Baked Seitan

For seitan recipes, go to "The Post Punk Kitchen," http://www.theppk.com/
I made it yesterday. It's easy to make and scrumptious. Kudos to "the wrong umbrella" (user name) for an easy-to-prepare, delicious baked seitan.

This is  truly a precious, standard seitan recipe for me which I have used many times, cooked in medallions, in a slab, in cutlet sized pieces, and rolled up, placed in an oiled loaf pan, covered with the cooking broth, baked in the oven, and sliced.  Sometimes I serve the slices covered in mushroom gravy, sometimes breaded  and baked a little longer till the breading is crispy.  It has always turned out perfectly.

Chickenish Baked Seitan

Dough
1 1/2 c wheat gluten flour (I use 2 cups)
1/2 c chickpea flour
2 cups water
pinch turmeric
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp "chicken" flavored veggie broth powder (or any broth
paste/boullion/powder--I don't think the chicken flavor is essential but it's
what I usually use for this recipe, and I usually have it around)
1 clove garlic, pressed or chopped very fine
Cooking broth (I double the broth, and bake uncovered)
3 cups veggie broth
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 tsp dried parsley
2 tsp rosemary, dried or fresh
1 tsp dried thyme
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp black pepper
pinch turmeric
3 tbsp nutritional yeast
Olive oil for oiling pan
Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Oil the pan you will bake it in, which should be
either a casserole with a lid or a medium-deep roasting pan you will cover with
foil. Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Add the water, garlic,
and soy sauce, stir until doughy. Knead 10 minutes and stretch dough until
it's thin and oblong, about 8x12". (I make it into cutlets or divide into 24
smaller clumps and form into little medallions or roll it into a roll, oil loaf pan and fill to about ½ inch from top with broth.) Put the dough in the pan. Let
the dough rest for 10 minutes. While it's resting, mix the broth ingredients
together. Pour broth mixture over dough, cover, put in oven. Bake for 1
hour, flip, bake another hour, covered. (If in loaf pan, just check occasionally for sufficient broth.) Take out of oven, let cool uncovered.
Tip: resist the temptation to overseason/oversalt the broth because it all
cooks down into the seitan during cooking and becomes very concentrated.
The onions and garlic are good to save for whatever you'll be cooking the
seitan in. If you don't have the herbs, leave them out and it will still be tasty.
This is a very flexible recipe when it comes to flavors

Recipe: Creamy Winter Vegetable Soup-in-a-Hurry

• 2 pkg. (about 16 oz. each.) Frozen (hopefully organic!) Vegetables, Mixed (California Mix, Oriental Mix, Etc.)
• 2 quarts water with vegetarian bouillon cubes added to make broth
• 1 large onion chopped (or 2 tsp. onion granules
• 4-6 cloves garlic (cubed) (or 1 tsp garlic granules)
• Ginger (minced fresh--2 tsp, or ground -- a slight tsp)
• 2 TBSP olive oil
• 2-3 bell peppers, chopped (varied colors) or frozen bell pepper medley
• Kombu, 1 piece
• Your Choice of Herbs and Spices, to taste (about 1 tsp. each)
  Basil, dill, coriander, cumin, turmeric, tarragon, whole fennel
  2-3 Bay leaves
  Oregano
  Parsley
  Rosemary
  Sage
  Italian seasoning
  Taco seasoning mix (no MSG)
  Thyme
• Lemon juice, ¼ to ½ cup
• 2 – 3 (15 oz.) cans of cannellini beans or pinto white northern beans, process, with liquid, until smooth and creamy
• 1 -2 (15 oz.)cans of tomatoes (Choose from stewed with seasoning, diced, diced with green chilies, etc.)
• 1 or 2 or 3 cups, Bite size pieces of baked tofu or seitan, etc.
  
  Instructions:
  
  If you have time, use fresh onion and fresh garlic. (If no time, use dried.) Saute onion and garlic in olive oil. When onion becomes translucent, add minced ginger and fresh chopped bell pepper (3 colors?) or if no time, toss in frozen bell pepper medley. Saute a few minutes longer, until the peppers release their juices. Then add any or all of herbs/spices/flavorings (mentioned above) to the onion/garlic/bell pepper mixture. (I use about a tsp. of each), roughly measured into the palm of my hand. (Exception: 1 – 2 TBSP taco seasoning, a slight tsp. ginger powder).
  Place Kombu (optional, but very healthy) and 2-3 bay leaves in large soup pan with broth at medium heat. Add onion/garlic/pepper herb/spice mixture to the broth. Add processed (pureed) beans. Remove the Kombu before it reaches a boil. Bring to a boil. Add 1 pkg. of frozen vegetables (California mix is great for this: broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, summer squash) bring back to a boil, then and simmer until tender.
  IF YOU WANT A VERY THICK WINTER SOUP, remove bay leaves and process (puree) the soup mixture at this point. Return mixture to soup pan (It’s best to have two soup pans for this.) Then add the second bag of frozen vegetables. (If you have frozen corn, add it at this point.) Bring back to just up to a boil, then simmer on medium or low heat until this second round of frozen vegetables is tender. If you like, add a can of corn, stewed, or diced tomatoes at this point as well as baked tofu/seitan/etc.. Add lemon juice before serving. Add a little salt and pepper, or soy sauce, to taste, a little at a time. Serve with whole wheat bread, corn bread, whole wheat pita bread, or whole wheat biscuits, etc. Enjoy!

