, because using sausage just seems to make this recipe better. If you know of someone who thinks that vegan food is bland, feed them this and they will change their minds.

The last three things were part of lunch today, but I made them last week. Just did not get any pictures till today.



First, my lunch today was one of the Black Bean and Potato Patty from 366 Ways to Cook Beans, Rice and Grains; my latest cookbook purchase. It is not a vegan or vegetarian cookbook, but all the recipes are by default vegetarian and most can be veganized quite easily. In this case, I substituted chickpea flour for the eggs and used panko breadcrumbs. Put some salsa on top and these are quite good, they would be good plain as well.

On the side is Cranberry Waldorf Salad. It has all the standard items in a regular Waldorf Salad; apples, celery and walnuts and adds crushed cranberries to the mix as well. If you are still looking for some salads for your Thanksgiving dinner, this would be a good one to think about, since it lets you put cranberries on the table in a way more people may find to their liking.



The last item is my desert for today; the scones from VwaV, done as the chocolate chip variation. I had to use my only and last container of MimicCreme to make them, but it was worth it. They definitely are a different texture when using crème instead of all milk. Unfortunately, since I can no longer get MimicCreme that will mean that I have to make my own with cashews or use the So Delicious Coconut Milk Cremer when making these.

Asian Inspired Dinner

Tonight’s dinner, if not truly Asian; definitely had all the flavors one would expect in an Asian meal. And that was with me forgetting part of the ingredients for one of the dishes.

The rice dish you see is the Bok Choy, Edamame (Green Beans), Cashew and Orange Rice from Vegan Express by Nava Atlas. This was the highlight of the meal even though I forgot to put in the orange (from a can, since I couldn’t find any Clementines at the store) and the cashews. With the oranges and cashews balancing out the teriyaki sauce and sesame oil, it would have been even better. However, it does have Bok Choy; so at least I got some leafy green vegetables with dinner.

Next to that is Mock BBQ Pork (page down till you see the recipes), which is a recipe for seitan I found over at the Vegetarian Resource Group. This is a bit different way of making gluten, because you start with plain gluten that you flavor after poaching the gluten log. After the marinating the gluten pieces, you then bake them and at that point they are ready to use. Like I said, a bit different. And I would not make these again, unless they were going into a stir fry. That seems to be the best way to eat them.

The last item I had for dinner is some broccoli. I had been planning on doing the Spicy Sesame Broccoli, also from Vegan Express, but I don’t have any more containers for the refrigerator. Since I need to use these up, I just decided to put some broccoli in the oven, to heat up with the Mock BBQ Pork and then topped them with some Gomasio, from the refrigerator. For those of you not familiar with Gomasio, it is a condiment from Japan usually used on rice in bento boxes and is salt covered sesame seeds. I used it to add some extra flavor and nutrition to the broccoli.

So that was dinner. One hit, one miss and on filler. All in all not bad

Salads, Seitan, Sandwich and Kefir

Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it. And this is only the last two days.

First the salads. It is still hot and humid here in Florida, so salads are still a large portion of what I am eating. My lunch is composed of two of whichever ones I have in the refrigerator at the moment. For today, my lunch was PJs Fresh Corn Salad and Miso Lentil Salad. I have been working on the corn salad since last week. It makes a ton, so if you need something to take to a potluck, this would be a good dish. The Miso Lentil Salad is my protein for lunch and also some probiotics, since the dressing is miso and apple cider vinegar.

The seitan is Dr. Pepper Seitan from Vebweb. I had high hopes for this, but am not really fond of it. Partly because I still have not figured out how to do baked seitan and partly because I don’t really like the BBQ sauce. It just has too much oil for my tastes. On the side is Southwestern Corn and Black Bean Slaw from Healthy Eats up at Food TV. This is a contribution from their vegetarian blogger, who is a regular poster. I am not normally a fan of coleslaw, but this is quite good. And you should try her Papaya Salsa Slaw from her blog Dine Dish Delish.

