Gyros!

It's been a while since we've made gyros, but they are still a family-favorite around here.  I don't know if it's the sloppy tzatziki sauce, the cool cucumbers, the warm seitan or the slight resemblance to the beloved Doener, but we love them.  We made them last Friday and we cleaned our plates!  Will loves seitan and we've been trying to fill him with yogurt (he's on antibiotics for pink eye and an ear infection), so it was a win-win for him.  It was a lazy version, because we already had some seitan in the freezer that we just marinated quickly in broth, oregano and a few other spices before heating, whipped together a cucumber-yogurt tzatziki sauce and through it all in a pita with cucumber, lettuce and tomato.  Quick, but satisfying and delicious!

Chad loves gyros!

Almond, seitan and sesame Tagine

I bough Vegan Eats World about a month ago and I've been a little intimidated by it.  So many recipes, so many ingredients, so much prep... but everything looks so good!  I thought if I try just one new recipe each week it won't be so daunting.  First on the list-- almond, seitan and sesame tagine (page 159).  It really wasn't as hard as I had myself convinced it would be (maybe it helps that I made it on a snow day, so I had plenty of time!) and it was well worth the time and effort.

Toast the almonds and sesame seeds.

Sautee onions.

Add seitan and garlic.

 

Spice it up!

Everybody in the pot.

Add toasted pitas and serve!

I don't think this was in the directions...

American Vegan Kitchen.. revisited!

We've been doing a pretty good job keeping our cookbooks active since the challenge ended.  We've probably made something out of American Vegan Kitchen at least once a week.  One of our favorites is still the Coconut Bacon Bits, but here are some other goodies:

Seitan Po' Boys

These were the perfect flavorful and messy sandwich!  Aside from making the seitan (which I did the day before) they were also pretty quick to make.  We served them on French bread, as suggested, with pickles, mustard and a little extra mayo.

Brew City Stew

We used the extra seitan to make this stew.  The seitan really picked up the flavor of the beer, which I didn't expect.  It was really hearty and gave us enough to dinner and leftovers for lunch.

Brewpub Tater-Tot Pie

This might not be the prettiest dish, but it was definitely one of my favorites from this book.  We used a can of kidney beans in place of the TVP and omitted the mushrooms, otherwise we followed the recipe.  Again, the flavor of the beer really came through in this, so pick a beer that you like!  This is a relatively quick meal to keep in mind for the fall or winter.

Bring on the Burgers!

My latest addition to my cookbook collection is "The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet: 101 Globally Inspired Vegan Creations Packed with Fresh Flavors and Exciting New Tastes" by Joni Marie Newman that came out on May 1.  I pre-ordered it through Amazon was excited to find it at my door when I came home from school the last week in April.  This looked like it would be the perfect book for summer grilling.  Well, first of all, the book itself it gorgeous.  It's heavy for a paperback, with thick,colorful pages and pictures for about every third recipe.  To boot, the recipes are great too!

So far, we have tried three burgers:

grilled, topped and ready to eat!

Our first burger adventure was the Chipotle Sweet Potato Burger.  Chad and I love all things chipotle, so this was an easy choice.  The burger had a great texture from a combination of baked sweet potato, tofu and cashews.  We grilled these outside, which could have gone better.  Next time I will take Joni's advice and freeze the burgers before grilling them.  We had a lot of burger stuck to the grill, but they were delicious, regardless.  We topped them with avocado and tomatoes and skipped the buns.  I also made a side of black bean and rice salad with some homemade chipotle mayo.

baked to (almost) perfection

The next burger was the Jamaican Jerk Burger.  We had some leftover seitan from making Seitan Brew Stew (from American Vegan Kitchen) earlier in the week, so this burger was really easy to throw together.  I don't know if I added too much liquid or not enough dry or what I did, but this burger never really held together.  We baked it, so it wasn't a big deal, but it turned out to be a crumbly, yet tasty, burger.  We'll definitely have to experiment a bit more with this one if we want to grill it.  I enjoyed the flavor from the pineapple and hot peppers. 

Tonight we made Garlicky Ranch Potato Burgers.  I am pretty much in love with these burgers.  They were SO easy to make and were FULL of flavor, despite an ingredient list shorter than 10 ingredients.  This is definitely a recipe to keep in mind, because usually have everything on hand.  They were like bulked up, super tasty hash browns in burger form.

Cook Book Challenge Week #11

Vegan Brunch

Wednesday's Menu:  Red Flannel Hash and Chorizo Sausages

Thursday's Menu:  Navy Bean Gravy

I should be out running this morning, but I think my stomach is still trying to decide what to do with the greasy goodness of last night's Beer-Battered Tofu.  What else is there to do, but to eat a bowl of cereal and finish blogging about this week's meals?

On Wednesday, we made another pretty simple meal-- Red Flannel Hash with Chorizo Sausage.  I have to admit, this was the first time I bought a beet.  I've never been a huge fan, so I don't go out of my way to find or eat them.  Chad, on the other hand, loves beets, which is why he picked this recipe.  It came together really quickly, just chop the potatoes and beet, heat in a pan for a bit, then toss in the oven.  Before we chopped everything for the hash, I started the sausage, which is basically steamed seitan in sausage form.  The dough was pretty wet and I had just enough vital wheat gluten, but they turned out pretty perfectly.  Next time, I'll make sure to wrap them in extra aluminum foil, because each sausage exploded out of it's wrapper in the steamer.  I chopped two into slices and pan fried for a bit before serving.  This meal was pretty filling and definitely had a "meat and potatoes" feel.  Next time, I would make sure to plan for a fruit or vegetable on the side. I can also see adjusting the beans and seasonings in the sausage for different occasions, because it was fairly easy to make.

