Life, Art, Tea, Food and Alaska: Seitan, hot wings, and facts about ...

So being vegan for a month has gone pretty darn well for me, I have lost 10 lbs, have a lot more energy, and as you can tell?I've?been a little more creative in my food selection. I haven?t really tried doing any of the meat substitutions/cheeses that they sell other than the vegan cream cheese for making dressings and sauces with. I have made my own soy cheese and cashew nut cheese but last week I decided to delve into making an actual meat substitute, seitan which is pronounced like say-tan or as I like to call it, satan because really it?s more fun to say it that way. So seitan is made out of vital wheat gluten, which I know a lot of people have a misconception that vegans don?t eat gluten. And while gluten free things tend to be near the vegan friendly premade foods at the store, gluten is in fact vegan friendly. Now a lot of people that are vegan avoid gluten because they might be allergic to it, or because they are avoiding breads to keep their carb consumption low. In reality though, gluten is a plant based protein, and it?s an important ingredient in baking bread because the proteins provide texture and density to the bread which is why you have different grades of wheat flours Bread flour: usually has a bit more protein than say, all-purpose flour Cake flour: usually has a less protein than all-purpose flour And then there are non-wheat flours/gluten rich flours, but I?m not going to get into that today.

And now for something completely different?.Vegan Hot Wings (and 'Blue cheese' dressing)

So hot wings are pretty much one of my favorite foods on the planet, and obviously being vegan now means eating regular ones are off the list of food I can eat. So I decided to remedy this. I had made some seitan earlier in the week and had leftover bits of it so I decided to make hot wings with it, but you can obviously buy meat substitutions at the store. Ready? Ready? My kind-of-chicken-flavored seitan: 1-1/2 cup vital wheat gluten flour ? cup garbanzo bean flour 2 cloves of garlic pressed 1tsp vegan (or non-vegan if you just want to try it) Worcestershire sauce Add to the dry stuff and knead until it resembles something like playdough Let it rest while you put together the stuff to bake it in 1-1/2 cup vegetable broth 1-2 tsp Worcestershire sauce Heat these guys for about 10 minutes on the stove top and preheat your over to 350 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT. Roll your seitan dough into two logs, or you can make them into chicken leg looking pieces, patties, whale shapes, or whatever suits your fancy. Put in a baking pan, add the baking liquid, cover and bake for 1hour, uncover turn the pieces over and bake for another 20 minutes covered. All done with that? Cool, you just made meat replica for about $1.50/lb take that Morningstar! Now onto the actual hot wingness I dredged my seitan pieces in a mixture of ? cup cornmeal (for some crunch) A pinch of salt, pepper, and paprika.

dip seitan in almond milk/soymilk/milk milk/ wisked egg

When it gets to about 350 place?dredged?seitan (isn't?it fun to say?out-loud? Try it you know you want to) and fry for 1-2 minutes or until it starts to turn golden brown. Place on a paper towel to let the oil drain out. For lower fat, mist the dredged seitan with a cooking spray and bake at 400 for 5-7 minutes. Mix the fried seitan in some hotwing sauce of your choice, add some celery and some blue cheese/vegan blue cheese dressing and chow down. What?s that I?didn't?give you a recipe for blue cheese? Well fine here is my simple, I?didn't?have all the ingredients that the other recipes I googled had recipe.

Vegan Blue Cheese

1TBSP apple cider vinegar 1 clove garlic(pressed if you don?t have a blender) I put all this through my immersion blender, you can whisk it all together if you press the garlic. Tada! It?s good enough to eat.

Source: http://teacreations.blogspot.com/2013/04/seitan-hot-wings-and-facts-about.html

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