The sandwich is part of dinner tonight and was inspired by a post this week up at Dine Dish Delish. She had an open face sandwich of naan, spicy mustard, apple and soy cheese. Here I took the concept and made a sandwich of naan, baked eggplant slices and my mozzarella cheese. Once it cooled down enough to eat, it was quite good. On the side is some more of the Green Bean and Chickpea Salad from Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen.

The last thing for today is kefir. For those of you who do not know what kefir is, it is cultured milk that has its origins in the Caucuses Mountains. In doing some research on the web, I discovered that in 2006 some scientists in Taiwan found that (and this is in laboratory mice) it reduced the allergic response to both soy and milk proteins after drinking either soy or milk kefir. That got me thinking that maybe it could help me tolerate soy better, at least enough so that I could occasionally eat it. To that end I am going to drink one cup of the coconut milk kefir for the next 8 days, that would be two quarts, and then eat a soy yogurt to see the results. If it works well, kefir might become a regular part of my diet. I bought the kefir today and will let you know how it is going tomorrow.

Celebration Roast Sandwich

Dinner was leftovers tonight, so I think that showing you lunch is a good idea today. Strangely, lunch is leftovers from Easter. (Which I hope as a happy one for all of you.) Fortunately, I found a few weeks ago that the natural foods store I got to on a weekly basis (generally) now carries some Field Roast Products, the 1 lb Celebration Roast and Italian Sausages. Haven’t tried the sausages yet, but decided that the Celebration Roast would be the perfect thing for Easter. The best thing is that it takes no prep to cook. Just unwrap, place in a pan, put in the oven, take out when hot and slice. Easy as pie. I did find that it takes more than 15 minutes for the roast to heat up in the toaster oven, however. So will know that for next time. Some of the leftovers are on the sandwich I had for lunch, on top of some Dijon mustard. It was quite good. The cold roast sliced easily and the stuffing even stayed in place. And on the side is the Sesame Broccoli Salad. Nice little lunch. I finished off the Mexican Rice Pudding as well with dessert.

I also have done some experimenting with the Turtle Mountain Coconut Milk this weekend. So far I have: drank it plain, put it in a smoothie, used it as a coffee creamer, put it on cereal and I even used it in the mashed potatoes on Easter (the TeddyBear didn’t even notice). I would have to say that this quite a good product. In fact, I may now be addicted. It will be hard to go back to rice milk after this is gone. If any of you are missing 2% or above milk and can afford this, I suggest you try it. It has no coconut taste nor odor. It does not separate in hot liquids, such as coffee. Smoothies are very creamy and rich. You can easily drink it plain out of the refrigerator (and I haven’t drank milk plain since switching to skim milk in my pregan days). Turtle Mountain has managed to create the perfect non diary milk.

Tamarind Lentils

Yes, I finally got to make the Tamarind Lentils from VCON. And they are so good. This is the first time I have had tamarind in anything, to my knowledge. I must admit, I really like the flavor it gives things. The sweet-sour is a nice contrast to the heat from the Seitan Vindaloo and the Gingery Carrot Salad as well. These are definitely a keeper. Now I understand why there are so many people who rave about them up at PPK. It is so different from how anything else tastes. There are really no words to describe it. Let me just say that if you can find some tamarind paste, you have to make these. And if you need something to make for someone who likes Indian food, but they not sure about things that are vegan, these will change someone’s mind.

The Gingery Carrot Salad on the side is from AllRecipes. Its good, but a bit disappointing. Maybe because of all the other strong flavors on the plate, I just didn’t taste the ginger in the carrots. It was a nice dish though to cool ones mouth after taking a bite of the Vindaloo. And it went well with the lentils. Maybe I should have cooked the carrots a bit longer so that they would be a bit softer and absorb more of the dressing. Not sure. It is, however, a nice cold side dish to have on a warmish Spring evening.

