Your Vegan Mom

Savory Sauce and Seitan Cutlets

(Can we pretend like I published this last week when I wrote it?  I'm even backdating it because I'm a super-cheater.  P.S. I'm still pregnant.)

My current favorite seitan cutlet is waiting to be dolled up or just eaten.  

I feel like this blog is waddling along with as slow and labored a pace as I am right now.  I'm 36 weeks pregnant.  And my bag's in the car.  This baby is somewhat anxious to join us, and I have to say, me too.  Well, me too next Thursday.  I'm throwing a big huge baby shower for my best gal on Sunday (She's due a month after me.) and then I scheduled the child birth refresher course for next Wednesday.  So actually, if you want to visualize me going into labor next Wednesday about 9:00 or 9:30 PM - it'd be a big help - we'll be at the hospital already.*    

Paul's been stocking the freezer with simple foods to prepare in those crazy new baby weeks.  There are bags of beans in 2 cup portions, and bags of brown rice (those two things I always intend to have in my freezer, but rarely do), there are 17 individually wrapped burritos, and about a dozen pupusas.  There's some soup, but it turned out kind of gross.  We followed this recipe for caldo de habas because as we cleaned out the pantry we discovered a ridiculous quantity of dried fava beans, but I think the combination of fava beans, chipotle, and fresh mint is an acquired taste that we don't have.  Hopefully we'll feel differently when we pull it out of the freezer, but right now I'm saving it for Paul.  

And this afternoon I'm going to make about three batches of my current favorite seitan cutlets.  I already did this once.  About a week ago, there was a freezer bag full of them that has now dwindled to one measly cutlet.  That won't get us far.  Especially since the boy will happily steal one or two off the counter to eat just plain.  And they make a great barbecue sandwich - either quickly grilled and slathered in sauce between two slices of toasted bread, or shaved fine and sauteed with onions and simmered in diluted barbecue sauce to make some quickie pulled seitan.  

They were also flippin' delicious last week for dinner when I quickly seered them in a hot pan, and then made a jammy sauce from a few cherry tomatoes and melty red onions, a swig of balsamic vinegar, and a bit of soy cream.  Next to some simple spaghetti dressed with parsley, garlic, nutritional yeast, and salt, we had a serious Tuesday night dinner.  

So the cutlets are almost gone, and I'm going to start over real quick before this baby comes.  You may not have the same pressing time constraints, but I highly recommend you do the same.  With a mild flavor, and satisfying texture, you can use these in any recipe that calls for a chicken breast.  And doesn't it make you feel like a vegan domestic goddess to be able to make that stuff for yourself?  

Brown rice, pinto beans, steamed spinach and savory sauce may sound pretty perfunctory, but The Sauce makes it delicious.

You start with the savory sauce.  This is that creamy white sauce that is slathered on bowls of rice and beans and greens at Green Temple and that originally came from The Spot in Hermosa Beach (You can find the recipe in their cookbook as well.).  So maybe tonight you make a batch of The Sauce.  It will be huge.  If you follow the recipe as written you will have enough sauce to top several bowls of rice and beans and greens (or my favorite - Tofu with Tofu Sauce because we're just that vegan - marinate some cubes of extra firm tofu in Bragg's or soy sauce, lemon juice, and olive oil.  Steam some brown rice.  Throw some spinach into the top of the steamer for the last five minutes.  Toss the tofu and marinade into a hot pan until lightly browned.  The rice goes in a bowl topped with spinach and tofu and sauce.)  

Tomorrow you will have enough sauce leftover to make 3 to 4 batches of seitan.  This recipe is a lot like the other cutlet recipe, but here you are using a seasoned tofu puree (the savory sauce) instead of a seasoned bean puree as the foundation to mix with the vital wheat gluten.  I love making seitan from leftovers.  It really simplifies the process.  

Savory Seitan Cutlets
Makes 6 2 oz. cutlets

1 cup vital wheat gluten
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup savory sauce
1/4 cup water

Mix the dry ingredients with a fork.  Add wet ingredients.  Stir in.  You may need to use your hands to really get it all together, but kneading is unnecessary.  You should have a soft seitan dough.  Divide the dough into 6 cutlets, patting out in your hand to a bit larger than your palm and about a quarter inch thick.  Wrap each cutlet loosely in foil (you can press it a bit thinner now between the layers of foil) and steam for 20 minutes.

The cutlets are now ready to use in your favorite recipe. 

My toddler pals also like to use The Sauce as a dip.

*I think I take that back - I'll go ahead and wait until these fires are over before I bring teeny tiny lungs into this city, please.  How are you all holding up?   

Green Popsicles and a Back-to-School Cooking Class

If you missed Dawn and Tyler's summer treats cooking class at the Redondo Beach Whole Foods last month, you have a chance to correct that mistake.  Tomorrow at 4, the talented mother-daughter duo will be teaching a class for anyone that ever packs a lunch, focusing on simple to prepare, kid-friendly snacks to help you get creative with your September lunch boxes.  I can't wait to see what they will come up with. 

