More Goodness from American Vegan Kitchen!

Here's a treat for you: Seitan Katsu with Tonkatsu sauce from American Vegan Kitchen. This is the perfect meal if you're craving crunchy and savory! Any of you craving chicken out there but don't want to fall back on your vegan diet? This should do the trick. You get all that southern fried goodness and none of the murder to our feathered friends!

While at the Cottage

 This was my daily view from the lake house where I spent my 40th birthday vacation! You can't see it, but there's a hot tub out on the deck. I spent a lot of time there when I wasn't in the kitchen.

 I made my infamous seitanic wingz. All you do is grab some seitan, lightly flour it, bake it up for a bit. I did 350 for ten minutes on each side. Once out of the oven, coat it with some wing sauce. It's not that hard and you have the fabulous flavor without any of the poultry or icky bones.

 I served it along with some fresh veggies and ranch style dip. I use beans as the base of the dip, and flavor it with ranch style seasonings. Think of it as ranchy, hummusy goodness.

For one night, we got rid of the kids and had some adult time together. I made this for dinner: The Jimwich from Vegan Sandwiches Save the Day! by Celine Steen and Tamasin Noyes. It's pan seared seitan served with bbq sauteed onions and FRIED PICKLES. It was SO GOOD.

How I get things done

My life gets hectic, and I bet yours does too! I'm currently working mandatory overtime until February, and that's 50 hours a week. Yuck. M-F I don't have time to do anything but work, throw dinner together, kiss the kids, and go to bed. But on the weekends, I cook two big meals and portion them in tupperware so I have stuff to eat throughout the week.

I know what you're going to do. You'll go get Chinese and feel awful about it. That's because that stuff has a bunch of grease and msg your body doesn't need. Save yourself a couple of bucks and make your own at home! This tasty ensemble is beefless broccoli in a garlic black bean sauce over rice. Easy peasy. You mix about a cup of black beans with some teriyaki sauce and a couple cloves of garlic in your blender to get the sauce. Mix that with some shredded carrots, broccoli, and seitan for the best stir fry around town. Pour it over rice, and you have a powerhouse lunch to make those days at the factory or office a little more tolerable. You will want to have a breath mint or gum to use afterwards, because the dish will turn your tongue into a little dragon with breath funkier than George Clinton.

Vegan MOFO Day #29: Using What You Have

 So what are they gonna do with all that canned and prepackaged food in prison? Make some seitan n' dumplings. It's super easy. You don't even need a recipe, right? Just make yourself some seitan stew using broth, veggies, and seitan. I like to thicken the mix with a little cornstarch so I have a nice thick stew. I used about 3T total for a 32 oz container of no-chicken broth. While the concoction is all nice and bubbly, plop your dumpling batter in the mix. Cook for 10 minutes covered, then another 10 minutes and you have a filling dinner.

Since I'm no recipe master, I used Bisquick-(accidentally vegan!) to make the dumplings.

Look, it's sausage!

There you go folks, a giant vegan polish sausage with kraut, peppers, onions, and served with tomato slices and rice pilaf. I only wished I could have eaten this outside. The sausage recipe is from Hearty Vegan Meals For Monster Appetites. My only frustration is that my sausage looks more like a bratwurst. Why can't my food look like the pictures in the book? Gah. It was still really good. I bet it would have even been better cooked on the grill!

You bet your buns they're that good!

Mr. J's birthday was a few weeks ago and he begged me for a copy ofHearty Vegan Meals For Monster Appetites by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman. I was stunned! He is incorporating more vegan meals than ever into his diet, and I really couldn't be any happier. He asked and received.

The magical vegan cookbook fairy sent me an autographed copy of HVFMA and The Complete Guide to Vegan Food Substitutions. ((((waving hands)))) I'm all kinds of farklempt! I haven't tried everything in the book, but I know enough to love it profoundly. LOVE IT! So far, I've tackled the super streusel-y muffins, the bbq buns, and tonight made some polish sausages to serve with peppers, onions, and kraut tomorrow. Food squee!

Pictured above is Vin's birthday lunch of BBQ Baked Buns served with a side of a broccoli salad I threw together. It was such a cinch. The beauty of HVFMA is that it is a really good transitional cookbook for those who are newly vegan, considering veganism, or if you just wanna blow omnivores away with some tasty down home equivalents to stuff that would normally make your doctor lecture you about cholesterol.

