Gyro with Cucumber Sauce (Tzatziki)

My mother-in-law found this recipe and sent it to me and my whole family loved it. I really enjoy the seasoning of the seitan, it's much different than your typical seitan flavor. I make these with homemade pita.
It may strike you as a lot of ingredients or a lot of work when you see the recipe, but most of it is just seasoning and it's actually a really quick and easy meal.

For the sauce
1 cup soy yogurt, unsweetened
1/2 large cucumber, peeled and grated
1 tablespoon lemon juice, fresh
1 teaspoon dried dill weed
1/2 teaspoon salt
fresh ground pepper, to taste

For the seitan
1 lb seitan, shaved thin or ground
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon cumin
2 teaspoons oregano
1 pinch cinnamon
1 pinch nutmeg
1 pinch cayenne pepper
salt & freshly ground black pepper

For the sandwich
2 small tomatoes, diced
1 onion, diced
3 cups lettuce or spinach, shredded
6 pieces pita bread, warmed

• Peel and grate the cucumber. Put the grated cucumber into a strainer and set in the sink for 10 minutes to drain.
• Squeeze the cucumber to remove excess moisture and place into a small bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and stir well to combine. Cover and place in the fridge to let the flavors meld while you cook.
• Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the seitan and garlic and stir until the seitan begins to brown. Add all of the seasonings and stir well. Sauté until the seitan is well cooked and fragrant. Turn off the heat.
• Assemble the sandwich with the shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes and onions, cooked seitan and cucumber sauce. 

Disclaimer: I always triple the cucumber sauce recipe. 1, Because it's delicious and my family doesn't simply drizzle on a little, we heap it on every bite. And 2, I can only find plain soy yogurt in 24oz containers, what am I going to do with 16 extra ounces of plain yogurt? Besides, if I ever did end up with any extra, it would make a pretty yummy salad dressing...but I've never had extra so I can't say that for sure ;)

My Husband's Favorite Meal: Philly Cheese Steak

The cheese steak starts with the bun, I hit up the bakery/deli part of my grocery store and find a hardy bun. I try to get hot dog/sub type buns, but I've used hamburger style in a pinch.

1 LB Bulk seitan

2 Bell peppers (red is best but get whatever's in season)

1 Sweet onion

6 buns

1 1/2 cups shredded cheese (I use Daiya)

Mustard

Mayonaise

1TB Oil

Salt & Pepper to taste

• Butterfly the buns (or cut in half if you get hamburger style) 
• Spread mayo on one side and mustard on the other.
• Thinly slice your bulk meat so it's roughly 3in long and 1in wide.
• Cut peppers and onion into thick strips
• Heat a pan with oil on med-high then add meat, peppers, and onion. Cook until seitan starts to brown and veggies just start to soften.
• Add the salt and pepper last so the salt wont draw out the water from the veg and the pepper wont burn.
• Add the meat and veggie mix to your buns, top with cheese, then place on foil under the broiler just until the cheese melts and starts to brown

*ALWAYS keep an eye on the broiler, your bread will blacken in a matter of seconds if you're not careful. The broiler needs to warm up, just like when you normally use the stove, don't be like me and start with a cold stove then base my cooking times off that 1st sandwich ;)

Pair the sandwich with a side of hot wings and ranch and there you'll have, My Husband's Favorite Meal.

Husband's Favorite Meal: Hot Wings

The meal: Hot wings, Philly cheese steaks, and Ranch
Of everything I make, one meal has my husband saying "I would eat this everyday and never get tired of it" and "I would order this at a restaurant and gladly pay the high price they would charge for it". Now, this meal can be time consuming if you don't already have bulk seitan on hand (which I rarely do) so all this hot air from my husband could just be his way of getting me to make one of his favorite dishes.

First up, hot wings (or Buffalo wings). At restaurants I'm usually served soft and tangy tofu hot wings, which are good, but this recipe is more of a savory, chewy seitan recipe. Baked a little less will yield softer wings and a little more will give you chewier wings, either way, cold leftovers out of the refrigerator the next day is my favorite way to eat them.