Dinner and Rice Milk Recipe

Dinner was really simple. Stir fried onion and pepper mix from the freezer, sliced seitan cutlets (done on Sunday) and some more of that Molo sauce I made in February. All very simple, just through in a pan and cook. Then put over rice. Instant dinner. Actually this is how I am used to cooking, since a day of work usually makes me to tired to really make anything at the end of the day.

However, I know why you are here tonight. You all want to see the recipe for rice milk. Since I aim to please, here it is. But I will caution you, this is still a bit untested. It might need more agave nectar to make it sweeter. And I have not tried this with a natural sugar or molasses. You can if you would like to, but I have no idea what the measurements would be. I am not making it as sweet as it could be, since I usually have chocolate milk or have it over a sweet cereal. If you want to make is sweeter, go right ahead. This is also a half a batch, so if you want to make more, it should double easily.

Bunny’s Rice Milk (based off of this recipe)

3 ¾ cup water
½ cup white rice flour (may also use brown rice flour)
½ cup almond flour (optional)
½ cup agave nectar (you can add up to a 1 cup if you want it sweeter)
1 Tbsp vanilla

Bring 3 cups water to a boil in a medium sized saucepan.

Add the vanilla and rice flour to 3/4 cup water, stirring thoroughly.

Once the water boils, stir in the rice flour mixture, stirring constantly with a whisk. Turn heat to medium-low and boil at least five minutes, stirring constantly, until the mixture is thick and no longer gritty.

Pour the mixture into a mixing bowl and stir in the almond flour and agave nectar, till combined. Once mixture is cool, add it to your blender (or mix with your counter top mixer) and run till mixture is thoroughly combined and mixture appears to be smooth and semi-liquid. Place in covered container and refrigerate. Should be good for up to two weeks.

Yield: 5-6 cups? Base (I haven’t calculated total servings yet)

To make rice milk
8 oz
1/4 cup base and 3/4 cup water: blend till combined (I do in my Magic Bullet, but it may work to just stir it in)

16 oz
1/2 cup base and 1 1/2 cup water: blend till combined (I do in my Magic Bullet, but it may work to just stir it in)

It will separate in the refrigerator, but will remix quickly in the jar upon shaking.

Seitan and Rice Milk

Tonight is leftovers (the last of the Gobi Aloo and some more of the Seitan Vindaloo), so I thought you might like to know some of the other things I have been doing lately.

First of all, I found that the Baked Seitan Steaks also works well if you do it on the stovetop with cutlets. Just for fun I tried it on Sunday, making 8 cutlets for one batch of the seitan. I cooked them on the stove top with 2 cups of water and 4 tsp of Bryanna’s Homemade “Chicken Style” Broth Powder. I set my stove on 1 and was going to let them sit for an hour, but upon checking them after 40-45 minutes, they were done. The broth was simmering, but the cutlets were not airy or brainy looking. They tasted good as well, which was good since they were our dinner. I ended up using three and the rest are in the refrigerator in the broth. They should get used up this week.

On the rice milk front, I made an important discovery today. My problems with the base were that I skipped a step in making it. I had made the decision that since it was going to be mixed up in a blender that I could skip the mixing step once it was cool Big mistake. I just blended the last of the base and it totally changed its character. Instead of being hard and stiff, it became smooth and more fluid. So I decided to make a small batch of the milk and put it in the refrigerator. This one tasted much better. It did not have the grittiness I had previously found. So this batch may be a winner after all. I just needed to add a step.

And on a surprising finding, I actually found the Turtle Mountain Coconut Milk at one of my grocery stores on Saturday. Much to my surprise since I still cannot get MimicCreme (Vegetation and Mandee you may get it before I do). I haven’t bought it yet, since I am not sure I can validate the cost in my mind. Even though the cost does not seem to out of line for a half a gallon of product, 4.50 for a half gallon. Just have to see how my budget works out.