This book has received some unfair reviews, mostly by vegans who are surprised this isn't a salad cookbook, which makes me giggle. If the critical had looked harder, they would have seen the following review by Rory Freedman:

"Hearty Vegan Meals for Monster Appetites is a feast of indulgent, decadent goodness. If you're looking for a salad recipe for your health nut friends, this isn't the book for you. But if you're looking for the vegan answer to everything your meat eating mouth has ever wanted, you've come to the right place."

So really, people are disappointed by a book that clearly states what kind of food to expect? I mean I might whine if the book was titled Salads for Every Vegan, but it isn't. C'mon, the word MONSTER is in the title. I can't figure people out. What I can say with certainty is I want my food with flavor and filling. Salads? Get outta here, I want to make a meal that will turn into a video by Sir Mix-a-Lot. Back that plate up, do you hear me? Pass the wet naps too, because it is about to get messy in this bidnezz.

I often get overwhelmed with the sheer number of vegan cookbooks in veggietown. It's enough to drive a person nuts. After purchasing many books, I have come to the conclusion that I'm a diehard Steen/Newman fan. The recipes are taste bud tinglin' and Celine's food photography is to die for. I daydream of sitting at that big wood table she uses for taking photos. The food is piled high and I'm being totally pampered by both authors. ((((((sigh))))))

Do yourself a favor, save the salads for the dog days of Summer and get to gettin' on some substantial eats.

Dinner in a jiffy

One of the statements made in my first Compassionate Eating class is that veganism seemed impossible. I heard the word inconvenient a time or two as well. I just finished week 4 with my students and we talked about "Meet Your Meat."

In Colleen Patrick Goudreau's 30 Day Vegan Challenge she discusses taking back the words meat and milk. After all, vegans don't eat fake food--we eat very real food that is made directly from plants. I challenge you to get the following words OUT of your vocabulary: faux, pseudo, mock, et al. As a vegan, I don't feel I'm mocking anything. I'm embracing a life based on the conscious decision to not consume animals or animal byproducts. So call it fried tofu, bean burgers, and seitan nuggets.

I showed them that 1/4c. vital wheat gluten-(the main ingredient in seitan) has 23g of protein! So when someone asks me, "But where do you get your protein from?" I can first a) point out they ended a sentence with a preposition-(((snicker, I kid))), and b) that I get it from (((demonic voice))) SEITAN! The reverend thought this was funny.

Let's get back to inconvenience. You really need to evaluate what is more convenient, good health and well being or shoveling your face with stuff from a drive-thru? Let's face it, most of us eat this way more than we should. And what could be more inconvenient than food poisoning from tainted meat? I personally think heart attacks are inconvenient. Change perspectives.

The dish featured above is from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook: the Cheezy Broccoli n' Rice Casserole. This is such a cinch to throw together, even faster if you cook the rice beforehand in a rice cooker. It's creamy, comforting, cheap, and--oops! No broccoli. I subbed with my favorite, kale. Served it with a potato because I lovey-love-love starch like Ron Burgundy loves scotch.

Restaurant Review: A Taste of India, Bloomington

For Valentine's Day, Mr. J. took me to A Taste of India to eat a taste bud tingling dinner. I haven't wanted to eat much Indian food since going vegan because of the cream or butter used in most of the dishes. I used the ultra handy VegIU guide and felt confident because they assured most veg dishes could be made vegan.

Guess what? I got better than that. There is a cute little V with a leaf by all dishes that are vegan. There were so many to choose from, but we settled on samosas, chili pakora, chana masala, and bombay aloo. Mr. J. ordered his potatoes hot--I'm a heat person and I found them to be almost too spicy!

For the two of us the meal was less than $30 without a tip: that was for two appetizers, two entrees, and no dessert--which was fine because we were stuffed. The service was amazing, and the atmosphere was very romantic. There's a small section to sit on the floor if you so desire, and they have a flat screen television above the bar area that has Bollywood movies playing. I don't know what we were watching, but there was a parade of fabulous dancing led by a guy with a magnificent mullet. My only regret is not having my camera. Shame on me. So you'll have to deal with the picture of a batch of seitan tikka masala I made a couple of years ago. I really need to make that again. That was foodgasm inducing.