Hot Wings
1/2 cup Hot Sauce 
2 Batches bulk seitan
1/2 cup Butter
Heavy dose of Sriracha (optional)

• Put the butter in a 9x13 casserole dish and put it in your oven as you preheat it to 350º
• Make your seitan and cut into wing size strips
• Pull the butter out of the oven once it has melted and add your hot sauce/s. Mix
• Dredge each chunk of seitan through the butter/hot sauce mix on both sides then lay them in the casserole dish, they will be tightly packed, just make sure you only have one layer.
• Bake uncovered for 20 min, then use a fork to flip the wings, cook an additional 20 min.
• Finally, use a spatula to toss the wings in what ever sauce may remain in your pan and they're ready to eat. Depending on your oven and preferance, you can continue to cook your wings to get an even chewier result.

Tips: 
- Any brand of hot sauce will do, but check the label 'cause sauces advertised as being for hot wings tend to have butter in them
- If you're making the seitan from scratch for this recipe, try adding fake chicken powder for flavor
- Sriracha is an asian chili sauce found in most grocery stores (or cheaper at any asian market). It's a very spicy but flavorful addition that I like because sometimes I find the hot sauce from the bottle to taste a little flat on it's own.

Chicken Nuggets

This chicken nugget recipe is my new favorite recipe, it's so yummy, the whole family love them, I always have the ingredients on hand, and they're quick. I worked off of the "Souther Fried Vegetarian Chicken" recipe I found at vegetarian.about.com. I use the chicken patty recipe for the seitan in this, and most other breaded and fried recipes because they're drier than the bulk seitan recipe and coat better. I made the addetion of bread crumbs because I always have them on hand and it really added a nice crunch to the nuggets, but that's completely optional.

Chicken Nuggets

• 1 ts salt or seasoned salt
• 1 ts onion powder
• 1 ts garlic powder
• 1 ts black pepper
• dash cayenne (optional)
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1/4 cup prepared mustard
• 2 TB baking powder
• 1/3 cup Panko bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 lb seitan or other chicken substitute, cut into strips or 1-2" square pieces
• oil for frying

Preparation:

In a medium to large bowl, mix together the salt, onion powder, garlic powder, flour, black pepper, cayenne and nutritional yeast.

In a separate small bowl, whisk together the mustard and water. Add 1/3 cup of the flour mixture to the mustard mixture and combine well.

Add baking powder and bread crumbs to the flour mixture and combine well.

Coat pieces of seitan or mock chicken with the mustard batter, then coat each piece with the dry flour mixture.

Fry chunks of "chicken" in the oil on medium-high heat in a large skillet for 3-5 minutes, turning once until golden brown. Drain on a paper towel, serve with ketchup or barbeque sauce and enjoy!

Tip: If your chunks are turning brown or black rather than a crispy golden brown, your oil is probably too hot! Reduce the heat a small amount and try again.

Despite making larger batches every time I cook these up, there's never any leftover. I would love to freeze some and just be able to toss them in the oven like the carnivores get to do. I would also like to take some leftovers and toss them in buffalo wing sauce and attempt hot wings. If I ever have leftovers, I'll let you know how my experiments turn out.

Pizza

Buying pizza is a rare treat for my family, I guess I should say it's a rare treat for me because it means I get hot food that I didn't have to work all night making, but for my husband it means dry dough sparsly covered with overcooked veggies and a large bill since the meat lover's pizza was only $5 but the vegetarian was $14 plus the $1.50 per extra veggie, per pizza. Another great shortcut to pizza is simply topping english muffins, but the most inexpensive (and tastiest) option is to make our pizzas from scratch.
Now, I've done a lot of experimenting with pizza dough, my bread machine over worked it, most doughs require lots of kneading and time to rise, and a ton of recipes yield dough too elastic to work with, but I've finally landed on a recipe that works well for me.
We purchased 2 pizza pans on clearance at our local grocery store, they're thin and cheap in quality, but sprayed with non stick cooking spray and sprinkled with cornmeal, the pans release nicley and cook the pizzas evenly.
Quick pizza dough