Our third meal of the week was Navy Bean Gravy with "buttermilk" biscuits.  This gravy was amazing!  Biscuits and Gravy is another one of my favorite breakfast meals.  So far, we've only used the Gimme Lean Sausage with a basic butter, flour and milk gravy.  The Navy Bean Gravy doesn't even compare!  It's so thick from the blended beans and flavorful from the surprisingly few seasonings.  After the gravy thickened up a bit, I added about a cup of pinto beans and a teaspoon of fennel seed to give it a little sausage-y flavor.  I will definitely make this gravy again, because it is WAY better than my simple gravy!

At the end of the week, I loved "Vegan Brunch" as much as I thought I would.  I checked this book out from the library, but it might need to join my collection soon!  We really enjoyed everything we made this week and recipes were all pretty quick and simple.  There are still many things I really want to try, like the Bagels, English Muffins and Scones.  Someday, I'll get through everything!

Cook Book Challenge Week #8

American Vegan Kitchen

Tonight's Menu: Seitan and Herb Dumplings

this bowl is full of comfort!

I'll start this post by saying that I burned my tongue because I couldn't wait for a taste of this!  We didn't have everything we needed, but I've looked at this recipe every night as I flip through the book and we had all of the important ingredients.  It took some patience, because made the seitan and the stew tonight.  When we got home from school, we started the Seitan Lite, popped it into the oven, went for a quick run, turned the oven off, stretched for a bit, chopped veggies, watched a little TV and finally started to prepare the stew.  Once the seitan was done and the stew was simmering, we had time to clean up the kitchen and do a few other things.  I plopped the dumplings in early, because I couldn't wait! I almost doubled the dumpling recipe, but I'm glad I didn't because they more than doubled in size while cooking.  I thought the veggies might be a little crunchy since I didn't let it simmer the full time before adding the dumplings, but everything came out perfectly done.  This recipe was packed with flavor... it was full of seasoning at every step-- the seitan, the broth, the stew and the dumplings.

this speaks for itself

This was a perfect Friday night meal, especially tonight as it's rainy and chilly outside!  It might be a little too much prep for a mid-week meal, but now that we have some pre-made seitan, it would be much quicker.  Either way, it satisfied my dumpling craving and left us with plenty for lunch tomorrow!

I guess I should reflect on this week's challenge with "American Vegan Kitchen."  I absolutely loved everything we made this week.  I'm also super excited because we successfully made two new seitan recipes-- one baked and one steamed.  We couldn't stop raving about most things, and the only thing I would change would be to double the recipes to produce more left overs. I'm glad I finally got into this book, and it's one I won't stay closed for long; there are so many more recipes to attempt!

P.S.  Picture to follow soon!

Cook Book Challenge Week #8

American Vegan Kitchen

Last Night's Menu:  Greek Town Gyros with Tzatzika Sauce & Midtown Greek Salad

This was the second seitan recipe that we've made.  I made the first one in the slow cooker, which was so easy.  I was a little worried about this recipe, because it needed to steam.  Either I'm a seitan pro or I'm just really good at following recipes, but this turned out (what I believe to be) perfectly!  We were both amazed by the flavor.  It's been a few years since I've had a gyro, but the flavor and even the texture were exactly what I remember.  AND the seitan was maybe even a little better than what I remember, because it didn't come from a twirling spindle of meat.

Okay, enough about that... this meal was a BIG winner.  It was amazing.  It was everything I expected.  Again, I can't say enough good things about it. It was also a quiet meal, with a few mmm's and yum's, because that's about all we could say in between monster big bites.  I really liked how the seitan turned out from slicing and pan frying.  The sauce made it a sloppy mess, which is exactly my kind of sandwich.  I ate two big pitas full of seitan, veggies and sauce AND a salad... I couldn't resist the second one.  The recipe says this serves four, but I think the amount of seitan, depending how thinly you slice it, can serve twice that.  Just chop lots of veggies.

We managed to save enough of the seitan for leftover Greek Salads tonight, which I'm pretty excited about!

Cook Book Challenge Week #2

Veganomicon

Last Night's Menu: BBQ Seitan & Crispy Coleslaw and Wheat-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies



messy bbq goodness

Mmm.. Last night was a good night for food!  Actually, going back to Tuesday night we decided to try our hand at homemade seitan.  I've been a little intimidated to try making it, but using the Simple Seitan recipe and tips from the PPK (cold broth, simmer in slow cooker) it turned out better than I hoped!  It was very similar in texture to packaged seitan that we've bought from the store and easier than I expected.  I also tossed the coleslaw and dressing to let it flavor up overnight.



going in for a monster bite!

Wednesday's job was pretty easy, since we did all the difficult work Tuesday night.  We just had to slice the seitan, pan fry it and assemble the sandwiches.  We served it on store-bought ciabatta rolls, which were a good choice.  Next time though, I'd probably heat them in the oven for a bit or toast them in the pan.  The first bite of the sandwich was exactly as I expected-- a little heat from the BBQ sauce, cool and crunchy slaw, and a sloppy mess falling everywhere!

Since dinner was pretty quick, I decided to bake some cookies for dessert.  I found Wheat-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies and had everything I needed.  They use oat flour instead of wheat, which I made by blending some old-fashioned oats.  I think it made the cookies crunchier than normal wheat flour.  I also subbed toasted almond oil from the Oilerie for the canola oil and almond milk for the soy milk.  As a bonus, the librarian at my school is gluten-free, so I can share some of the deliciousness with her!

As if signing up for the race wasn't enough motivation to run, the three cookies I had for dessert should do it...