Seitan isn't scary!

I love seitan. It's probably my favorite food - after maybe sweet potatoes and ginger.

One thing that makes me sad about seitan is that people are so scared of making it. For some reason, it has become this big terrifying monster looming over the vegan kitchen. And it doesn't have to be.

Seitan is actually really easy to make. Plan on your first batch failing miserably. For some reason this seems to happen. I don't know anyone who has had a perfect first batch. The thing is, after the first one it almost always seems to work.

So here's some tips to make your journey into the world of seitan much easier. I've peppered the post with some of my favorite seitan meals from my Instagram to help inspire you.

• Homemade seitan is incredibly versatile. Depending on how you season it and shape it, you can create a thousand dishes. Pot roasts, fajitas, meatballs, a Thanksgiving turkey, burgers, southern fried chicken, or anything else you can imagine. Therefore, don't get yourself too stuck on one singular recipe. Get creative and don't be afraid to experiment.

The birthday dinner my husband made for me. It's breaded and fried seitan served with glazed carrots, mashed potatoes and a homemade barbecue sauce.

• I am most familiar and comfortable with simmered seitan. You can also make it steamed. To simmer seitan, you create a dough with liquids and vital wheat gluten, then simmer it in a delicious broth for around 45 minutes. What you get is a solid chunk of meat, dead bodies not included. You can then cook this pretty much any way you would cook animal-based meat, though it doesn't need as long a cook time as something like chicken would.

Quick pad thai made with leftover seitan strips and whatever veggies I had sitting around.

• The best ratio I've found for delicious seitan is 2 parts dry to 1 part liquid. Put the dry ingredients in a big bowl and then stir in the wet. Once a dough starts to form, finish mixing it with your hands and knead it for a couple of minutes.

One of our seitan turkeys from thanksgiving. We always have to make more than one because the vegan men eat way too much and all of the omnivores have a few slices too.

• The dry is typically almost exclusively vital wheat gluten with different herbs and spices added. I like to add a bunch of ground ginger if I'm planning to make an Asian inspired dish, and I've made delicious sausage by adding lots of fennel and ground pepper. 

Asian-inspired burgers.

• The liquid is mostly composed of broth, but should also include something salty (usually soy sauce), some oil and some acid. My base recipe usually uses olive oil and lemon juice, but you can easily sub most other oils (grapeseed is wonderfully mild) and other acidic liquids (for burgers, try a splash of apple cider vinegar). You can also add minced garlic into the liquid. 

Grilled mango ginger seitan over brown rice.

• To change up the texture and the taste, sub up to half of the wheat gluten with chickpea flour. This is my favorite for making burgers, meatballs or pork chops. 

White pizza with seitan strips, onions, spinach and lots of homemade alfredo and mozzarella.

• Once you've made the dough, you can cut it up into pieces, shape it into burger or meatballs, or just make a big roast. You can also just cut it and slice it up after it's prepared. I usually cut the dough into 3 or 4 chunks, unless I'm making something like burgers or a pot roast. Keep in mind that the seitan will expand while it simmers, so that you don't end up with burgers twice the size of the bread.

These are the burgers that put vegans in heaven and have omnivores begging for the recipe.

• Let the dough rest a few minutes before dumping it into the broth.

• Seitan dough is simmered in a delicious broth in a large saucepan or stock pot. The simmering broth should cover the seitan. Make the broth by mixing a few cups of veggie broth, water, a splash of soy sauce and at least one boullion cube or a comparable seasoning. You can also add more herbs and spices to the broth, as it will affect the flavor of the final product. Sometimes I add a bay leaf and some herb blends to it, along with mashed garlic cloves. 

Thanksgiving leftover sliders. Rolls with a slice of that delicious roast you just saw, covered in mashed potatoes, cheesy corn and gravy.

• When you're simmering seitan the most important thing in the world is to not let the water boil once the seitan is in there, particularly during the first 20 minutes. If you have a finicky stove, you might need to hang out in the kitchen adjusting the heat. Once you've made it a few times, you'll get a feel for what works best for your pot and your stove.

Pecan crusted seitan. This is one of our favorite dishes. Seitan cutlets are coated in a panko and ground pecan mixture and then pan fried.

•  So you've done everything perfectly and the finished seitan is soft and mushy? Grease a cookie sheet and toss it into the oven for a few minutes at 300 degrees F. This won't work if you end up with pureed brains, but it will firm up seitan that's a bit too soft.