 Every single recipe they shared in June was a smash hit with skeptical meat-eating moms and picky kids and seasoned vegans alike.  It was almost as much fun to watch the surprised and delighted expressions of the newly converted, as it was to watch Dawn and Tyler teach the crowd how to make cake and ice cream and popsicles.  

I've been looking for my popsicle molds all summer to recreate this treat.  It's just such an ingenious, not to mention irresistibly delicious, way to get your kid to eat their greens.

I finally ran to Sur La Table yesterday for new rocket ship molds (those ones up there), perfect for making green robot pops for the boy (because robots and rocket ships and funky colored nutrition go hand in hand in hand, right?)

Happy tiny bit of Summer!

Green Popsicles
from Dawn and Tyler's Summer Treats cooking class at Whole Foods Redondo Beach.  Unfrozen, this also makes a kid-friendly smoothie.

2 cups frozen pineapple chunks
2 bananas (ripe, preferable sliced and frozen first)
2 cups baby spinach
almond milk to cover
splash of vanilla
splash of agave, if bananas are not very ripe

Throw in the blender and blend until smooth.  Pour into molds and freeze.  (At the class, they were frozen in those little plastic sample cups and skewered with tooth picks - a clever idea for small eaters.)

Vegan Cooking Class
Saturday, August 22
4 PM, $5
Whole Foods Redondo Beach
405 North Pacific Coast Highway
Redondo Beach, CA 90277
(310) 376 - 6931

Vegan Brunch

This cookbook has already made itself at home on the kitchen shelf.  Not the big bookshelf in the living room that holds dozens of cookbooks that I consult from time to time, but the little one in the kitchen that only houses the books I actually use on a daily basis.  This is where you'll find James Peterson's Vegetables, my heavily splattered copy of Bryanna Clark Grogan's Nonna's Italian Kitchen, my great aunt's desk copy of the 1975 edition of Joy of Cooking that says in red ink right on the cover, "Joyce Christensen's personal copy - do not borrow!"  (I love that lady.)  There's my binder from the professional baking course I took a few years ago at the New School, filled with sheet protected recipes for croissants and tart dough.  A tiny ancient loaf pan that I keep recipe notes in serves as a bookend.  And now, right there, comfortably nestled in with all these old friends is Isa Chandra Moscowitz's Vegan Brunch.  

This book is simply filled with recipes that you will actually use.  Recipes that work, made with ingredients you probably already have in your cupboard, that will not take you all day to make.  Which is nice for brunch.  You can whip up a batch of muffins before you've even had a cup of coffee.  And they're really good.  The zucchini spelt muffins were a huge hit at the toddler play group last week amongst both the mamas and their famously finicky offspring, and have the added benefit of using up two cups of that classic summer bumper crop.  These muffins strike that rare balance in a baked good - they're both healthy and delicious.  The lemon poppy seed muffins with their crisp tops and sweet tart innards are everything that you hope for in this classic treat and so rarely get.  I love them.  I made them four more times to be sure.  Yes, I love them.  So much, that I haven't gotten around to trying the bakery-style berry muffins or the blueberry ginger spelt.  I would buy this book for the muffin chapter alone.

But you know what?  It has more than muffins.  There's a foolproof omelette recipe.  And if you've ever mucked about with vegan omelettes, you know that an easy recipe for this elusive meal is a special thing.  The crepes work too.  Filled with leftover cashew ricotta flavored with a bit of lemon zest and nutmeg and sauteed figs, they were absolutely delicious.  Though they were maybe even better as an evening snack smeared with emergency nutella (almond butter, chocolate, almond milk - melt and stir).

I still need to try the pierogi and the beer battered tofu and the waffles (Seven different kinds!  But Paul threw away our waffle maker.  It was either broken or he was tired of cleaning it.  Maybe both.) 

I'm not in love with the book design and the photography.  But this isn't a coffee table tome.  This is a book that is going to get messy, that is going to be right there with me in the kitchen, making vegan brunch.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
Makes 12 muffins
As ubiquitous as your pink-haired, lip-pierced, cat-tattoo barista, these muffins are a coffee shop staple.  Who doesn't want to wake up to a bright, fresh-tasting lemon?

2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
5 teaspoons poppy seeds
1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup soy milk (or almond milk, or rice milk)
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup canola oil
2 tablespoons lemon zest
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 375.  Lightly grease a muffin tin.
    In a large mixing bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, poppy seeds, and salt.  Make a well in the center and add milk, lemon juice, oil, zest, and vanilla.  Mix just until all wet ingredients are moistened.  
    Fill the muffin tin three-quarters full and bake for 23 to 27 minutes, until muffins are lightly browned on top and a toothpick or knife inserted through the center comes out clean.  When cool enough to handle, transfer to cooling racks to cool completely.

Excerpted from the book Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, published by Da Capo Lifelong, a member of the Perseus Books Group.  Copyright © 2009.  www.dacapopresscookbooks.com