Funny how dinner time favorites evolve

I long for the day when someone isn't sick in my house. Kids are such adorable petri dishes. I have been playing nurse to a spouse and two children for the past couple of weeks. I fear the next illness that hits us will be zombieism. Then I'll get all freaked out because my family started the zombie apocalypse. Can zombies be vegan? I guess if the human consents, but I don't really recall any humans willingly giving themselves over to a pack of zombies. Laugh if you must, I do think about these things. And zombies are non discriminating. They'll happily nom on animals, and we all know that isn't vegan.


Anyway--when I'm sick, I really like comfort food. But this time I wasn't sick, I just wanted some probiotics. Well, since the P word is all the rage most people think you can only get that stuff from dairy yogurt. WRONG! Probiotics are just positive bacteria that fights the bad stuff and makes your colon have a happy face. You can find probiotics in most fermented or cultured milks.
In comes miso gravy. If you click on the link, you can see that I've been in love with it for a while. Back in the day I wasn't as confident in the kitchen, so I leaned a lot on premade vegan meats. Well tonight is that dish evolved.
Look at those chick-un croquets! Super easy to make: just take your favorite seitan recipe and tear it to bits. Mix it with a vegan buttermilk-(for you newbies, that's 2 caps of apple cider vinegar to 1 c. soy or other non dairy milk), breadcrumbs, and the appropriate spices. You now have something that will debunk the myths that vegan meat is not as good as animal meat. Pssst: it's the flavoring you crave, not the flesh. Animal protein is pretty much a blank slate like seitan or tofu is. You just have to know how to cook it! Buck up, campers--I know you can do it!

It's not________, it's this...

If I had a dollar for every time I heard "I can't go vegan because I could never give up ______", I'd be wearing my weight in gold chains and be knee deep in fly girls. I know what it feels like--wondering if there's any way you can get over having chocolate sans milkfat, tortillas without duck feather preservatives, the gooey stringiness of cheese, smoky crisp of bacon, and the salty hot tang of buffalo wings.

I don't eat fake food, I eat real food. When I want something that I crave from the pregan days, I simply go to some real eats that have those characteristics. Perfect example is this buffalo chicken salad with smoked almonds and guacamole dressing. This made me forget that it was the end of November. If there was a vegan version of Applebee's, this would be a top seller.

• The greens are a spicy mesclun mix which has a peppery bacony flavor. You can use any green you want, but I went this route.
  
• The buffalo seitan is a chicken like wheat meat lightly breaded and coated in Frank's hot sauce plus a little Earth Balance vegan margarine.
• Smoked almonds give me the savory salty crunch I seek. No, it's not bacon but pigs everywhere will thank you and so will your heart.
• Here's the one you don't thing belongs: guacamole dressing. The cool creamy avocado is a nice flavor against the greens, almonds, and the hot wing sauce. Individually these ingredients don't really say much, but when they all hang out and discuss how to please your taste buds, it's a combination that sings a joyful noise.

Eating this way isn't about achieving sainthood by depriving yourself of yummy food. Veganism is cheap, fun, accessible, and absolutely delicious.

Such a ham...and a lousy photographer.

Hey readers,

I've been caught up in the pre-holiday hoopla and had a cold. Nothing clears the sinuses like a nice spicy ham salad topped with onion and a striped roma tomato. Of course you have to serve it on homemade bread, this ain't no Arby's. This also ain't no professional photography joint. But that's the beautiful I-don't-give-a-shit aesthetic you've come to love and enjoy. That picture is blur-ay. Gasp!

Just take a couple cups of cubed shapeshifter ham, add 1/3 c. vegan mayo, 1T siracha-(or favorite hot sauce), 1/2 t of agave or maple syrup, pepper, pinch of salt, and 1/4 chopped green and yellow peppers. Really you don't have to have the veggies--I just had them around the house. Mix it all together and you have a nice ham salad. I bet if you pureed it all you could easily mock that crazy stuff sold in the tubs at grocery store delicatessens. Mmmmm, sandwich spread in a tub.

Toast your bread of choice and top two slices with the ham salad mixture and top with onion and tomato. Pairs nicely with a corn chowder or tomato soup.

