Making Your Own Seitan

I've been wanting to make my own seitan for a long time, especially since the pre-made seitan is so overpriced. It turned out to be way easy.

Ingredients:
10 oz package of Vital Wheat Gluten
2 cups water

Preparation:
1. Empty the package into a large mixing bowl.
2. Stir in water. Pay special attention to mixing it thoroughly, or you'll end up with areas in your seitan that are tough and chewy.
3. Knead until completely mixed, and form into a ball. Let rest for 5-10 minutes.
4. While that's resting, prepare a boiling pot of water with optional broth or flavors. I used fake chicken bouillon and veggie broth.
5. Add in setian (either chopped into large or small pieces, or as the entire ball) and reduce to a simmer.
6. Let it simmer for a looong time. I did it for more than an hour. Check for a cooked texture similar to chicken, and taste-test to make sure it is as flavorful as you'd like.

After preparing it, you can eat it plain, store it in the broth to soak up more flavor or prepare it with a sauce. I usually make it with the same sauce I use in the Asian-Style Marinated Tofu.

Vegan BLT Wrap

This is one of my favorite sandwiches. I make this constantly.

Ingredients:
1 low-carb tortilla (I use Mission Carb-Balance) You might also try using lettuce as a wrap.
2 small tomatoes
Romaine Lettuce or other greens
Vegan Mayonnaise
Vegan Bacon Bits or vegan bacon broken up into pieces.

Preparation:
1. Spread vegan mayonnaise on the tortilla.
2. Sprinkle bacon bits on the mayo. You can leave this out if you'd like. I try to find bacon bits with non-terrifying chemicals in them. The good thing is, most bacon bits are vegan, they just don't advertise it.
3. Add tomatoes and lettuce and wrap it up like its 1992!

Scrambled Tofu

I decided to try scrambled tofu, specifically the recipe from the Post Punk Kitchen.

I love the recipes over there! I already have two of their cookbooks, Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook and Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar: 100 Dairy-Free Recipes for Everyone's Favorite Treats. I just made some of the chocolate chip cookies from the latter, and they were very addicting! Nom!

Anyway, I sauntered over to their blog and found their scrambled tofu recipe.
I had wanted to try scrambled tofu for some time, considering that tofu is a pretty low-carb item, and I already have a pretty big crush on the stuff. We're total besties.

It turned out really well! It was really fast, easily customizable and was definitely a comfort-food. The Omninator liked it, and that's always a sign that the recipe's a real winner. I ended up skipping the thyme because I didn't have any, and I left out any add-ins (such as the mushrooms and onion) because I wanted to check out the tasty-ness of the base recipe. I would highly recommend a delicate touch when "scrambling" it. I went a little nuts with the stirring and ended up with more crumbles than chunks.

Rating: 5 out of 5 Noms!

Post-Apocalypse

Sorry for the short hiatus. It was a dark and stormy night the end of the semester, and I was conquering sea monsters finishing up classes. Also, the husband (henceforth to be referred to as The Omninator) graduated, and will be leaving me to go to grad school soon.

I will get back to blogging about eating/food (bleating/flogging?) very shortly!

Asian-Style Marinated Tofu

This is one of my favorite recipes. The tofu is deliciously flavorful, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.

Ingredients:
Pan-Fried Tofu
1/4 cup Soy Sauce or Bragg's
1 tbsp Rice Vinegar
2 tsp Sesame Oil
2 tbsp Honey or Agave Nectar
2 tsp Garlic Powder
2 tsp Ginger Powder

Preparation:
1. Put soy sauce, rice vinegar and the sesame oil in a large pan and place on Medium heat. Stir until mixed.
2. Add honey and stir until the honey is dissolved.
3. Season with garlic and ginger.
4. Add in the pan-fried tofu and stir until the tofu is well coated.
5. Let the tofu and sauce simmer until the sauce thickens and the tofu has a thick glaze on it.
Optionally, you can add sesame seeds or crushed peanuts on top.

Serve on broccoli, with brown rice and peas, on wilted kale or bok choy etc.

Pan-Fried Tofu

This is the base recipe for most of my tofu dishes.
Ingredients:
1 pkg Tofu (Extra Firm)
Olive Oil (I use a spray)

Preparation:
1. Drain the tofu
2. Cut the tofu into small pieces. I like thin, square-ish pieces.
3. Coat a large pan in a thin layer of olive oil. I recommend using olive oil in a spritzer to get good coverage without using a lot.
4. Turn on Medium heat. If your tofu is taking too long to brown, you may want to turn the heat up a little later on.
5. Add a single layer of the tofu to the pan and let it sit there for about 5 minutes. You'll want it to turn a nice golden brown.
6. Flip the tofu and let the other side brown. This usually takes a little less time than the first side.
7. Continue until all the tofu has been pan-fried.

After the tofu is prepared, add sauces or spices to taste.

How to Drain Tofu, Quickly

Being vegan, it's pretty hard to avoid using tofu at least once a week or so. Personally, I love tofu, so I enjoy using it in the occasional stir fry or pot pie. However, in the past I neglected to use it due to the time-consuming process of preparing it.

A couple months ago I was in the kitchen after making some delicious vegan cookies (not so low-carb, but oh so wonderful), and I still had my cooking racks out. I wanted to have tofu with dinner, but I was hesitant...until I decided to use the cooling racks to help!

I got out a dish cloth and put it underneath the cooling rack, then I put a single folded paper towel sheet on the rack, and put the tofu on top of that. I added one more paper towel on top of the tofu and a heavy object (I happened to use a large can of beans I had laying around). I let it set for two or three minutes and came back to a perfectly prepared block of tofu!