Easy Mushroom side dish

This is good with or without the wine. But it's a favorite amongst my friends.

What you need:

sliced mushrooms
salt
pepper
chopped garlic (you can even use garlic powder)
shallots (if you have any)
Italian seasoning (or just oregano)
wine

Put a medium saucepan on top of medium heat and add olive oil. Add shallots/chopped garlic if using any. Add mushrooms, seasonings. Saute until mushrooms sweat and reduce size. Add wine and enjoy!

Indonesian style satay seitan

I miss chicken satay. It was one of my favorite things to eat and I felt always connected to something of my father's culture when i ate it. It looked soooooo good when I went in July...but oh well. Luckily, Fatfreevegan.com has a recipe for BBQ Seitan that i decided to convert into satay. I had Gado-Gado instant peanut sauce in the freezer, and diluted it with hot water and kecap manis.

Seitan:

1 cup vital wheat gluten
3 tbs nutrional yeast
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp paprika

3/4 cup water
2 tbs tahini
1 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs kecap manis

1 packet Gado-Gado peanut sauce OR any peanut butter
hot water
kecap manis

Preheat oven 350F. Mix first dry ingredients together in a bowl. Mix wet ingredients in a seperate bowl. Mix together. Knead for 5 minutes. Let rest for at least 10 minutes. Grease baking pan. Roll seitan flat and cut into long strips. Bake for 25 minutes. While the seitan is baking, mix the peanut butter sauce with hot water (to desired texture) and add a little kecap manis. Preheat and grease your griddle. Once baked, cut the seitan strips into further bite size chunks and skewer. Brush peanut sauce mixture onto one side of the skewered seitan. Lay brushed side onto grill. Brush top side with sauce and flip over. Serve with rice and bawan goreng on top.

Late night chocolate craving...

leads to me searching through chowhound and finding Isa from theppk's recipe for chocolate pudding cake only a little different from their website. I think this is from their published book, but I made it on a whim with some minor adjustments because I ran out of cocoa powder and only had Ghiradelli hot cocoa mix. Close enough. It turned out pretty good warm and outstanding cold. It was also good scraping the bits a couple days later with some peanut butter.

Hot Cocoa Pudding Cake:

(A)
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cups sugar divided (but the real recipe calls for 1 cup, but since the hot cocoa mix has sugar, I subtracted some)
1 cup hot cocoa mix (divided)

(B)
1/2 cup soy/almond milk
2 tsp vanilla extract

(C)
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup rum

Boil water. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease pan and line with parchment paper. Mix dry ingredients (A) with 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup hot cocoa mix. Add (B) to (A). Pour mixture into pan. Add (C) on top. Place pan on larger cookie sheet and bake for 30 to 35 minutes.

It comes out like cake and pudding mixed up altogether. It's yummy and quick!

Banana over banana bread!

After a couple tries, I think this is my favorite vegan banana bread recipe, which I derived from Fatfreevegan's blog but I omit the dried cherries and use vinegar instead of lemon juice:

(A)
3 ripe bananas, mashed
a splash of apple cider vinegar
4 oz applesauce

(B)
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Optional: chopped walnuts

Preheat oven 350F. Grease loaf pan. Mix A in one bowl, B in another. Add B to A. Fold in walnuts or any other ingredients such as dried fruit or chocolate chips. Bake for 50 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

My new favorite recipes that will surely be staples!

Vegweb.com posting of the "Outrageously Easy Big Bread"

Recipe submitted by Colleen on VegWeb

"Outrageously Easy BIG Bread" (adapted version)

Ingredients):

2 packs of yeast
warm water
2 cups hot water
sugar
salt
6 cups all-purpose flour total (split in half - 3 cups in seperate bowls)
1/3 cup vegetable/corn oil


Directions:

Pour warm water into a small bowl and add the yeast, but DO NOT STIR. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, pour hot water over the vegan sugar and salt, then stir with a wooden spoon to completely dissolve. Combine 3 cups flour with the water mixture. Pour the oil on top of the dough mixture then add the yeast mixture on top of that, but DO NOT STIR. Top with the remaining 3 cups of flour and mix well. At this point, the dough should be pliant and moist, but not gooey. Cover the bowl with a damp towel and set aside to rise for at least 45 minutes.

On a lightly floured cutting board or countertop, divide the dough into half. Kneading is optional at this point. Make dough into desired shape. Some ideas: breadsticks, breadrolls, bread loaf, focaccia.

Cover the dough with a moist towel and set aside to rise again for another 45 minutes (or longer).

After the dough has risen the second time, preheat the oven to 375 and bake for exactly 23 minutes.

Glaze for hard crust by brushing every 10 minutes with water

Serves: 2 huge loaves

Preparation time: Two and a half hours


I deleted some extra directions, but this is the recipe at its simplest. This was the first time I made this bread and I was able to make 4 breadsticks, a loaf of bread, and dinner rolls in a round pie pan.

For the breadsticks, I brushed the dough after a couple minutes in the oven with olive oil and sprinkled with oregano and parmasen cheese. YUM!

The next morning, with the bread loaf, I made vegan french toast by soaking slices in a mixture of vanilla almond milk, cinnamon, vanilla extract, 2 egg equivalents/replacers and cooking them on coconut oil.

For lunch, I made Seitan Sandwiches:

I chiffonaded fresh basil from my new basil plant, added it to Veganaise, and chopped up my homemade seitan. I topped toasted slices of my bread loaf with this mixture and it was pretty good!

Basic Homemade Seitan (taken from a website that I forgot - sorry!!!):

2 cups vital gluten flour
garlic powder
ground ginger
1 1/4 cup water with rosemary & seasoning or vegetable stock
3 tbs soy sauce
(optional) 2-3 tbs sesame oil

Mix powder ingredients in bowl, mix liquids in a seperate bowl. Add powder mixture to liquid bowl and stir vigorously. Knead 10-15 minutes. Let rest for a couple minutes. Knead again for 10-15 minutes. Let rest for 15 minutes. Cut into desired pieces. Simmer for 30-60 minutes in water/rosemary or stock. Test for texture, usually when they float they are done.

You can keep it in the stock in the fridge or freeze it for the future. YUM!