A Conspiracy of Silence

"For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love." Pythagoras, mathematician


"In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis. Human beings see oppression vividly when they're the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought." Isaac Bashevis Singer, author, Nobel Prize 1978


The other day I viewed the video, “Savent-ils que c’est Noël?” (“Do They Know It’s Christmas?”) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c6qCby5ujM emailed to me by L214, a French website, http://www.l214.com/ (Link for the video is also on this site.) Later, I was talking with my husband about the blind eye most of our human culture turns towards cruelty towards animals, when he spoke of the concept of “a conspiracy of silence.” This term has been used in several historical settings before, but I felt it was aptly applied to the human attitude towards the pain and suffering and death of slaughter animals. I asked him to define what he meant, in reference to this connotation, and he said the following:

“If people thought about the pain and torture and suffering that slaughter animals must endure, they would be compelled to change. The conspiracy exists in people not talking about it, refusing to talk about it if it is brought up. They know, but want to be kept in the dark because they are afraid.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity." He is right. As babies, we are not responsible for the pureed beef from the baby food jar that is placed on our tongues, but once we know, we are responsible. Once we understand what is being done to those animals, every time we buy a product of that torture and death, we are complicit in the crime, the evil, complicit in every death of an innocent animal. By buying the pristine meat package wrapped in cellophane, we are complicit. By wearing the tortured skin of an animal on our bodies, we are complicit. By turning the other way, either visually or psychologically we participate in the evil of every torture and every death. Because we “don’t want to know” or because we choose not to see does not take that complicity away.

I emailed a copy of the French video to friends, Joaquin and Efigenia, who live down the street, and their response was brilliant. Their response was, “Do WE know it’s Christmas?” I couldn’t have said it any better.

"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages." Thomas Edison
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. --- Jiddu Krishnamurti

New Year's Resolution

New Year’s 2008 approaches, and I find myself with only one resolution on my list. I will buy no product that causes or contributes to cruelty to animals. This means I will not only buy vegan food and clothing products, but also I will buy no products that have been tested on animals. In 2008, I will be responsible enough to make sure that a product, any product, I buy does not come from a company that is cruel to animals. (This is easy. All I have to do is go to www.peta.org for their lists of companies that do and do not test on animals.) On the the PETA website you will also find videos of what actually goes on before a cruelty product arrives in the store. Turning a blind eye to this does not mean the cruelty, abuse and suffering aren’t happening. If you turn a blind eye that means you condone all of it. “Attachment to being right creates suffering. When you have a choice to be right, or to be kind, choose kind and watch your suffering disappear.” (Dr. Wayne Dyer)
My hope and prayer is that everyone has (and keeps, ) the resolution on their list to end participation in cruelty towards animals. There are beautiful synthetic leather and fake fur products, nutritious vegan food products, quality beauty products, and environmentally safe cleaning products on the market that do not test on animals, that do no harm. “Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty... Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”--Albert Einstein
"All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do?" -- Buddha
If you’re not sure what kind of resolution to make for 2008, www.PETA.org has some great suggestions for resolutions and lists of ways in which you can keep those resolutions. http://www.peta.org/feat_resolutions.asp
So, during 2008 (and beyond), I will walk a new path. I will not buy a product from companies that are cruel to animals.
“Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be trod again. Wanderer, there is no road-- Only wakes upon the sea.” Antonio Machado y Ruiz

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

Anyone who is a vegetarian has most certainly been asked many times, “Why are you a vegetarian?” This question usually arises at the worst time, when you all sit down to eat during a social occasion such as a dinner invitation, or a work-related or neighborhood potluck, and people notice that you have no meat on your plate. To go into the reasons why you are a vegetarian or vegan at this time is a mistake, because regardless of how carefully you word your answer, you cannot help but touch on the most sensitive, and esthetically unappealing of subjects. If you achieve an accurate answer to the question, the people seated at your table will be unable to eat. This can alienate more people than you can recruit to a vegetarian lifestyle. There is, however, a simple, esthetically appealing way to change the world, one or two people at a time.