MOFO Day #18 True Grub: Cooter's Hash w/ Alcide's Comeback Sauce

Have you been out all night hangin' out with Cooter? I hope to God that's not his birth name. Perhaps it is something more dignified like Charles, Rutherford, or Winston.

I can tell you've been up to something devious. Have you been vamp napping for The King of Mississippi? Just look at those dark circles under your eyes. Sit down, have some coffee, and have a plate of Cooter's Hash.
It's not that complicated. It's just chopped up baked potatoes that are fried with onions, seitan, and topped with Alcide's Dilly of a Comeback Sauce. Get some toast and juice to go with your hash and coffee--you're on your way to recovering from your shenanigans at Lou Pine's Bar.

Oh, and don't worry about that branding on your shoulder. I'm sure it is some weird initiation thing. It's probably a reminder to tell all of your friends in the USA about my 1 million US hit goal for MOFO.

MOFO Day #11 True Grub: Grampy's Goat Tongue

Some people have all the luck. Some people have grandpas that make them goat's tongue for dinner followed by some lessons in black magic. All my grandpa ever did was take me to Big Bear to watch fireworks and sing songs about Kool-Aid. Why didn't I get a goat's tongue? I guess I'll have to make one myself. That's the great thing about being a vegan. I don't have to kill anything but some VWG and a can of beans to make great meat.


Once you make your wheat/bean meat dough shape it into a tongue. You remember anatomy class, right?
If you're not so hot with biology, just give it your best shot.
Wrap your tongue in foil and exaggerate the tongue shape, because it will swell when steaming.


Jesus's abuelo likes to serve his plain, which can be kind of boring. A flower and some chilies make the presentation slightly more attractive. Or you can grind your goat tongue up and mix it with some BBQ sauce, taco seasonings, or whatever.

Grampy's Goat Tongue

Dry Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 c vital wheat gluten
• 1/4 c soy flour
• 2T instant tapioca
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/2 t pepper
• 1/4 t cafe bustello
• 3/4 t oregano
• 2 t cumin
• 1 t chili powder
• 1/4 t cayenne-(optional for heat)
• 1 t garlic powder
• 2 t onion powder

Wet Ingredients

• 1/2 c mashed pinto beans or canned re fried beans
• 1/4 c red wine vinegar
• 1/4 c water
• 1/2 c pureed salsa (your favorite brand, I used my own)
• 2 T canola oil
• 2 T finely chopped pickled jalapenos (optional--this is for heat)
• 1 T hot sauce (optional if you like heat)
• 1 T of adobo sauce from a can of chipotles (optional if you like heat)
  
• 1 T worc. sauce (Kroger brand is vegan)

Mix wet and dry together to make your dough. Shape into tongues and wrap individually in foil, exaggerating the tongue shape. Steam for about 45-60 minutes, checking on them after 45. They should be firm. Cool completely, unwrap, and store in a tupperware container in the fridge. Plop your tongues in some tomato soup with salsa and surprise your friends.

MOFO Day #2 True Grub: Sam's Shapeshifter Ham

This second recipe is a must for True Grub: Sam's Shapeshifter Ham. I won't lie--texture wise it ain't ham. I think it is because I used a crock pot to cook it instead of a roasting pan in the oven, and I was warned by my PPK vegan sisters to not do that. I'm such a rebel. I did that for a reason, though. I wanted to make a wheat meat that could be used for multiple dishes. You'll want to use the leftover stock and floaty bits for another True Grub recipe or freeze as a soup base if you please. Hence the name of shape shifter.

Pigs everywhere thank you for letting them live out their dream of being a Jamaican bobsled team.

The way to serve this stuff up right is to slice as thin as you can and pan fry it a little until it's crispy. The flavor reminds me of a nice honey baked ham loafy thing my mom would buy at the supermarket. I was raised on a lot of loafy type meats. Loaf. Heh-heh.

This recipe is a mash up, a hybrid of sorts utilizing Bryanna Clark Grogan's* ham recipe and the recipe from Taymer Mason's* Carribean Vegan. I added some PITA Vegan flair, but I'll give all the credit to them for the inspiration. Thanks, ladies! I call this Shape Shifter Ham because a) ham rhymes with Sam b) this is super versatile and can be used in multiple dishes, just like Sam can be a super hot owner of a bar, a drunken asshole, a collie, a horse, or a hawk.

