Zesty & Spicy

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Basic, baked seitan recipe

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If you’re an adept of vegetarian or vegan dishes, you’ve probably came across seitan at least once in your life.  It’s a very versatile animal free protein made with vital wheat gluten (basically straight gluten flour) and it can be flavoured countless of ways to make it taste like chicken, beef, unicorn (lol)…you name it.

This is my personal baked seitan recipe that I use in almost everything but, I don’t think I could classify the taste under “beef” or “chicken” because it really has it’s own flavour profile.  It’s beyond amazing in a vegan gyros, in stir fry and even as a bacon replacement.  You can freeze it easily and it will keep for a decent amount of time in the fridge.  If you’ve already made a batch of my homemade vegetable broth, you’re already half way there for this one.

The classic way to make seitan is to boil it in the broth but I’ve had better results doing it this way because the end result is nice and soft compare to many other recipes out there who give you a very hard like rock seitan.

So let’s start!

Basic seitan recipe
 
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*As you mix, time is important because the flour will start absorbing the liquid and you want to make sure that all the flavours are well mixed in and there's no more white clumps of flour. It's totally ok to use your hands, at the end, to really mix everything in.
Author:
Cuisine: Vegetarian / Vegan
Serves: 1 loaf
Ingredients
  • Spice mix:
  • - the seeds of 1 black cardamom pod
  • - ½ teaspoon of dried, minced onions
  • - 1 teaspoon of dried, minced garlic
  • - ½ teaspoon of dried marjoram
  • - 1 teaspoon of dried basil
  • - 1 teaspoon of regular paprika
  • - 1 teaspoon of smoked Spanish paprika
  • - ½ teaspoon of salt

  • 1½ cup of vita wheat gluten flour
  • 3 tablespoons of tomato paste
  • 2 cups of homemade vegetable broth
Instructions
  1. - Pre-heat your oven at 325F, line a GLASS loaf pan with parchment paper.
  2. - In a mortar, crush the spice mix until powdered.
  3. - In a mixing bowl, add the vital wheat gluten flour and mix in the crushed spiced BEFORE adding the last two wet ingredients.
  4. - Add the tomato paste and the broth, start mixing*
  5. - Transfer the mixture in the loaf pan and press it gently with your hands to form the loaf and remove as many air pockets as possible. This is not an exact science but you just need to shape it a bit. The mixture will keep a very soft like texture and will harden once cooked.
  6. - Bake for 1h covered and then an extra 30minutes uncovered.

 

Stove top, Maple & Guinness Baked Beans…

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Happy St-Patrick’s day!!  … a bit late 😛 ahah

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I had some left over Guinness beers in my fridge from my mini celebration and I thought… why not creating something delicious with them!  After all, I had been craving baked beans for some time after hearing some of my friend rambling about the beans they ate at the sugar shack they went to last week end.  Since the end of the winter is near (hopefully), all the sugar shacks are starting to open.  But I haven’t made any reservations anywhere this year and I’m not sure if I’ll even be able to because of the world schedule I gave myself so instead, I’m gonna bring the sugar shack to me and indulge in these sweet, filling and delicious Guinness, Maple & Rosemary baked beans.

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There is obviously a ton of different ways to make baked beans.  I like to do mine on the stove top because my sauce pans don’t go well in the oven.  Feel free to try this recipe and let me know what you think!   I sometime like to eat a full bowl of those in front of the tv (I know it’s really bad but I cant help myself) but it’s mostly served as a side for a classic egg/bacon/potatoes breakfast.  Either way it’s delicious and you just have to try them 😛

If you like Guinness beer, maple syrup and bakes beans… this is a MUST!

Bon Appetit!

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How to make the Perfect Bacon every time.

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Yes it is possible!  There is an actual science on how to make the perfect bacon strips every time with no fuss what’s so ever.  You can even use this technique to make the whole package of bacon in advance and keep it in an air tight container, in the fridge, for sometime more than a week!  It’s a life saver seriously and thank you so much to my love Max for showing me this trick when we first started going out together.  I used to make the bacon on the stove top like most people and I used to hate every second of it because it’s super messy and most of the time I end up burning myself because I’m too clumsy.

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Make you own Butternut Squash / Pumpkin Puree

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I realized that earlier this autumn I said that I had made my own pumpkin puree for my recipes but never thought about showing you how to create your own.  It’s super easy and once you try it will be really hard for you to go buy the canned version again.  Today I’ll be making butternut squash puree but you can use this same technique for making pumpkin puree, other squash and even potatoes.

The secret is all in the roasting…  Hope you find this post informative 🙂

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