Baked: Seitan Bacon

The taste: Delicious
The texture: A little dry
Other: No need to make seitan look like this. Make seitan like normal but with the intent and ingredients to make it bacony ... (e.g. smoke, maple, salt) and then keep it compressed, bake and slice.
Um: Didn't record my recipe.

Inspiration: here and here. They obviously had better results with respect to the bacon motif.

It swirls to the left: Cinnamon Raisin Bread

INGREDIENTS (makes 2 loaves)

- 2  1/2 tsp active dry yeast

- 3/4 cup sugar

- 1 tsp salt

- 2 tsp apple cider vinegar

- 1/4 c cornstarch

- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
 - 1 1/3 cup warm water

- 1 cup soymilk

- 6 cup AP flour

- 2/3 cup brown sugar

- 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

- 2 cups raisins

Mix together ingredients through AP flour.  Add AP flour 2 cups at a time until incorporated. Knead until shiny. Add raisins. Let rise one hour or until doubled. Mix brown sugar and cinnamon together. Divide dough in two. Roll into rectangles. Spread cinnamon sugar mixture over rectangles. Roll up. Seal seam. Place in loaf pans and let rise one hour. Bake at 375 for 30 - 40 minutes. Until golden brown and hollow sounding when tapped on bottom. Cool on rack.

Pumpkin and/or Sweet Potato Pie (vegan)

I love pumpkin pie.  I slightly adpated the recipe below from Bryanna Clark Grogan.  I used the old timey Wesson Oil pie crust recipe.  My first time making a pie crust.  Everything was delicious.

1 can ~15 oz. pumpkin
1 c. milk (of your choice)
3/4 c. sugar
1/4 c. cornstarch
2 T. molasses
3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. clove
Throw it all in the blender. Blend well.  Put it into the pie crust. Bake for 60 minutes @ 350F (watch the edges). Cool, refrigerate and eat next or subsequent day(s).

Back to the Summer

Once upon a time in the summer I made some tomato soup.  I had a lot of tomatoes.  The soup is easy and delicious. Adapted from a Tyler Florence recipe.

• 3 pounds tomatoes
  
• 5 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
• 2 small yellow onions, sliced
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste
  
• 1 quart vegetable stock
  
• 4 tablespoons butter/margarine
• 1/2 cup chopped basil leaves

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Bake the tomatoes, garlic and onions with olive oil, salt and pepper. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes.  Put everything in a pot and cook for 30 minutes.  Then add basil. Then puree the soup.

Back to the Summer.

Bean & Seitan Tamales

I like tamales. Traditional tamales like lard. Tamales without lard are hard to come by and are often too expensive and bland/janky for my tastes. I have made tamales many times before simply substituting corn oil for the lard and the end results were quite tasty. However, I knew they could be better, so this time I decided to use a room-temperature-solid fat to see if it yielded better results. Did it? Abso-tamale-lutely. I digress. I looked for inspiration here and here. But add some flair to accommodate the vegetarian palette.

Masa:
3 1/2 C masa harina
1 tsp each: smoked paprika, ancho chile, garlic and onion powder
1/3 C nutritional yeast flakes (optional)
2 C hot water
2 tsp baking powder
1 C non-hydrogentated vegetable shortening
1 1/2 C vegetable broth
1/4 C vegetable oil

Mix the dry ingredients together. Then begin to mix in shortening and oil. Then add Broth. Add water until the consitency is like a stiff cake batter.


Filling:
1 C refried/smashed beans
1 C seitan chopped (I used the kind I make in a slow cooker)
1/2 C corn kernels
1 bell pepper diced
1 onion diced
2-3 serrano peppers seeded and minced
3 cloves garlic minced
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp ancho chile powder
1 tsp cumin
1 bunch cilantro
3/4 C salsa verde
1 tsp smoked paprika

Cook the onions in some oil (2 T) until soft. Then add the garlic and chile and cook for one minute. Add spices and cook for 30 seconds. Then add the rest of the ingredients. Set aside.

Assemble the tamales as Chef Bayless suggests. I usually need to cook mine about 90 minutes. This might because I cram them into my pot and have a makeshift steamer.

More soup!

Yes, my food photos needs some work. Next time?

Thanks to VP for the photo.