Winter Slow Cooked Seitan Pot Roast

For those of you in the UK you'll know what I'm talking about when I tell you how much the media is warning of heavy snow. We don't really get that much in the way of snow within the UK, so anything more than a sprinkling and it's time to panic.

Anyway, when the weather is cold I want to fill my belly with stodgy food. I don't normally go crazy for fake meats, but I'm rather fond of seitan, and a this is a rather 'quick' dish as the seitan can cook in the slow cooker. Yes, you need to spend ages with it actually cooking, but it only takes a very short period of time in the kitchen. If you have a slowcooker with a timer on it, or a slowcooker and a plug adaptor with a timer on it if you are like me, you can quickly make the seitan and brown the veggies either in the morning or the night before and set your slowcooker to finish when you get home from work. There is not much nicer then coming into food ready to serve up.

I followed a recipe called "Not Your Mama's Pot Roast" from Robin Robertson's Fresh From The Vegetarian Slow Cooker, however, the recipes is available on-line here.

If you are vegetarian, vegan or just an omnivore looking for a little more variety in your diet I can't recommend this book enough. As a vegetarian, I barely used my slowcooker, thinking it was mainly for the occasional stew and only really of use to people who cooked meat. This book provides a lot of very tasty, easy and totally vegan recipes. Check it out :)



Some little changes I might suggest is using a little more water to make the seitan, making it in a breadmaker and chopping it into chucks to make it a little more like a stew then a roast.

If you are in the UK and curious as to where to get seitan quick mix, I just use 'gluten powder' purchased from http://www.flourbin.com The shipping costs are a little still, but you buy a decent amount it's not a huge issue. Compared to the costs of buying store made meaty chunk things it's perfectly reasonable, and much more variable.

Spiced taters with Sundried Tomato Seitan Cutlets

Another simple one tonight... can't really be bothered to try anything earth shattering at the moment.

Potatoes steamed for 30 mins along with some seitan cutlets, and then pan fried with poultry seasoning.

Sundried Tomato Cutlets - Easy (Makes 2)
60g Gluten Powder
1/4 Tsp Onion Powder
1/4 Tsp Basil
1/4 Tsp Black pepper
1/2 Tsp Vegan 'chicken' broth powder
1 Sundried Tomato (Chopped)

15ml Tomato Ketchup
90ml Water

Mix and knead above ingredients till a sticky dough is formed. Divide into two flat cutlets, wrap in foil and steam for 30 mins.

Unwrap and Dip in a little seasoned flour. Pan fry for 10 mins over a low heat while the potatoes brown.

The sundried tomatoes really worked. I was afraid they wouldn't be soft enough, but they were fine :)

An Apple a day...

One of the nice things about the weekends is that I get to eat a nice, leisurely breakfast, this normally means that on Saturdays I have Overnight French Toast, significantly adapted from 'La Dolce Vegan'

My tweeks

I use Bramley Apple, two large ones thinly sliced

Popped into a small pan, with 1 -2 tablespoons of water, and 2-3 tablespoons of apple sauce. Heat until steaming, then turn add cinnamon to taste. Let it sit on a low heat until soft.

I like my apple things nice and sharp, so I don't add any sweetener. The rest I stick to the recipe for. Basically, this calls for making a nice, creamy topping you dip some bread into which you arrange on top of the apple yum in a dish, and then pour the remaining 'batter' over the top. Overnight it soaks it all up, and you bake it in the morning.

The nice thing about this is that you do all the prep the night before, all I need to do in the morning is stick the oven on and pop the appley yumfest in. This bakes for about 35 mins, which gives me enough time to watch Pushing Daisies while it's cooking, and then eat the yummy apple goodness while watching the end of the show.



Lunches

I try to have a nice soup in winter/spring if I'm home for lunch. Today was a very nice 'chicken' and rice soup, made with seitan. Yum. The nice thing here is you just mix gluten powder with a little water and cook it right in with the soup. It makes it very quick :)



Tonight's dinner will be something with Broccoli in it... on the grounds of I bought a huge head of close dated broccoli for 25p from the Coop, and it needs eating up!

