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I just made a loaf of seitan in my breadmaker. Holy fuck, my life is changed forever. It literally has a’skin’ and then a soft center. Eating it with daiya and bbq sauce right now!
Okay, a more in depth explanation now that i have stopped stuffing my face!
It’s super easy! Put your wet ingredients in the bread maker first and then your dry ingredients on top (just like with bread)! Then just literally press the start button. I chose a regular white bread cycle with a medium crust. I found the crust to be perfect in terms of crispiness. My only complaint would be that my wheat gluten to water ratio was off; the center was a bit too soft for me. I should have known this just by looking at the texture and tried to eye ball it as i went but yeah, should have still used more gluten! You got lots of time to play around with texture since there are set times for rising. I would just open and check it out a long the way. mmmmmmmm!!
Picked up some Dutch “Choca Vlokken” vegan topping in Holland last week. Served on a pile of gay pancakes (Lou-inspired) with fruit salad and smoky maple beans. I’m going to miss Sunday brunches at Mathyld’s place.
Pancakes: Split a normal batter up into 5 bowls and add 5 drops of each colour (red and blue in the violet ones).
Beans: We were pressed for time so no soaked beans from scratch! Grab a 1kg can of white beans, add 1/4c of maple syrup, 1/2c tomato sauce and 1 tsp of liquid smoke, simmer for 10 min.
Fruit salad: cut up some fruit, dummy!
Yikes. Sorry for the long delay in updating.
Here are two more holiday dessert recipes, one is gluten-free.
Maple Walnut cookies and Peanut Butter Chocolate Buckeyes
Maple Walnut Cookies (1hr yields 24 cookies)
(modified from Trans-planted)
These go over well in Paris since maple syrup is expensive and not particularly plentiful.
1/2 cup canola oil margarine
3/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cornstarch or arrow root powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup finely chopped walnuts
Preheat oven to 350° F/175°C and line two baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicone cookie sheet.
In a medium bowl, beat together the oil, maple syrup and sugar. Separately in a large bowl sift together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Add the wet to the dry in the large bowl and once a dough is formed, add the corsely chopped walnuts. If you have cookie cutters, roll the dough out to a 2cm thickness onto a flat surface protected with parchment paper and cut out cookies, using a spatula to lift them gently without breaking them. Space them 3cm apart on the baking sheet. If not, scoop the dough with a tablespoon and roll into balls, place them on the baking sheets, about 3cm apart and press down slightly.
Bake for about 10-15 minutes cookies are firm and slightly browned. Allow the cookies to cool at least 25 minutes before carefully moving them to wire racks to complete cooling.
Peanut Butter Chocolate Buckeyes (gluten-free, no baking but about 1.5hrs yields 24 buckeyes)
I first learned about this recipe from my friend Meghan in Detroit so the credit goes to her for the inspiration and I have modified the recipe from The Vegan Version.
1 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup vegan margarine or coconut oil (I used St-Hubert Bio since that’s what we have in France)
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups icing sugar
2 tbsp coconut oil
1/2 tsp salt if the PB is unsalted
6 oz or half a bar of fair-trade vegan dark chocolate
In a large bowl mix place the peanut butter, margarine and vanilla into a paste. Sift the icing sugar into the bowl 1 cup at a time until a stiff dough is formed. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and and roll the peanut butter mixture into 24 1 tbsp balls. Set them on the paper lined tray and put into the refrigerator for a minimum 30min.
In a double boiler melt the semi sweet chocolate until liquidy and turn off the heat.
Remove the peanut butter balls from the refrigerator. With a toothpick pick up one ball at a time and dip it into the melted chocolate mixture around the toothpick, it should look a bit like an eyeball, hence the name, buckeyes. Let the chocolate drip off slightly and return to the parchment paper chocolate side down. Place the trays back in the refrigerator for a minimum of 30 minutes to re-solidify the chocolate before serving.
New Followers!
Hey new followers! There are a lot of you since I was re-posted by veganfoodshare on Instagram for my wings recipe. It’s a long one, but a total crowd-pleaser! My boyfriend and I just made it again for a beach barbeque with friends in Norway and it was a hit! I got some new ideas for recipes from a new friend and fellow vegan blogger, Lena, over at Vegan Food Story. You should check out her blog- open it in Google Chrome and let the web browser translate it to English for you from Norwegian (unless you speak Norwegian..which I am jealous of if you do!!).
Tip: if you do the seitan meat a few days early, you can refrigerate/freeze it and it will take less time when you go to make the wings. Letting the seitan chicken settle for a few hours/overnight is really important for the texture of the wings, so don’t skip this step. Plus, if you don’t use it all or your multiply the recipe, you’ll have more for next time! :)
Lastly, let me know if there are any recipes you’d be interesting in seeing on my blog. Thanks!
Amanda.