One of the most effective approaches I’ve had to making the world vegan has been one of the simplest: at least once every month I invite carnivores to dinner. Sharing a meal with people is a wonderful way to open up a world of flavors. Even if you don’t like to cook, there are simple, easy to create healthy vegan/vegetarian meals that you can make. And, if you don’t want to cook, many health food stores have deli counters which sell many prepared food products. If you absolutely hate to cook, order take-out from a vegetarian restaurant and set the food up on your dishes at home on a nicely set table. Eating together is a spiritual experience, a communion. As Will Tuttle expresses, “When we eat, we are loved by the eternal and mysterious force that births all life, that makes present all who ever preceded us, that manifests itself ceaselessly as us and experiences life through us, with a love that thoroughly gives of itself to us, to we, who are this force.”

It is after people experience a meal that causes no suffering or death, a meal that is rich in flavors, varied in sauces, a meal that is just as easy to prepare as a carnivorous one, that they begin to open themselves to another possibility. Sharing a meal with people has a way of altering everyone subtly. John Robbins says, “Eating is essentially an act of communion with the living forces of nature.” Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist monk, and author says, “Having the opportunity to sit with our family and friends and enjoy wonderful food is something precious, something not everyone has.” Because of the generous nature of people, they will usually try to return the invitation and invite you to their house for what may be their first attempt at vegetarian/vegan cooking, or to a vegetarian/vegan restaurant. With this invitation, they begin the journey to the next step, exploration and preparation of vegetarian food as a viable option. As it was so beautifully expressed, “ The hunger that lives in the human heart is part of the kinship that threads us all together. We are interdependent beings with a profound need both to give and to receive from each other. For what one of us is lacking, another has in abundance, whether that be a bowl of rice, a skill, a wisdom, a capacity for joy, a knowledge, or a courageous heart. Our urges and our gifts, our longings and our offerings, are all needed and are all indispensable.” (Robbins J., and Mortifee, A., In Search of Balance)

Sometimes the most powerful changes in our lives come from something extremely simple. There is time for all the literature and websites and documentaries later. Sharing a simple vegetarian meal with carnivores once a month may be a powerful seed for change.

A Very Happy Vegan (Pre-) Thanksgiving Day

Today, Thanksgiving Day, I won’t be cooking dinner. My husband is going to take me out to dinner at our favorite, local vegetarian restaurant (Secret Garden Restaurant, Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico) where the meal will be lovingly prepared by our friends, the owners and employees of the restaurant. Yesterday, the day before Thanksgiving Day, I made a pre-Thanksgiving dinner for five. (Recipes Follow.) This meal took the same, and in some instances, less time to prepare than a meal with animal flesh or other animal products and it was as, or more, delicious. CNN presented a news feature today about a family whose members compete every year to get the biggest turkey for Thanksgiving. The winner was pictured sitting in the back of a truck with his arm around a 72-pound turkey, acting as if they were “best buds,” instead of executioner and prisoner. That turkey was, most certainly, slaughtered for today’s Thanksgiving meal. As school children, we make figures of turkeys out of brightly colored construction paper. As parents, we teach our children that Thanksgiving Day is a day of gratitude, of love and friendship, of communion and compassion. Exactly where is the point in our thinking, our logic, where this all breaks down and becomes insane? At what precise point, understanding that we have been steeped in suffering and death almost from birth, does the individual conspire in the cover up and downplay the suffering, the taking of a life, the needless slaughter? More importantly when are we going to be honest when we talk to our children about Thanksgiving turkey and tell them that the roasted flesh that sits at the head of most Thanksgiving tables, ready to be carved, was more than construction paper,-- it was a living, breathing being with a right to its own life? Most importantly, when we are remembered, generations from now, wouldn’t we prefer to be remembered as the compassionate ones who climbed out of the insanity and took a stand, each one of us, in our own way, to stop all the suffering rather than as the barbaric ones who ate the flesh of another being -- an innocent being that had been held prisoner, horribly and violently mistreated, and then finally died a miserably frightening and painful death, all at our hands? It doesn’t have to be a violent revolution. It can happen peacefully one person, one family at a time, by the choices we make when we purchase food. We can vote with our wallets, and with our hearts. All of Mom’s recipes, remembered lovingly, can be easily translated into vegan alternatives that are just as tasty and, most importantly, will contain life and love, instead of death. We must not be so afraid to stop eating suffering and death. In the words of Cardinal John Henry Newman, “Cruelty to animals is as if man did not love God. . . there is something so dreadful, so satanic, in tormenting those who have never harmed us, and who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power.” Isn’t it time for us to not just say we are enlightened and compassionate, but rather to truly be so? Wouldn’t it be less hypocritical?
_____________________________________
Our Vegan (Pre)Thanksgiving Menu:
Carrot-Sweet Potato Soup (with Sour Creamy Cashew Sauce), Whole Wheat Kalamata Olive Bread, Mashed Potatoes with Mushroom Gravy, Vegan Roast with Mushroom Gravy, Steamed Zucchini and Red Bell Pepper julienne strips (with Sour Creamy Cashew Sauce), Dutch Apple Cake