*I received permission from Bryanna to talk about her recipe and list ingredients from it. As of today, I have not heard from Taymer, but have credited both authors and highly suggest you support them by buying their books.

Sam's Shape Shifter Ham
A recipe mash up of Bryanna Clark Grogan, Taymer Mason, plus some PITA Vegan love!

Dry Ingredients:

• 1.5 c. vital wheat gluten
• 1/2 c. soy flour
• 2 t. onion powder
• 1 t. garlic powder
• 1/4 t. allspice
• 1/4 t. white pepper
• 1/4 t. ground cloves
• a few turns of fresh black pepper
• 1 T instant tapioca

Wet Ingredients:

• 3T soy, tamari, or Bragg's
• 2T pure maple syrup or agave
• 1/2 c. favorite bacon bitz plus 1 c. hot water, set aside
• 2T bbq sauce
• 3/4 t liquid smoke
• 1T sesame oil
• 1c. water

Simmering Broth:

• 2c. veg broth, drained soy curl water, or used seitan stock
• 1c. super strong coffee-(here's where day old joe can work in your favor)
  

Mix your wet with dry in a food processor, except for the blended bacon bitz. Add the bacon bitz slurry last. Don't freak out: it WILL look like a giant wad of bubble gum. Let the magic happen! Under the power of the full moon, set that giant spongy orb in a crock pot with the broth and coffee. Set to high and check on it in about an hour. Flip it over in the broth carefully, but don't have a melt down if it falls apart a little--that's the beauty of being a shifter. Cook for another hour on high, flip again, and simmer on low for another hour. Did you know shifting could be so time consuming? It happens so fast on the show. Stupid television.

After the ham has cooked, very carefully extract the meaty thing from the crock pot and slice. It will be fluffy and loose, that's fine--the oven will dry and toughen it up. Bake on a greased cookie sheet at 350, flipping every 10 minutes or so until it has dried. You can use immediately in other True Grub recipes, or pan fry a little for a nice hot ham n' cheez sammie. If you're not going to use it immediately, that's cool-just put it in a container and stick it in the fridge. Use within a few days, or stick in the freezer. Take all that awesome broth and floaty bits and put in a container for later use: gravy, soup, or another batch of ham.

Pittsburgh Steak Sandwich

I figured it was a few days since I talked about Celine and Tami's sandwich cookbook. You'd think we were all dating, but we're all married--boo. T & C sure are dreamy, though. ((swoon))

This here is called the Pittsburgh Steak Sandwich and while it looks like a big ol' burger with some guac, it is not. It is a ginormous mouthful of marinated seitanic goodness on a cibatta roll with traditional burger toppings. Just look at that seitan. Have you ever seen anything so pretty? Ring-ring, who is it? It's Elsie the Cow thanking you profusely for saving her life.

I suggested this be named the Allegheny County Belly Buster, because you really need to learn your PA counties, and this sandwich does stress the stomach a little, so you can eat this sandwich alone and be just fine. No fries needed.

MOFO is just days away--can you feel the excitement in the air? Get the word out about my million hit goal! I've created a tab for it at the top of the page. Thanks for being the best followers in the world.

Tell Tofurkey to get bent!

What do we have here, a log of some kind? Looks kind of plain, is this a batch of slice and bake cookie dough, or some sort of crazy mystery meat?
Yes, it is a log. No, it ain't cookie dough. And a big FAT NO to the mystery of this meat. This is a shot of what you can do with Celine and Tami's Gobbler Slices from their upcoming sandwich book. I put mine on a cibatta roll with bacon bitz, red onion, beannaise*(DUDE OMG!), and some fresh parsley and tomatoes from my garden.

Are you sick of reading about this cook book? You shouldn't. You should be setting aside some money to buy it, and more importantly buy some stock in what could possibly be the best seitan based meat since Tofurkey. You hear me, Tofurkey? Be afraid. Be very afraid.

It's that good.

Jamaican me crazy!