Crazy-messy taco filling made with cubed seitan, quinoa, veggies and lots of spices.

• The best seitan is made with homemade broth. Save the ends of veggies as you cut them and store them in the freezer. Then, fill up a giant pot with water, a dash of soy sauce, a bay leaf and whatever veggies you have in the freezer or sitting around. I try to always include onions, potatoes and garlic, but anything else goes. You can also use carrot or potato peels and broccoli stalks. Simmer the whole mess for a few hours, strain it all and store in the fridge in jars. It's a thousand times better than the boxed or canned stuff, and costs next to nothing to make. 

Tandoori setian skewers. Seitan is the answer to all vegan grilling problems.

• One of the best things about seitan is that it keeps really well in the fridge or freezer, and it's easy to make a huge amount at once. Just store it in a big glass or tupperware container filled with the broth you simmered it in. If you'll be using it within a week, keep it in the fridge. If it's going to be longer, toss it in the freezer. You can also marinate seitan overnight or for a few days. This is a great practice for making delicious and easy weekday meals. The seitan is already made, so can just chop it up and add it to any quick meal. 

Making seitan pastelillos (or empanadas). A Puerto Rican dish, veganized. This is before I fried them, obviously.

• If you want to get a really crisp "skin" on the seitan, lightly dust the pieces in flour and pan fry on medium high heat in a little bit of oil.

Still not completely sold? There are some store bought seitan brands out there, but even the few that are really yummy are usually hard to find and pale in comparison to the taste a versatility of homemade. For the record, my favorite brand of seitan is Upton's Naturals, so give them a try if you are new to the seitan world. It can be hard to find, though, and you might need to order it online (according to their website, they don't sell a single one of their products in Florida with the exception of the panhandle. Which we all know isn't really 100% Florida). A lot of vegetarian and vegan restaurants also make their own seitan, and I've only been to one restaurant where that house seitan is bad, so if you are lucky enough to try it at a restaurant, go ahead!

Good luck and let me know any of your foolprood seitan tips and tricks!

Food Gifts: Balsamic Roasted Garlic

Since I have to get all of my Christmas presents done early this year (we'll be out of town the week before), I thought it might be a good idea to share with you guys some of the gifts I'll be making. Hopefully these ideas and how-to's help you with your gift-giving this year.

I'm a big advocate of the homemade present, and particularly the edible homemade present. I always try to incorporate handmade edibles into all of my gift giving and I change it up each year. One year I did giant cupcakes decorated as ornaments and I gifted them in adorable, festive boxes. That same year I also made mini ornament cupcakes for parties and large groups I was bringing gifts for. I've also done cookies of all kinds and one year I made a couple of weeks worth of frozen meals for my parents. They were all designed to just defrost and throw in the oven so that my family could have a home cooked meal even when they were busy. The options are endless.

This will be a series of posts and I'll also include ideas for labeling and wrapping the food gifts as well.

This year, one of the gifts I'm giving is balsamic roasted garlic. It seems a little odd, but it's useful and fun little present for any chefs and garlic lovers in your life. The plus, this stuff lasts a really long time if it's sealed and in the fridge so you can make it a little ways ahead of time.

 

All you need to make this is:

Aluminum foil

Lots of heads of garlic (depending on how much you want to give)

Balsamic vinegar

Olive oil

Kosher or sea salt

Jars (I used a couple of sizes of mason jars. Use whatever you like but make sure it's pretty and seals fairly well)

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Then, chop the very tops off of the heads of garlic, so a little bit of each clove is exposed.

Line a baking pan of some kind (I used glass) with foil and drizzle a little olive oil over the foil. Then arrange the heads of garlic cut side up.

Drizzle them with a little more olive oil and some balsamic, then sprinkle them with a little salt.

 

It should look a little like this. 

Now, cover the pans with foil and toss them in the oven for about 45 minutes to an hour.

When they come out, let them cool a little and remove each of the cloves from their skin. It shouldn't be too hard now that they are cooked.

Put the cloves back into the foil, drizzle them with more olive oil and balsamic vinegar, then wrap the foil around them to make a little pouch.

Toss them back into the oven for another 15 minutes or so. Take them out of the oven, stir them up, and roast them for another 15 minutes. They should be golden, smell delicious, and be a bit soft.

Now you can package them up.

Roasted garlic has a ton of uses, and it might be a good idea to include a little gift tag with ideas. It's great spread on toast and it a wonderful addition to virtually any pasta sauce. You can also spread it on crackers or even eat it on it's own.