And on another surprising finding. Earth Balance will be coming out with a soy-free (yes, that is correct), vegan margarine in May. I just found it on the site today and can verify that it is soy-free. It uses no soybean oil, soy lechitan or soy protein. I have already started the wheels in motion, with a few emails, to try and get my local Publix to carry this. If I have to choose between this and the coconut milk, this wins; hands down. Can soy free tempeh be to far behind? Products page has been updated.

Seitan Vindaloo

Dinner tonight is courtesy of Vegan Dad. I figured that since I still had some of the Gobi Aloo, it needed another Indian dish for a dinner; so I decided to try something that had been on his blog last year. However, the first problem was to find a recipe for some beef-style seitan, since I usually make chicken-style. As usual, Google is your friend. I just used as my search “beef seitan” and what turned up but Bryanna Grogan’s Seitan Beef Cutlets. Very easy to make, but does make a lot, so they will be going into the freezer (and I easily have enough to make one of Joni’s burger recipes). If you have not made these before and need a beef flavored seitan, I definitely recommend them. As for the Vindaloo, it went together very easily. The sauce ingredients all fit into the Magic Bullet, but I did have to make a few changes. First, no white wine vinegar so I used rice wine vinegar; no black mustard seeds so I used yellow ones; sucanat for the brown sugar; 1 tsp of jarred, chopped ginger; no garlic available, so I used some garlic granules; and I cooked this in a sauce pan instead of a frying pan, just to make it a bit easier to do. After all that, it was very good. But the next time, I am definitely cutting back on the pepper flakes. It was way to hot for my tastes.

As for the job front, the temp position fell through due to the employer changing the type of job and it wound up being somthing I am unable to do. So back to hunting again.

Baked Seitan Cutlets

Again, a real simple dinner. I made some seitan this afternoon and cut one of the steaks in half vertically, cut the ½ cutlet in half horizontally to make two cutlets. The cutlets got coated in an “egg wash” of chickpea flour and water, then coated in panko bread crumbs mixed with some Jamaican Jerk seasoning. Place in a 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes and done.

The kale was just as simple. I just stripped the leaves off of about 3-4 stalks, rinsed them, cut them up into strips and put them in a hot fry pan. Once they started to cook a bit, I added some orange juice and tamari and cooked them all down. The kale got done before the sauce got glazy, so the kale went on the plate while the orange juice and tamari mixture cooked down. Once it cooked down to a syrup, the pan came off the heat and the kale were added back to get glazed. Then back on the plate.

This all took 15-20 minutes of prep and another 15-20 minutes of cooking. It all went together nicely at the end. A lot of strong flavors, but they did balance each other out. The Dijon Beets were a great side for this, since they were cold and helped to cool my mouth a bit. Also Florida has started to warm up again, so I really don’t want to eat any more warm food than needed.

And for those of you looking for something different to spread on toast and other things, I have an interesting recipe for you, Coconut and Cashew Bread Paste. I have made this three times and love it. The spread definitely makes your toast a bit more substantial and it is great on English muffins also. Unfortunately, I am not going to make it again until I get a food processor. This just doesn’t work in a Magic Bullet. However, for those of you with food processors and decent blenders, you might want to try it.

As an update on the rice milk. I tried some today and while it is different, it isn’t to bad. However, the almond flour will have to go in the next batch, since it never seems to get properly mixed into the “milk”. I might also have to add a bit oil, just to make it homogenize a bit more. So still work in progress, but quite close.

Yesterday and Today

Yesterday I had a job interview at 1:00 so had a late lunch and then a late dinner. Since I just wanted something quick, easy and filling; the Chickpea Patties made another appearance. This time as a sandwich with BBQ sauce. originally I had planed to give the potatoes on the side the “Ellie Krieger” treatment (steam, smash and bake), but they were not the correct shape for that. So I ended up making Fingerling Fries from Vegan Express. The potatoes I couldn’t fit into the pan went under the broiler. Either way still good. That is just some steamed corn on the side. A nice, simple filling dinner after a long day. In case you are wondering, I found out this morning that I didn’t get the job. Oh well, once I found out what it was, I really didn’t want it anyway. Good pay, but long hours, and long term contract with no idea of when or if I would ever become a permanent employee. So just as well.

