I said BRRRRRR it's cold in here...

.....There must be some Toros in the atmosphere. OH EE OH EE OH ICE ICE ICE.

Ahem, sorry. So how hard did it suck having to go back to work this morning?? Ergh. The flat was freezing and so was the office – all day because it had snowed last night. So I was glad to have some leftover soup from yesterday’s dinner for lunch to warm me up at lunchtime.

See look - poor old Jeff was all frosty today!


In other news – I’m moving out of my flat in 3 weeks’ time. I’m looking for a new place because I’ve just had it with my wanker landlord, plus this place is too small – especially the kitchen! So I’ll be staying with my parents for a month or so while I find a new place. This means my blogging might be affected somewhat but hopefully not too much. I’m looking forward to having a new (hopefully bigger) kitchen to bake in! J So anyway, back to the food.....

This was yesterday's dinner and it was awesome. It was a result of feeling totally uninspired to cook anything and staring into the fridge for ages. Normally soup & bread just don't cut it for dinner time but this was really filling and warming. It had potato, roasted peppers & jerk seasoning but I'm struggling with coming up with a name for it. It's going in the zine though!


With soda bread... YUM!


Saturday's brekkie - Celine's awesome peanut butter & chips granola, that I threw some cashews into as well. Next time, I think I'll roast the nuts for a bit firs as they were a bit raw but it still rocked. I used regular chocolate chips and some of the white chocolate I got for thingymas.

Saturday, I decided to have another go at my chicken style seitan. First thing it went into was some stew & dumplings.

Today I breaded it and baked it and served it with soft polenta with sweetcorn added and VWAV Punk Rock Chickpea Gray - gah that stuff is rad! This meal doesn't look all that healthy but I think it was really as there's hardly any oil in the gravy and I ignored my instinct to fry the seitan and baked it.

In the past I haven’t had a lot of luck with the boiling method, that sounds so easy in Veganomicon! Last time, although it tasted good it still was a bit puffier than I’d liked (the dreaded “brains” appearance) and they stuck to the pan and I only really had one out of 4 that held it’s shape. Plus the stock wasn’t really usable in other recipes as it was full of little bits of seitan that had fallen off during the cooking. So I knew I needed to experiment with the cooking method and this is what I came up with and it worked superbly! Here is what they looked like this time.

Recipe is below as well. I used a half cup measure for each cutlet and it made 4, but they were HUGE ass cutlets so next time, I’m going to try use a 1/3C measure I think.

Dry Ingredients:
1 cup + 2 tbsp (145g) Vital Wheat Gluten
¼ cup (4 tbsp) Nutritional Yeast
2 tsp poultry seasoning (see pic)
½ tsp paprika
½ tsp thyme
1 tsp veggie or faux chicken bullion powder (or use cold stock instead of water)
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper

Wet Ingredients:
1 cup + 2 tbsp (280ml) cold water

2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp olive oil

Method:
Mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl and the wet in a jug. Pour the wet into the dry and mix it well with a metal spoon or spatula until it comes together. It will look sloppy and like there’s not enough dry ingredients – don’t worry, it’s meant to look like that. Now get your hand in and knead it just for a minute or so.

Heat up a non-stick frying pan on a medium heat. It’s very important that the pan is non-stick as you’re not going to add any oil to it. Split the dough into 4 or 6 (depending how big you want them) and flatten them into cutlets. Do 2 at a time and flatten them out a bit more with your spatula on the pan. Cook them for a 1-1.5 minutes (keep the heat fairly low/medium) then flip them and cook for another 1-1.5 minutes. Remove from heat and put on a plate, then do the next 2.

This doesn’t cook them so they will be very soft and a wee bit tricky to turn and remove from the pan, but just be patient and you’ll get them out fine. I used 2 spatulas and that seemed to make it easier.

Cut out 4 (or 6) squares of parchment, about the size of the cutlets (don’t worry if they’re a bit small).

Fill a large pan with COLD stock. Take each cutlet and place it on a square of parchment, then gently lower it into in the pan and push it to the bottom. Repeat with all the cutlets and try and place them on alternate sides of the pan.

Turn on the flame and bring it to the boil. Once boiling, turn it down straight away to a low simmer, cover and cook for 30 minutes. Every now and then, push the cutlets down with your spatula (they tend to rise to the top). After 30 minutes, turn off the heat and leave them to cool completely in the stock (or until you need them). Store them in the fridge in an airtight container, immersed in the cooking liquid (which you can use as stock in other recipes).

To use them, I just gently press out as much of the water as I can, between 2 pieces of kitchen towel – especially important if you’re breading them.

This is the chicken seasoning blend I use and instead of faux chicken stock (which I can't find) I use these incredibly disgusting soups. They taste mingin alone but used for stock they are good. I use one sachet in the dry ingredients and 2 mixed with water for the cooking liquid.

Another use for my seitan was fajitas. I put loads of guacamole, soya yoghurt and roasted onions & peppers on with the seitan. MMM MMM MM! They were good.

Extreme close up - MOLEY MOLEY MOLEY!

OK I've made myself want to watch Bring it On so that's what I'm gonna go do!