Hail seitan

I have a different schedule this semester, which allows me to be home on Thursdays. Since I had finished my grading for the week earlier than expected, I had the afternoon to myself and decided to get a jump on some of my weekend kitchen chores. I needed to make dog food and seitan--neither of which I really enjoy making, so I planned to get a big batch of each made yesterday.


We've been having a lot of work done on the house for the last couple of months (everything takes FOREVER, because contractors--UGH!), so generally when I'm home during the day, he's either here working, or I'm expecting him (I'm often stood up). I knew I was going to be alone in the house (love that!), so I took some caffeine (a rare treat for me these days), played my Pandora Prince station way too loud, and spent the afternoon cooking, dancing, and singing badly.

I use the seitan recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance. Isa has another seitan recipe posted on PPK here, but this is not the same as the one in the book that I use. I've found that for me the trick to making seitan is making sure I always keep prepared veggie broth in the fridge. The broth needs to be cold, or the gluten gets far too sticky, and it's quite frustrating to get started and then realize that you have to halt everything, because you don't have cold veggie broth. After I get the seitan prepared and simmering, I make up the veggie broth for the next batch, and seal and refrigerate. Then I always have it on hand and ready to go. I make a big batch of it--one bag of Bob's VWG makes 2.5 batches of the recipe, which is almost six pounds (14 cups). I package it up in 1, 2, and 3-cup containers and freeze it. There's a pretty strong expectation that once I make a new batch of seitan, shepherd's pie (my husband's favorite dish) with spicy cashew gravy will follow within the week. I've been craving jerk, so that will be coming soon, too.  

Kneaded, forming equal size pieces to simmer

Seitan (front) and dog food done cooking. Seitan has to stay in pot until it cools.

Seitan chopped, measured, and ready to freeze.

Dog food ready to freeze/refrigerate.

The very helpful cleanup crew

Veggie broth; ready to refrigerate for the next batch of seitan.

As I was snapping pictures, I took a quick shot of my very favorite kitchen tool--this little Ninja chopper. I picked it up a very long time ago at Target, and they still sell them for under $20. I use this every single day. It's powerful, easy to clean up, and has saved me so much time. Almost every dish I make starts out with finely chopped onions, garlic, and/or ginger. Though I have a big food processor (the Ninja blender/processor system, which is also fantastic), it's a real pain to get that out to mince a few cloves of garlic or an onion. This little thing sits on my counter, and I can do a 30-second rinse, and re-use for the next item. It's powerful enough that I often use it to make oat and almond flours as well as to completely pulverize the very crunchy cat kibble (for our toothless cat Daffy). It is seriously the best $20 I've spent.

I should add that I'm not compensated in any way by Ninja. I don't blog reliably enough to roll that way, nor could I live with myself if I sold out like that. I just really love the product and think for anyone who cooks, it's invaluable. When my last blender died (A KitchenAid, who I contacted to get it repaired but got no response from the company at all. They don't support their products, I don't buy them any more). I did a ton of research and went with the Ninja system for the following reasons: their chopper is awesome; we have a Shark Ninja vacuum that has put our old Dyson to shame (will never buy another--the parts are poor quality that need constant replacement), and they offered a lifetime warranty on their products if purchased through the website. I've been so happy with all of their products and customer support, that I purchase the Ninja duo system for my daughter for Xmas. They now only offer a five-year warranty rather than lifetime, but that's still quite impressive.