Dinner tonight was about using up some leftovers, again. The seitan is about the last of the Macadamia-Encrusted Seitan, that has been sitting in the freezer. I just put them in the toaster oven the same time as the sweet potatoes and they were done at the same time. The sweet potatoes were done a bit differently, I dribbled on the marshmallow sauce after they were on my plate, instead of putting it under the broiler. Might keep doing it this way, since it tastes just as good and is easier to do. The broccoli were just steamed and then sprinkled with my “Parmesan Cheese” I have been using (almond flour, nutritional yeast, and mustard powder). This was also good and I will have to try this with cauliflower. Easier to make and don’t have to keep around a “cheese” sauce to put on them. Also a bit healthier, than the “cheese” sauce would be.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

*edited becuase I should have referenced Ellie Krieger instead of Rachel Ray

Catching Up

Thank you for all your well wishes. You will all be happy to know that my fingers are much better today, with just a hint of a blister on my pinkie left. It should be gone in a day or two. And I am usually not so accident prone in the kitchen, but when I get busy and distracted, these things will happen. Vegetation, your suggestion of anesthetic crème is a good idea, but since we have limited first aide supplies, I had to settle for some aloe. Works just as good.

You will all be happy to know that I did not starve during all of this. On Friday for lunch I had some stir fried rice with some of the leftover stir fried vegetables in the refrigerator, rice and more the Sweet and Spicy Curried Miso Stir Fry Sauce. A nice simple lunch I could make easily with one hand.

For dinner I had some fried seitan with green beans and Dijon Beets. The seitan is coated in the leftover breading mix from when I made Lolo’s Fried Seitan Steaks a few weeks ago. Oh, trying to bread anything with one hand is an experience I suggest you avoid, very messy. The Dijon Beets are from the PDQ Vegetarian by Donna Klein. First thing I have made from this book and a nice way to eat beets. Basically you just heat up the canned, sliced beets and then coat in a dijon vinaigrette. Here they are warm, but you can eat them room temperature as well. And I really like this book from Donna Klein. It is based around products you can buy at the grocery store, such as pre-prepped and frozen products; so it works well for the way that I cook. Many of the dishes also seem to hold up well over a few days, so planned leftovers are an option. I believe that this is one of her first books, and like her other ones, it contains no recipes with tofu. Expect to see more from here.

Dinner tonight is Sweet and Sour Lentils, more of the Dijon Beets (room temperature this time), rice and steamed cauliflower with Citrus-Date-Sesame sauce from VCON. The recipe for the lentils is from vegweb.com. Not quite sweet and sour enough for my taste, but is nice in that it doesn’t make a lot. I have another recipe from Recipezaar, but it makes a ton, since you start with ½ lb lentils. Both are good though. The Dijon Beets were quite good from the refrigerator, so when I do finally get a job, they will be a nice addition to my lunch boxes.

All for today, see you tomorrow.

Crispy Sweet and Sour Seitan

This is another Lolo recipe. In fact, great minds must think alike, since Vegetation made this just last week. I had planned on making it last week as well, but never got any seitan made, so had to push it off till today.

Sorry that picture looks so bad, but just could not get the camera to take a good shot. Don’t know if it is because the battery is dying or just how I plated everything. If I had to do this again, I would put the broccoli and carrots in a ring around the sauce and seitan in the middle of the plate. Despite how it looks though, this was really good. And just to make it a bit different, I used one of Lolo’s variations that she gives with the recipe, the one for “orange sesame”. Since I didn’t have fresh orange rind, I used some of the dried from my spice rack, and only 1 tsp instead of the tablespoon; figuring that dried orange rind would be stronger than fresh. The sauce does end up with hints of orange and sesame, not overpowering, but a nice taste on the tongue. So even though the picture looks bad, dinner was quite good.

