crack the plates

So this is a little bit of a vintage post for y’all, seeing as how I made this dish with my pal Seth about three weeks ago. It nevertheless counts as a “WAWWA” post because it is what I ate. I just didn’t eat it very recently.

First things first: you’d think a veg of eleven years would have made home-made seitan a long, long time ago. I am, in fact, more than a little self-conscious that I hadn’t. So why now? There are a couple related reasons why it took me so many moons to get my act together. I waited much longer than I ought to have on a delinquent friend who promised and promised, season after season (literally), to midwife my seitan-making. As with so many other things, he never came through. (Burn!) Eh, I’m not really holding a grudge…but I will say this. When I bought the vital wheat gluten that was eventually used to make the seitan, it was over a year in-date. When Seth and I finally made it, it was three months expired. Thank goodness it was frozen for most of its lifecycle, so it didn’t matter at all. Still. I got my B face on.

I really wanted someone to walk me through my first time, and the prospect of making seitan with someone who had so successfully, deliciously made it before was appealing. The main reason I hesitated? I am almost completely unfamiliar with a crucial step of seitan-making: kneading. Yep, despite however highly you may regard my cooking skills, I honestly don’t have much experience with recipes that require kneading. The only non-sweet bread I make requires little more than pouring a can of beer into the dry and mixing. Yet seitan simply doesn’t happen without lots and lots of good firm kneading. It’s a pretty simple process, isn’t it? But the prospect of somehow getting it wrong was weirdly dissuasive.

As it turns out, the most important ingredient in seitan is not experience, but enthusiasm. And Seth had that:

A fellow virgin seitan-maker, but with slightly more kneading experience, he vaulted at the challenge. Check out this gorgeous lump of gluten and spices he tamed:

Actually it’s kind of hideous, isn’t it? Like a couple colors of Playdough teamed up with some silly putty & moonrocks and did the meiotic mambo. That’s about what it felt like, too. But don’t let that dissuade you! Just roll it out into a log and cut, with a serrated knife if possible, into six equal pieces. Then simmer it in veg stock for quite a while:

Once it’s simmered the appropriate amount of time (check your recipe) it’ll need to cool completely. To hasten this process and get it off our minds, we put it on the front porch while we, along with Nate & Michael, watched the second half of Tron.

While the boys gabbed about object-oriented programming in the front room, Seth smashed a wine bottle and I whipped up the marinade for “Ethiopian Seitan and Peppers” from Isa’s Vegan With a Vengeance. About 25 minutes later, we feasted:

Ethiopian Seitan and Peppers goes delightfully with RuPaul’s Drag Race. Since the recipe requires a half a cup of red wine, go ahead and pour yourself a glass! As we learn from the gals in the Interior Illusions Lounge, you throw funner shade when you’re sauced.

To friends with enthusiasm. *clink*

PS. Seth has a blog, too, and it’s a good one. You should read it.

There is seriously nothing better than a giant salad on a sunny day:

I mean, would you look at that?!

Oh and uh, don’t let the fork fool you. I exclusively eat salad with my fingers.

Even at restaurants.

Scrumptious salad greens by David Reed, local farmer & my favorite for virtually everything at Richmond’s seasonal Saturday-morning farmer’s market. You can get 8oz bags of mixed greens at the Clear Creek Co-operative on Main Street. Salad dressing by Annie’s organic: that’s the Asian Sesame variety, mmm.

New series! In this super-busy thesis time, I’m going to try hold myself to posting pictures of dinner each night. I mean, I gotta eat, right? Hence, WAWWA: sounds like babytalk, means “We Are What We Ate”. These new entries may or may not take the place of more substantive updates, but I know they’ll be better than nothin’…which is, quite regrettably, mostly what I’ve been servin’ up in recent weeks.

Tonight! Voila, WAWWA:

sweet & spicy tamarind noodles and year-old lentil patties

With some delicious iced adagio teas Peach Oolong to drink.

Allow me to explain the second one. They’re not quite year-old, but I’m pretty sure I made these savory lentil patties sometime last summer. I packed them well in foil and then saran wrap & they’ve just been hanging out in the freezer ever since. It’s amazing that so many moons later they’re in such great shape…so I’m gonna take a few extra minutes to type out the recipe. Try it!

1 cup dry lentils + 2.5 cups water or veg stock + 1 bay leaf + 1 small onion (or 1/2 cup) diced + 1/2 cup diced celery + a total of 3 tbsp mixed herbs of your choice (tarragon, marjoram, thyme, oregano…probably not basil or rosemary) + 1 tsp ground cumin + 1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil + 1/2 tsp lemon juice + 1 tsp salt + freshly ground black pepper to taste + 3/4 cup rolled oats + 3/4 cup dry bread crumbs

• Simmer lentils in water or stock with bay leaf for 45 minutes.
• Saute onion and celery in some oil in your skillet for about five minutes
• Remove from heat; stir in remaining ingredients except the last two (oats and bread crumbs)
• Process the oats in a food processor or mini-chop til finely ground.
• If baking the patties, pre-heat oven to 400.
• Combine oats, bread crumbs, and lentil mixture in a large bowl.
• Shape the mixture into small patties while still warm.
• BAKE: Place patties on greased baking sheet & bake for 15 minutes.
• SKILLET: Spray some olive or vegetable oil spray into your skillet and also on the up-side of the patty. Cook, flipping once or twice, about five minutes.
• IF SAVING: After shaping, allow warm patties to cool. Wrap in a small piece of tinfoil and then again, tightly, in a small piece of saran wrap. Put the whole shebang in a nice thick plastic sack and sock away for leaner times. …Like when you want to make spicy noodles but realize you’ve only got one third of one block of tofu for two people! Then you’ll be in good shape, little ant.
• WHEN COOKING FROM FROZEN: Thaw in the microwave. See “SKILLET” cooking instructions above.

Mmmmmmmmm…. NOODLERS.

Back to the thesis. Keep sending your good energy!

Just because the weather is finally getting lovely doesn’t mean there’s not a ton of people out there (bless their hearts) still getting over the yuck. I was reminded of this when I ventured out to church yesterday and the gym today, only to meet (more honestly, avoid) lots of snifflers. So be careful! And have a bowl of delightful home-made miso soup to put some spring in your step.

If you don’t know what miso is, or want to learn more about the different varieties, you’d do well to check out this great (short!) NPR article, Mastering Miso’s Mysteries. I discovered the pre-packaged powdered soup version while still in high school in north Georgia, but these days I prefer to do-it-myself with the paste. Right now I have red and white varieties by Westbrae and Miso Master in the fridge. (I keep them in the “dairy” drawer, though I’m not sure it matters–I do so just because there’s, for obvious reasons, space there.)

If you know anything about cooking with miso, you know not to boil it or pour boiling water over it. In so doing, you kill both the flavor & the enzymes–in other words, it’s no longer very enjoyable for health or taste. I get around this by setting my variable-temp tea kettle to 180 and then mashing the miso with a little water before adding the rest and stirring. You can do something similar by bringing a small pot of water not-quite-up-to the boiling point & letting it cool for a couple minutes while you do other things related to the recipe.

Miso is great mixed with warm water & a spike of soy sauce or tamari, if necessary. When I’m feeling fancy, as in the case pictured above, I boil some rice or wheat noodles in a separate pot & mix them into the miso base along with chopped scallions (green onions), a little torn dry kelp, cubed tofu, tamari, and a pinch or two of hot red pepper flakes. I’ve found the last two of these ingredients really helps the flavor of white soy miso develop.

Yung sing! (Cantonese, “Drink & win!”)