People often make a big thing that being vegan or vegetarian costs more... I think that's hooey, since being 99.99% vegan I think I probably prepare 3 meals a day for myself and my other half, and I think my shopping bill is probably £30 a week, including treats etc. When I just just plain veggie I think I probably spent three times this as I would go shopping a lot more often, and spend less each time. I used to eat a lot of Quorn (which contains eggs) and is a lot more expensive.

Veggies are becoming more expensive, but if you keep your eyes open, you can get some good deals. Some vegan staples are fairly cheap, like rice, lentils etc.

Oh, and a bonus cat pic, because they are loooooly :)

The Weather, It's Snow Fun

Brrrrrrrrr

It's now day 3 of it being too snowy to go anywhere.... The week has been an odd one.

Monday I woke up to see snow outside the window.... a fair bit as it happens. However, myself being the person I am.... I went on my merry way to work. It's a 17 mile trip... and I got into the office to hear the phone ringing. I was surprised to see that there was no-one else in the office. It was my boss

Me: "Good Morning *******, How can I help"
Boss: "Who's that?"
Me: "MsDerious"
Boss: "Oh, who else is in the office"
Me: "Just me"
Boss: "Oh, What's the weather like?"
Me: "About 2inchs of snow?"
Boss: "Oh, Are you staying?"
Me: "Well, I have a lot to do"

This conversation continues, until we decide that I'll leave at about 11... only 2 other people made it in that day.

Tuesday
I head in.... still snowy, but today the rest of the office make it in

Wednesday
Normal Day

Thursday
SNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW
Probably 3-4 inches deep, and it's like death on the roads. I'm still stupid enough to have a bash at going in. At about 8am on of the other ladies in the office calls on my mobile to tell me to go home... I'm a plank, so I continue to head in....
I get stranded in the snow until a nice made comes along and helps my wee car.
Left home at 7.30am
got back home 12ish

Most of that time was spent cacking my pants that I was going to die in the snow.

Friday
Get a call at 7am to say not to come in.
Work from home
Look in cupboard
For dinner I had

Quinoa
Homemade BBQ sauce
Chicken flavour seitan
Celery
Orange Pepper
Green Pepper

Made Quinoa in microwave as I was feeling very lazy

Cut peppers into strips
Added 1 rib of celery and fried until weeping a bit
Had left over seitan made with La Dolce Vegan recipe... added that
Continued to cook until warm
Added 1/4 cup of BBQ sauce... and some juice left over from my breakfast chili
Heat until thickened
Yumm :)

Today
Got up about 7:30... did the weekly weigh in. Wrinkled my nose at the weight... 7st 1lbs .... not good. I've lost more weight :(

Ate last of Breakfast Chilli with some spinach in a tortilla... Yum :)

Watched the end of Spiderman 3, Plus One and the first episode of being Human

Decided that I didn't much fancy paying for parking while we went into town, so decided to walk. About 3-4 years ago I had bought two pairs of 'Snowgrips' that stretch onto the bottoms of your shoes. I actually found these at the start of the shitty weather, and I use these. They really make the difference on the walk into town.

We get into town, go get a Soya Cappuccino, then watch Bolt 3D. OMG!!!! Never seen a 3D film before, and it's not most awesome thing ever... Anyway, after that we buy some more vegan cheese (Tofutti for MrDerious, Redwood for me) and get another Cappuccino (to stay warm more than anything else).

Walk home via Morrison's, buying some more peppers, a snack bar for MrDerious, mixed veggies and some veggie burgers.