Seitan Mole with Vegetables and Rice

Dinner tonight was really simple. Just rice and corn steamed together. Some spaghetti squash added to that. Then some sliced (reheated) seitan and some of that mole sauce I made a few weeks ago. It all melded together quite well. And it wasn’t to spicy this time, since I remembered to dilute the mole with some vegetable stock to thin it out. Cuts the heat also. Still have a ton of the sauce also, so expect to see it once or twice a week till gone.

This was also a good dinner in that it was quite filling. And since Florida has officially had another cold front (thought we were through last week), it is darned cold here again. They say it will be back in the 80’s by the weekend, but I am not holding my breath. It seems like every cold front this year has come down to us. This is not the reason I moved from Kansas.

Two Dinners

Sorry about no post yesterday. That time of the month and my stomach as acting up again. Actually, I shouldn’t complain to much. It used to be like this for 3 weeks out of the month, till I went on birth control pills. However, it hasn’t come back since I had to stop taking them (since I could no longer afford to buy them or see a doctor, even at Planned Parenthood). One or two days a month, I can definitely live with.

But onto dinner last night. Yes, I did eat dinner. It wasn’t till later in the evening that my stomach started to act up. I made, what for a better term, would be a ratatouille lasagna with the leftover ratatouille and some of the polenta. The idea came from a recipe I have for a lasagna made with vegan pesto and polenta. However, finding vegan pesto in the Tampa area is just not possible and I really didn’t want to make any. But the recipe got me thinking and I wondered why something similar couldn’t be done with ratatouille. It worked, but I would do it differently the next time. The better way to do this would be to brown the rounds of polenta in some margarine, or even better, some olive oil. Warm up the ratatouille at the same time and make little stacks on the plate, sprinkling some vegan parmesan in top of each level. Then you have no need to put it in the oven and it looks a little nicer.

Tonight’s dinner is using up some leftovers. The kale, from Tuesday, and some of the Macadamia crusted seitan from last week. I cooked the kale down with some splashes of orange juice, tamari and a bit of garlic and ginger. The seitan was just reheated in the toaster oven and then sliced up and laid on the kale with the sauce. Sounds like an odd combination, but it was quite good. The kale was a bit sweet and salty and then the richness of the nut crusted seitan gets mixed in with that. And you get a bit of heat from the ginger. Kale is starting to grow on me, so it might be appearing a bit more often. Unfortunately, that will depend on how easy it is to buy small bunches of it, since the TeddyBear will not even try it.

All for this week. See you on Monday.

Seitan and Polenta Skillet with Kale

This dish is an adaption of the Seitan and Polenta Skillet with Fresh Greens in Vegan Express by Nava Atlas. For some reason, I thought the dish had kale, not Bok Choy and spinach. Since I didn’t realize this until after all the shopping was done, I decided to make the recipe with kale instead; figuring that the kale would be an acceptable substitution.

And boy is this really good. it has all these flavors and textures going at one time. The balsamic vinegar adds a nice touch of sweetness to the richness of the seitan and the kale. The polenta is crispy on the outside and soft inside, which is a nice contrast to the chewy seitan and somewhat still crisp kale leaves. And this is all with simple and basic ingredients and technique. This is a dish I could easily slip into making once a week, if I wasn’t careful.

If Vegan Express is not in your cookbook set and you need recipes that are easy and fast. This is the book for you. All of the recipes in the book are able to be made in anywhere from 15-45 minutes maximum. She also has some unrecipes for vegetables that make simple side dishes to help complete a meal, make a sandwich or a salad. Many of the dishes come with suggestions for how to turn the dish into a full meal for a family. She even has deserts. Since the book is now available as an eBook, you don’t even have to wait for the shipping. Both Mobipocket.com and Ereader.com have it for about 20 bucks. You can have it 5 minutes after ordering. Now if I could just get a nice slate touch screen computer to be attached to the refrigerator.

