Hail Seitan!

Hi, Y'all,

Due to a family emergency I had to rush to Germany lately, and therefore it's been a while since I last posted. But now I'm back, everybody is fine and it's going uphill again!

And therefore I'd like to show and tell about my latest kitchen concoction, because except from a baby blanket I had nothing to DIY or sew. 

In preparation of my trip to Germany hubby confirmed that he was willing and able to cater for him and Heinrich, but I thought, a few frozen pizzas wouldn't hurt... Thus I prepared my usual pizza crust in two round sheet pans and pre-baked them for 10 minutes. Then I topped them with tomato sauce, lots of veggies and some kind of cheese preparation made from sunflower seeds. 

For this cheese I soaked a cup of sunflower seeds over night, and the next day I mixed them with some water in my blender. I added nutritional yeast, some seasoning and corn starch and mixed again. In a pot I cooked that mixture until it thickened and then I placed it in an oiled mold and let it cool down. It goes very well on pizza, casseroles and on a slice of bread, and although it doesn't melt as well as real dairy cheese, it is very tasty. Looked like this:

Put that in the freezer, and the finished beauties can be gefrostet and finished in the oven like any normal frozen pizza. 

I don't want to start any discussions about the necessity of vegan copycats of meat, sausages or cheese. My very own opinion on that matter is: if anybody tries to avoid animal products to support animal welfare but still likes the taste of it, there is no harm in preparing plant-based burger patties or cream cheese. And like this I found a YT channel called "The pot thickens". A very nice guy who reminded me very much of the global CEO of my employer - in fact he could be his twin! But he has nothing to do with Carmine di Sibio, actually he is a self-taught chef who has been living plant-based for a while now. His calm and wonderfully unaggravated way of explaining things made me wanting to try a few recipes he presented on his channel.

First I tried some washed wheat flour seitan - although you can make it from different ingredients, I found this genius in its simplicity. The basic principle is this: You make a very simple dough consisting only of wheat flour and water, and then you wash out the starch to keep the gluten. So I made that dough, kneaded it thoroughly, covered it with water and let it sit in the fridge over night. The next day I got rid of the water and poured fresh water into the bowl. Then I massaged the dough in the water to get the starch out of the dough. This process made the water opaque and white. I did this six times and kept the starchy water from the first two washings - will come back to it later. The dough then showed some rubbery texture and rolled out it looked like that: 

I cut that into three partitions and braided them while pulling them at the same time to lengthen the fibres and to reach a chicken-like texture. I knotted the braid a few times and let it rest for half an hour or so. 

At that point the whole thing may taste as intensive as its color :-) and therefore, you have to boil it in a spicy broth for appr. 2 hours. I seasoned that broth with miso paste, veggie stock powder, lovage, smoked and sweet paprika and some more. After boiling I let the seitan cool down and put it with the liquid into the fridge over night. 

Now you can pull that seitan apart - either with two forks or your fingers, and it looks like shredded chicken. You could use it for a multitude of dishes, e.g. cut it into nuggets and fry them, add it to a fricassee or mix it into a poultry salad and many more, but I opted for the pulled BBQ chicken. 

Thus I pulled the seitan (see above), cooked some BBQ sauce and kneaded some tortilla flats which I then fried in a pan and finally it was time for assembly: mix seitan with the sauce and place it in the tortilla, afterwards add some lettuce and tomato, top it off with vegan mayo and dive right in! It was a bunch of work but it was so worth it!!! 

Tortillas and BBQ sauce:

Work in progress (sorry, no Insta-worthy picture of a finished wrap...)

And now let's get back to the starch - I made some bacon! Yes, you read correctly... After the washings I was left with two Tupperware containers full of that starchy liquid. Over night the starch went down to the bottom of the containers, thus I removed the water on top and with a lot of seasoning similar to the aforementioned broth I made two very runny batters - one very light and one with a darker reddish color to represent the signature coloring of bacon. 

In a non-stick pan switched to medium heat I made a few thin crepes (and also kept the weird first one). I cut the crepes into strips and fried them in oil with a higher heat to get them extra crunchy - and nobody said they would be fat-free; you wouldn't expect that from real bacon, neither. The first crepe I cut into tiny pieces and fried them, too - et voila: bacon bits which are awesome as a topping for e.g. cashew cream cheese! 

Of course, there are a ton of other possibilities to imitate bacon, but this alternative was easy for me to reproduce, and we really liked the taste and the crunch. And as it was a by-product of the seitan, I liked it even more - a win-win situation, so to speak. Side note: Unlike original bacon this version stays crunchy for days, if you put it into a container in the fridge. 

Everybody deserves a second chance - even eggplant :-) For years and years I wasn't impressed by eggplants, I thought they were boring with the consistency of cotton wool, although they look super pretty. But miracles do happen, and since last week I am an official eggplant fan! And here is the reason why: 

Take your eggplant and dice it into teeny tiny cubes and cook them for roughly five minutes in a pan with olive oil and half a teaspoon of salt. Then add oat flakes, roasted sesame seeds, spices and - extremely important - psyllium husk with water. The latter soaks up the water and produces a rubber-like texture which is perfect for thickening. Mix everything quite thoroughly and let it rest for a bit in order to let the oat flakes absorb any remaining water. 

With this dough form little "meatballs" and coat them with breadcrumbs. 

Fry them with some oil in a pan until golden brown and crunchy. Then add a tomato sauce with lots of onions and garlic and serve it with spaghetti - simply irresistible! 

Unfortunately they were gone so quickly that I hadn't had the chance to make some pictures of the finished work of art... again... 

But as we speak of works of art... every Sunday the "extended family" gathers at Joe's and Mary's to end the week together. I like that tradition very much and usually don't come empty handed. And as I like a good challenge, everybody in turns can make a wish of what I should prepare. Last week it was "red velvet" - and of course, I want the vegan option to be as delicious as the original, thus: challenge accepted. I did some research and tried a few things, and this is the result: beautiful AND yummy! 

Next week I am planning New York cheese cake with silken tofu - will keep you posted... 

With that said - stay safe and don't ever be afraid to try something new!