Recipes Follow:

My favorite Carrot-Sweet Potato Soup
Make about 12 cups of vegetable stock, flavored/cooked with several slices (15-20) of peeled ginger (remove slices before using).
In a soup pot, heat: 3 TBSP olive oil
Add, sauté until juice is released: 2 small/medium onions, chopped
1 tsp. salt

Add, and cook until soft (if necessary, add a little vegetable stock):

4 cloves garlic
1 TBSP cumin seed, toasted and ground
2 tsp. coriander seed, toasted and ground
4 tsp, grated or finely minced fresh ginger root
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper (less, if preferred)
(optional: 1/8 tsp. nutmeg)

Add, bring to boil, then simmer until carrots are very tender (20 – 30 minutes):

4 lbs. carrots (about 14 cups), peeled and thinly sliced
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
2 tsp. salt
8 cups veg. soup stock
Using a processor, puree the mixture a few cups at a time, placing pureed mixture into a different pot.
Add: 1 cup orange juice
Some or all of the remaining stock to thin to desired consistency
Garnish with Sour Creamy Cashew Sauce, chopped cilantro, a few sunflower seeds.
Makes a big pot of soup. If serving 2 to 4 people – just cut recipe in half. Like many soups, this soup tastes even better reheated the next day. Or, make earlier in the day to let flavors merge.

Sour Creamy Cashew Sauce
Combine in processor or blender:
1 cup cashew butter (You can make this yourself by putting cashews in the processor until they turn into cashew butter. Be patient, it takes a few minutes in the processor for it to turn into butter. You will need more than 1 cup of whole cashews to make a cup of cashew butter.)
4 to 5 TBSP lemon juice
Salt
About 1 cup of water (add gradually)

If you make this sauce ahead and need to reheat it, only warm it. If it begins to clump – put it back in the processor to break up the clumps. (If necessary, add a little more hot water to create preferred consistency.)

Mashed Potatoes
12 potatoes ( I used Yukon Gold), peeled and sliced thinly (1/4-inch slices)
6 small or 4 large garlic cloves, minced finely
8 TBSP olive oil
1 cup plain soy or rice milk
Salt and pepper, to taste

Cook potatoes, covered in water until very tender. (Bring to boil, then simmer) (About 30 minutes)
Drain and return to pot. Add oil, garlic, salt and pepper to taste. Mash mixture. Add enough soy/rice milk to bring mixture to preferred consistency. Serve immediately.

Quick Mushroom Gravy
6 TBSP whole wheat pastry flour
4 TBSP soy sauce
2 TBSP olive oil
½ tsp garlic granules
1 cup sliced mushrooms (I use Crimini or Portobello mushrooms)
¼ tsp black pepper
Toast (and stir!) the flour in a saucepan until browned and fragrant. Remove from heat.
Combine soy sauce, oil, and garlic granules, add gradually to the flour while whisking (fork or whisk) until smooth.
Cook over medium heat , stirring constantly until mixture thickens and comes to boil. Add mushroom slices, and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly until mushrooms are heated through. Season to taste. Serve at once.


Vegetarian Roast -- Several are available, ready to heat, at the health food store, or, for ideas on this, go to http://www.peta.org/ look for “Celebrate a Vegetarian Thanksgiving,” and then “Faux Turkeys” section, also for thousands of recipes, do an internet search for “Seitan Roast,” Tofu Roast,” “Vegetarian Thanksgiving Roast,” or “Vegetarian Thanksgiving Alternatives.” Or do a search for Vegan blogsites. http://www.bryannaclarkgrogan.com/ has a recipe for a vegan roast in her Thanksgiving recipes.
Kalamata Olive Whole Wheat Bread – made in my bread machine, with ¾ cup Kalamata olives added
Dutch Apple Cake – made with Egg Replacer, which is available in health food stores and some enlightened grocers.

Animals

"We will see that, like us, animals are expressions of infinite, universal love-intelligence; that, like us, they yearn for satisfaction of their drives and desires, and avoid pain and suffering; that, like us, they are profoundly mysterious. If we've learned anything at all about animals, it is that in no way can we make them fit into the categories of our limited understanding. When we look at animals in nature it is possible to see competition, struggle, and violence, as many scientists are trained to do, and yet it is also possible to see cooperation and mutual aid, as Kropotkin and other scientists have discovered. Further, it is possible to see celebration, joy, humor, love, caring, and the wondrous interplay and expression of an absolutely infinite complexity of life forms. There is deep truth in the old saying that we see things not as they are but as we are." Will Tuttle, PhD, The World Peace Diet