It was a long day, I teach 3 classes at Kendall College on Mondays and Wednesdays and in addition to my experiment with veganism to see if it has an impact on my weight and lifestyle I have been exercising 5 days a week. I tend to over do it when I use the gym at Kendall College because they have such good machines in comparison to doing workout tapes in my living room.
When I got home I was feeling less than inspired to whip up a gourmet feast so I thought I would attempt making a dish with seitan for the first time in my life.
For anyone who may read this and is not familiar with seitan it's a wheat protein made from wheat gluten. I know what your thinking with a bit sarcasm "yummy what sounds better than wheat gluten?". Really I know anything does.
I really loved the description on the box "Often referred to as the meat of wheat (how witty), this vegan source of protein provides the same texture and mouth feel (double yuck for 'mouth feel' part) that a piece of chicken or beef would have with half the calories and only 1 gram of fat."
Well you can't beat the low calorie and fat content with a whooping 18 grams of protein! But would it taste good?
Now this was not my first time eating seitan I've had it in fake meat dishes before at restaurants and loved it, but could I make it and not gag.
So I made it pretty simple and turned my packaged West Soy seitan into a BBQ sandwich that was - and excuse my language - damn good! And the texture or 'mouth feel' that the box described was a lot like real meat. I actually liked it better than most tofu I've tried because it really took on the flavor of the sauce I used on it, and because of that I didn't think about it not being meat as much as I usually do.
Speaking of thinking......about food I mean.
I'm doing that a lot more of that lately. I feel like I'm thinking about what my next meal is going to be all the time now. I think that's because I know eating is not as instantly easy as it was a few days ago. I like that it isn't though, I like that I'm thinking about it more, and especially thinking about how to incorporate as many vitamin rich things like veggies and fruit into my day. Honestly I think having less easy options is somehow making me eat more vegetables and fruit. One of the main objectives of this experiment.
I was reading an article in the New York Times today called Rules Worth Following, for Everyone's Sake.
The author quotes a book called "Food Rules" by Michael Pollan,
""Cooking for yourself," he writes, "is the only sure way to take back control of your diet from the food scientists and food processors." Home cooking need not be arduous or very time-consuming, and you can make up time spent at the stove with time saved not visiting doctors or shopping for new clothes to accommodate an expanding girth." Reading this article made me feel better about all my new spent time thinking about what to eat next.
Simple Recipe for BBQ Seitan Sandwich
Serves two to three people
1 box of West Soy Traditionally Seasoned Wheat Protein (it's precooked)
1/2 cup of BBQ sauce I used Sweet Baby Rays
1 tbs of peanut oil or sesame oil
1/2 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp of pepper
1/2 tsp of Old Bay seasoning
Hamburger buns toasted
Remove packaged seitan from plastic cut into smaller thinner strips, then use a paper towel and press excess liquid from the seitan. Pour BBQ sauce into a pie pan to use later.
Cover bottom of pan with 1/2 tbs of oil and let pan get hot. Evenly disperse seitan on the bottom of the pan a cook 3 minutes on each side till it turns slightly brown.
Remove seitan and place it in the pie pan filled with BBQ sauce. Use a spatula to cover all the seitan pieces evenly and generously. Pour the remainder of the oil into still warm pan and put the now sauce covered seitan back into the hot pan.
Let it cook again about three or four minutes on each side, be careful not to burn the sauce but try to create a crispy texture on the seitan. You may want to use a lid or metal filter to block the splatters.
Remove seitan from heat, pile a generous amount on a toasted bun and enjoy!
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