Hey mon, you know what I could really go for? Marinated seitan that makes me hum Bob Marley tunes and served with a gloriously fruity salsa. Hot-salty-sweet-fruity-meaty-seitany goodness. Throw that on a bun and call it a day, why don't you?

You were supposed to read that with an accent, btw.

This is called the Jamaican Dip, but I'd rather call it the Sister Cleo. You'll be predicting the future and charging people $5.99 a minute just to talk to you after eating one. I hope your interest in Celine and Tami's upcoming sandwich cookbook is growing, because I keep testing like a testing fool.

Don't forget vegan MOFO is next month. And boy howdy, do I have a theme for your eyeballs.


Sorry I'm not funnier today. I've been sick the past two days and both kids are ill as well. I'll bring the buckets of chuckles later.

Sure, I'll have some meat.

Give me a home where the buffalo roam: The Wingwich.

I'm working on the video entry from VVC, and because of the time involved, it will be a bit before it is posted. That won't stop me from talking about yummy food.

Hands down, the most inspiring part of the conference was listening to Colleen Patrick Goudreau's discussion on how important it is to be an ambassador of compassion. She preached the good news of taking back the words meat and milk. I remember reading about this in Veg News a while back and going, "Uh-huh!" while pumping my fist into the air.

So listen up, even though I'm a vegan I DO eat meat and I DO drink milk. Both are sourced from plants which are real living things, so there's no need to call it fake, faux, pseudo, et al. I think it is a disservice to veganism to call meat "fake" because it just reinforces the stereotype that vegan food is awful. The food I eat is delicious and real. I encourage you to look at some of the food on this blog. Just look at the shot of that buffalo sandwich at the top of the page. Does that look like an illusion? This is one of the many noshables you'll find in Celine and Tami's upcoming vegan sandwich cookbook. Shown above is the Wingwich, and a twist on the Reuben called the Rachel is shown below the text. Both were amazing to test, eat, and most of all--were REAL sandwiches.

The Rachel: like BBQ pulled pork? Like reubens? Why not have both?

Readers: what keeps you from trying vegan food? What would you like to see veganized?

Vegans: what meat kept you from attempting veganism/vegetarianism?

i fell in to a burnin' wing of fire...

i love seitan--but let me be clear, i'm a seitanist, not a satanist. perhaps if the lord of the underworld were an actual chunk of wheat gluten i might reconsider my respective faith, but i'm pretty sure the devil doesn't even exist. i know, i know--this is a vegan blog, and not a religious blog. so anyway, i'm sure these nuggets reign with an iron fist in the fire of hades.

seitan is super easy to make, but can take some time. that's why it's easier to just buy it pre-packaged at the store. i'm begging you to take the time to make it yourself, because you'll save a ton of money. for the cost of one pre-packaged container of seitan, you can buy a box of vital wheat gluten and make several batches of it. easy part: gluten+water=rubbery dough=seitan. the time consuming part is boiling it in the broth. depending on how you make your broth ( i use bragg's, nutritional yeast, garlic, ms. dash, and poultry seasoning for a chicken flavor) will create the flavor of your fake meat. you have to bring the broth to a boil, add the rubbery dough in chunks, and simmer checking on it every 10 minutes for 50 minutes.

once your seitan is cooked, drain and toss it in a pan with frank's red hot, earth balance, crushed garlic, and some tobasco if you want it hotter. blammo! you got some hot "wings". serve pub style with celery stix and ranch dressing. i'm still looking for a GOOD vegan bleu cheez dressing but haven't found one i like yet. note: if you have a wheat intolerance, i guess you could use tempeh, which you'd have to buy pre-packaged. if you're allergic to soy, i guess you're screwed.

buffalo seitan salad

i love a good summer salad. and since summer=hot as hell, what makes the hellish environment more bearable than good ol' seitan? this photo was taken mid-summer after i had harvested some greens from my garden. i topped the lettuces with buffalo seitan and garnished with marigold leaves and vegan bleu cheese dressing. the dressing was a big ol' fail, but it sure looked pretty!

buffalo seitan is super easy to make. take some seitan, earth balance, frank's red hot, and add some chili sesame oil and some crushed garlic for good measure. it certainly ain't no health food, but the lettuces should take care of that....right?!?!?!

btw, this tastes great with a frosty root beer-(or ginger ale if you're chelsea.)