Get home, have a toasted sandwich done in toasterbags. Chedderstyle redwood and a slice of seitan pepperoni :)

I make up the soya milk from the beans that have been soaking, and make some seitan dough up in the breadmaker. I look at the small lumps and think "That's not going to be enough" but, as usual, it puffs up nicely in the broth. I'm feeling lazy enough to use the vegan chicken broth I found in Asda... it tastes blooming nice :)

For dinner we have (Makes 4, we had 1 each)
Seitan Chicken Cutlets
200g Seitan
Simmered for 30min in 2cups of broth
Dipped in homemade soya milk
Dipped in mix of flour, paprika, black pepper and salt
Fried for 10 mins over medium heat (Whacked up to high at the end)

Carrot (Steamed for 8 mins)
New Potatoes (Steamed for 25 mins)
Mixed veggie pack (beans, Leek and Courgette)

This is the first time I've steamed carrots, they worked out well :)

For dessert I had a gingerbread bar. These are veggie, but not vegan. I figure there isn't much point throwing it all out, so I'm just trying not to buy any more non-vegan foods. I slip up now and then... but I'm getting better :)

MrDerious is now watching Bourne Ultimatum... I was foolish enough to upgrades to the movies package on Sky. 3 months at 1/2 price seemed like an okay plan... we can watch a whole bunch of movies... then cancel once I've seen all the stuff I'm interested in. Its kinda makes sense to do this as I don't feel I get a lot out of my Sky+ sub.

Anyway, I think I'll go check the soya yogurt (If this batch fails, I swear I'm going to give it up soon) and perhaps get a glass of wine. I've not really eaten enough today.... so I'm thinking of ways of getting a little more food into me. I might have a look in the freezer to see what there is in way of frozen yummies.

First Times

I guess since this is my first post, I should say a bit about myself.

I've been a vegetarian since I was 15, and at the moment, I'm about 50/50 vegan. I want to become fully vegan, but now isn't the right time for it. However, now is a good time to have a 'play' and see what might work in the future :) I think I'm 15 years of vegetarianism is enough to learn the basics of a meat free life, and I can move onto an animal product free life eventually. (That means I'm 30, I'll save you the maths)

For the past, oooooh, 2 months maybe? I've been reading a lot of vegan blogs, however, most of them are US based. This means that a lot of the products they review are not available in the UK. For a good 3 or 4 years I've really wanted to try seitan... but I've never seen any in the shops. All the 'use vital wheat flour' is very nice.... but again, not on sale.

Now, the option open to me was to make my own from scratch. This sounded hard... in fact, this sounded very hard. I wasn't impressed with the idea. Repeatedly squshing things in cold water sounded cold... and wet, and hard work. This did not sound fun.

Suddenly it hit me. Is have a breadmaker... would that work? Well I'll have the answer later on when I go to cook it won't I? :)

My current Vegan excitement of choice is The Dolce Vegan, by Sarah Kramer... so I took a recipe out of there.

Exact Quantities changed to protect the innocent

2 Cups Wholewheat Flour
2 Cups Plain Flour
2 Cups Water

• Stick in breadmaker.
• Look at in suspicious manner
• Start breadmaker on dough
• Let it mix it up to a big blob.
• Rest to 30 mins.
• Restart breadmaker
• Add cold water
• Turn off breadmaker and pour out white water
• Add more water. Restart breadmaker
• Keep doing this with hot and then cold water, until the water doesn't runs mostly clear.
• Finish with some cold water.

At this point I thought 'Hang on... isn't this supposed to make 2 big or 4 small portions?'

Simmer ~(covered) for an hour in 2 cups of herbed broth.. stirring every ten mins until broth is reduced. After about two minutes it became very clear that it was going to 'puff up' so I suddenly felt a lot less upset about buggering about for an hour only to end up with a fist sized lump of dough.

Anyway... Once it had absorbed all the juice, it was looooooooooooooooovly! I can't recommend this enough. This is tastier then any shop bought 'fake meat' I've eaten, and a lot less expensive too. I really should take some pictures next time!

Basically, at this point, you can use it like you would meat, Tofu or Quorn. It's very nice in curries, and also tasty turned into a burger and lightly fried in breadcrumbs. Yomp :O)

Try it... what have you got to lose?...apart from about an hour's time, which lets face it, you'll just waste anyway!