Vegan chicken wings
This recipe is metric AND imperial because I love to confuse you. Just kidding. It’s because the source seitan recipe is from a French friend and the French generally use the metric system for cooking. If you need a unit converter, here’s one. Blayne and I converted/translated the recipe for y’all. The gluten in this recipe is one of the best I’ve had in terms of texture and works well for our wings. According to my partner Blayne, who is a connaisseur of fake meats “this recipe is second only to Foodswings itself in terms of deliciousness”. He’s not kidding. It’s soooo tasty and will definitely give a stomach ache.
For about 600g of seitan “chicken” you will need:
130g (1/2 cup) of gluten flour
50g (1/4 cup) of ground almond
50g (1/4 cup) of rice flour
25g (1/4 cup) of nutritional yeast flakes (+ more for sprinking)
150ml (2/3 cup) of water + 50ml (1/4 cup) of almond milk
For the bouillon
1.5 litres of water (6 1/3 cups)
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 large onion cut in 4
4 bay leaves
1 sprig of thyme
3 tbsp of sunflower oil
Throw together the bouillon ingredients in a large pot and set it to boil on medium heat. In a separate large bowl or pot, add the dry ingredients and mix well. Pour in your water/almond milk and mix well to form a blobby mass of seitan. Let stand for 15 min.
Once the seitan has settled, ‘flour’ a surface with nutritional yeast and roll a thick sausage sized portion in the yeast, then cut it up with some clean scissors, keeping in mind that these pieces will double in size and try to cut them a little triangular so they look like wings. Keep the pieces mingling with the yeast, this will keep them from sticking back together and add flavour. Dump these pieces into the bouillon and boil them on medium for a low boil about 35 min. Turn off the heat and the seitan cool down, either in the bouillon or draining separately in a colander.
Leave it for a few hours or overnight in the fridge before you move to the wings step! You can prepare your sauces and coating in the meantime.
Wings Time!
5 carrots, chopped into sticks
10 celery stalks, chopped into sticks
Wing hot sauce (half for drizzling on cooked wings, half for dipping)
1/2 cup vegan butter
1/4 cup Encona original hot pepper sauce
1 tbsp any BBQ sauce
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
salt and black pepper (white pepper tastes like dust)
1 tsp chili or cayenne powder
2 tbsp agave (this is only if you like sweet wing sauce, otherwise, don’t add it!)
Put all this into a small saucepan for around 5 min and then turn off heat.
Wing coatings
2 cups of sunflower oil for frying in a medium pot
Wet (put half in a bowl for coating and the other half in a serving bowl for dipping the carrots and celery, this doubles as your ‘blue cheese’ dressing even though actual blue cheese is DISGUSTING)
2 cloves garlics minced
2 tbsp lemon juice
3/4 c vegan cream
2 tbsp flour
1 tsp corn starch
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp dill (or parsley if you don’t have dill)
2 tbsp water
2 tsp agar agar (optional)
Dry mixture
1/2 cup of cornflakes, crushed
1 cup of breadcrumbs- homemade or otherwise (careful, storebought ones often contain cheese)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp chili or cayenne
1 tsp black pepper
1/3 cup flour
1 tbsp corn starch
1 tsp onion flakes
1 tsp bouillon powder
1 tbsp of nutritional yeast
Prepare a wet and a dry coating bowl for an assembly line of wings. Get out a large plate with paper towel spread on it to soak up your extra wing oil after frying. Heat your oil to between medium and high (hot enough to fry, not to scorch). Wait 5 min for the oil to get hot. Dip your seitan in the wet coating, then dredge in the dry coating and slowly slide them into the hot oil. You should be able to do 5 or 6 wings at a time. Brown them about 1-2 min each and remove from oil, placing them on the paper towel to absorb excess oil.
After cooling the wings for about 5 mins, arrange them in a on a lettuce leaf, then drizzle them in some of the wing hot sauce, putting the rest aside in a serving bowl. Serve with carrot and celery sticks and the blue cheese dip. So good you’ll rip your shirt off.
Maltese Stuffed Artichokes
This is a recipe from my Maltese grandmother Antonia. She has always enjoyed making soup, pizza, pasta, pastizzi (a Maltese pasty somewhat like a stuffed croissant), homemade ravioli, gnocchi, riceballs, drinking tea, sewing, knitting, crocheting and gardening. Now that she is living in a retirement home and cooking a lot less, it’s my mom and my sister’s job to preserve her recipes. She and my mom taught me a lot about cooking. I wish I’d learned as much Maltese! My sister and I always begged Nana to cook us artichokes. Now we get to make them for her! <3
Mostly I just remember Kif inti? How are you? from listening to her speak Maltese on the phone with family, and Qaqoċċ Artichokes.
Here’s my version of her recipe for Maltese stuffed artichokes.
Maltese stuffed artichokes
3-4 large round artichokes (1 per person)
2-3 cups water
1/2 bunch fresh curly parsley
2-3 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
1-2 cups bread crumbs
2 tsp salt
2 tsp black pepper
1/8 cup of vinegar (I use apple cider, white or other is fine)
Large artichokes are best since they are easier to stuff. Rinse your artichokes under running water. Turn them upside down and literally bash the tops of them against a counter or cutting board several times while the stem is still on. This serves 2 purposes: making sure there is no dirt inside them and opening up the leaves. Believe me, they can take it. They come from the thistle family- thorny and tough. They even sound like Maltese people. Anyway, rinse in between the leaves.
