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