Easy Corn Cakes with Pantry Mole Rojo and Seitan

This is a recipe of Isa’s that I found over at The Veggie Patch by Vegetation. It is supposed to have corn waffles as the base for the seitan, veggies and mole sauce. Unfortunately, I have no waffle iron and no place in the kitchen to keep one, so it has been on hold for me till a suitable replacement was found. And thanks to SusanV over at Fat Free Vegan, a replacement came my way, Easy Corn Cakes.

Now my Easy Corn Cakes don’t look as nice as hers do. That may be due to the fact that I skipped the egg replacer. The recipe already has chickpea flour in it and I figured that they would be fine without the egg replacer, since it was such a low amount. I also skipped the hot pepper flakes, since the mole was going to be have enough heat in it. I should have had my pan on a higher temperature and then they might have come out better. They were still good though, with the taste and texture reminding one of cornbread.

I only really made one alteration to the Pantry Mole Rojo and Seitan, adding corn to the pepper, onion and seitan mixture. Just trying to get an extra veggie in there. However, in retrospect, I should have used less chili powder (note to self: chipotle chili powder is hotter than you think it is). It is far to spicy (had to eat a piece of bread after dinner to cool my mouth) and I couldn’t taste the chocolate in the mole. However, the mole is quite good and is much easier to prepare than the one in VCON. Will now have to try the dishes with mole from VCON to use up some of the sauce, since this recipe makes a ton. Should have done what Vegatation did, make only half a batch. There is enough mole in the refrigerator for weeks.

All for this week. Leftovers tomorrow so see you all on Monday.

Macadamia-Encrusted Seitan with Mango Broccoli Slaw

That decadent plate you see is a result of this recipe from the VegCooking site. To bad the TeddyBear doesn’t like broccoli, or this could have been Valentine’s Day dinner as well.

And even though all this doesn’t look like it goes well together, the slaw is a perfect foil to the seitan. It is crispy, a bit sweet and spicy. With an added plus of orange juice in the dressing that makes the iron in the broccoli slaw more available to the body. And broccoli slaw, is that just not a perfect invention. A very sneaky way to get people to eat the one vegetable most people hate, broccoli. The mango in the slaw adds a very nice touch. In fact, you could almost eat the slaw as a dish of its own.

The seitan is from a double batch of my Baked Seitan Steaks I made this morning. The steaks are so thick, that they had to be cut in half so that they would cook through properly. Unfortunately, when roasting the macadamia nuts, I overdid it a bit. Not a nice way to learn that 10 minutes in an oven, can be different than 10 minutes in a toaster oven. Don’t think it affected the fried seitan all that much, though. The macadamia nut flour make them very rich tasting after frying. Which is counter balanced quite well by the slaw. All in all, a very good dish.

Chicken Fried Seitan

Dinner was about using up leftovers. The left over shredded cabbage from the wraps last week turned into coleslaw (and expect to start seeing more cold dishes, summer has returned to Florida). Which I normally don’t like, but was able to find a nice vinegar based dressing that wasn’t to sweet. I also used the unused batter and breading from LoLo’s Fried Seitan last week on my regular seitan recipe, just to use up as much as the batter and breading as possible. And it worked great. Nice to know that her breading makes any seitan taste good and crispy when fried up. Especially since the TeddyBear really likes Lolo’s recipe. I had enough to batter and fry an entire batch of seitan I made today and have enough left to do at least another half batch. It will make some very nice sandwiches over the next week or so.

On top of the seitan is some BBQ sauce. I had planned to make Bryanna’s Bourbon BBQ Sauce, but found that I didn’t have enough dijon mustard. Don’t have any garlic powder either. Oh well, both on the grocery list now. Will just have to make next time. At least I have the fall back of making this sauce.

One more thing before I go. If you are a regular reader of Becks-I am not a Rabbit’s blog, I hope by now that you have read it for the day. If not, you can find it here. And Becks, if you are reading this, please consider coming back to blog land. We will miss your humor and creative cartoons. And If you need help, just remember that some of us do have experience with what you are dealing with, and are here to help you. Please, do not be afraid to ask.