Now chop off the stems very close to the bottom of the artichokes, leave a few millimetres of stem. Cut them straight as they will sit on their stems to steam.
In a large pot, place your artichokes leaves facing upward and pour in the water until it just meets the bottom of them. You don’t want the water to boil the artichokes. You will need to refill it after about 20 mins of steaming. Add the vinegar.
Now chop your garlic and parsley very finely and place them in a medium sized bowl. Add all your other ingredients and mix thoroughly. It will smell delicious. Don’t eat it! Now use this mixture to stuff between the leaves of the artichoke. Use a spoon and your fingers to help you open the leaves and try to be thorough, stuff them as much or as little as you like, but know that you cannot stuff each leaf, and be careful, they are sharp vegetables.
Cover the artichokes and steam them for 40-50mins (refilling water after 20min)- they should turn dark green and pull off easily. Serve hot- unlike French or other styles of cooking artichokes, these don’t need a dipping sauce as they are already flavoured. Be careful of the thorny leaves.
I’m pretty sure they are full of antioxidants, but mildly poisonous. My tongue always goes a little numb after eating them.
Cinnamon bun recipe edited
Viva Granola in Montréal are making salty versions of these filled with pizza toppings and Daiya. I might try that vegan challenge soon. In the meantime, here’s the “traditional version”. I actually don’t have egg replacer here and didn’t heat the soymilk up, so if you don’t either, your buns will be fine.
Here is the repost of the cinnamon bun recipe:
Cinnamon buns/Brioches à la canelle
Cinnamon buns take a bit more planning than other baked goods because they are leavened with yeast, but the payoff of deliciousness is worth the effort. Plus, people are always impressed that you managed to make *gasp* VEGAN cinnamon buns! They’re no more difficult and not much different than regular ones.
The recipe is adapted from The Joy of Vegan baking- Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. I usually forgo the icing, since these are amazing without it and it’s not really necessary.
Dough
4.5 t egg replacer
1/2 c + 6T warm water
5 c unbleached all purpose flour
1 packet of active dry yeast
1 c almond milk
1/3 c vegan margarine
1/3 c sugar
1 t salt
Filling
3/4 c firmly packed brown sugar
1.5 T cinnamon
1/2 c vegan margarine
3/4 c chopped dates or raisins (dates pre-soaked in boiling water for 10 min if dried) (optional)
1/2 c chopped walnuts
Icing (OPTIONAL but delicious)
1 c icing sugar
2 T vegan margarine
1 t vanilla
2 T almond milk
2 T agar agar powder
First of all, fill a glass cup or jar with the 1/2 c of warm water and add the packet of yeast. Stir for about 1 min, then let stand 5 min- until a foam forms on top which indicates the yeast is ALIVE. Water that is too hot kills the yeast, too cold doesn’t activate it. A trick is to but 1 t of sugar in the warm water to feed the yeast.
In a large bowl, dump 4 of the 5 cups of flour. Make a pit in the centre of the flour. Save 1 cup for adjusting the wetness of the dough and set aside.
In a med bowl, whip the egg replacer with 6 T of warm water for about 1 min and set aside. In a small pot, melt the sugar and margarine with the almond milk and salt. Don’t overcook- it should take less than 5 min on medium heat. One melted, just add the sugar mixture to the flour, along with the egg replacer and yeast mixture. Integrate the wet and dry ingredients by scooping the flour up into the wet mix slowly. You want to form a wet dough with no lumps of flour. Once it’s all mixed, turn the dough out onto a flat floured surface for kneading, ready with the 1 c of dry flour set aside to add intermittently to dry out the dough as needed. Use discretion- if the dough is too dry, add water/almond milk. After about 3-5 min of kneading, you are ready to set the dough aside in a large greased bowl. Cover it with a wet dish towel and place somewhere warm to rise for 1-2 hrs. Punch it down after about half the time, recover with towel and let it continue to rise. Punch it down again just before using it.
Meanwhile prepare the filling and icing by mixing all the ingredients and set them in the fridge.
To roll out the dough, cut off half the dough and roll out on a lightly floured surface in arectangle shape to make more/shorter buns, or a square shape for less/taller buns. Spread some filling evenly along one edge of the dough and roll up the dough into a log shape, pinch the ends. Slice it into 8-12 even size spirals and arrange them on a cookie sheet or lasagna pan- A cookie sheet yields crunchier buns, a lasagna pan yields chewier buns. Repeat until dough is used up and make sure to crowd the buns together, don’t space them out. Cover with a towel and let rise another 10-20 mins. Preheat the over to 375. Brush with a little more almond milk and bake for 20-25 min, until the buns are browned. Let cool for 10 min, then drizzle on the icing and serve.
Blackberry Bramble Pie :D
Dollhausbettie’s brambleberry pie!