1 package (2 1/4 te) active or quick rise yeast
1 te sugar
1 Cup warm water
2 1/2 Bread flour
2 TB oil
1 te salt
* garlic powder, rosemary, or italian seasoning to season crust optional

• Dissolve yeast, sugar, and water for 10 minutes
• Add in the rest of the ingredients and mix until smooth (I use a stand mixer with a dough hook)
• Let rest for 5 minutes
• Preheat oven to 450º
• Lightly grease pizza pan *a dusting or cornmeal is optional
• Roll out pizza dough on a floured surface to the approximate size of your pan, then place the dough in your pan and use your hands to form the pizza to your pan
• Top your pizza then cook for 15-20 minutes

Picture courtesy of wannabeavegan.wordpress.com

The dough will look more like a sticky mess than a dough ball when it's done mixing, but with floured hands and a floured surface, it becomes a malleable dough and lends itself easily to be stretched out. This crust yields one pizza, but I like thinner crust so I make two batches at once and divide it by three.

Toppings-
I'm a traditionalist, I prefer "meat" and "cheese" over spinach and mushrooms, but That's what's so good about making this dough, everyone gets their own pizza to top any way they like. My husband likes it simple homemade chorizo sausage cut up like pepperoni, onion, and Daiya cheese (a once a week splurge). My kids like pineapple and olive, homemade chicken that I whirl up in our food processor, and a spicy cheese spread my husband makes.


Variations-
I've made this dough into calzones before, you can fill them with almost anything, but my family likes seitan or chicken cut into cubes and marinated in equal parts melted butter and hot sauce for a hot wing calzone. We then cook it up the same as you would a pizza and dip it in homemade ranch sauce.


You can make this dough into bread sticks as well, roll the dough out and cut into bread sticks, place on  a pan that has been covered in foil and lightly greased. Bruch the bread sticks with melted butter and cook the same as you would a pizza, but keep an eye on them so you don't over cook

Thrifty Thursday: Chicken and Broccoli Casserole

This was a simple recipe I thought up while trying to create a dinner out of what ever ingredients were left at the end of the week. For starters, we always have a few heads of broccoli in the fridge, it's always pretty cheap (at least where I'm from) and if I don't end up using it in any recipes, my family loves it steamed or even raw with some dip. Secondly, we always have some homemade seitan in the house, it's pretty inexpensive and easy to make and freeze.
This recipe makes a ton, it tops off a large casserole dish and weighs more than my 1yr old. I've even divided it between a 9x13 and an 8x8 and it seemed to last longer even though it was technically the same amount of food.


Chicken and Broccoli Casserole


3 heads of broccoli, chopped using only the florets
3 cups of rice
5 chick'n patties
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
1 can vegetable broth
1 1/2 cups plain soy milk (or vegetable broth)
1 1/2 te salt
1/2 te garlic powder
1/2 te onion powder
Pepper to taste
Pinch cayenne pepper
Shredded cheese (optional)

• Melt butter in a sauce pan then add the flour. Mix until all the flour is absorbed and looks like a clump of dough.
• Turn off heat and slowly add your vegetable broth and soy milk in SMALL batches and fully incorporate before adding the next batch. If you add too much liquid and lumps form, you can whisk them out before continuing. As the gravy gets thinner, you can start adding more liquid per batch.
• Add the garlic powder, onion powder, salt, cayenne, and pepper. You want the gravy slightly salty as it will be flavoring all the rice and broccoli.
• Return to a medium/low heat and stir frequently to avoid lumps, making sure to scrape the bottom and sides of the pan. Cook for about 15 minutes, if it starts to bubble, reduce heat and simmer.
• While your gravy is heating, cut up your broccoli florets into manageably bite size pieces and steam for 10 minutes until fork tender.
• Cut up the chick'n patties into bite sized pieces.
• Cook your rice last to avoid clumping, I use minute rice, but any rice you have will work fine.
• Once everything is cooked, put the rice, chicken, and broccoli in a large bowl and stir, then add the gravy and mix until it's of uniform consistency. Fill a casserole dish and pat down with a spatula. Top with shredded cheese if you have it.
• Cook the casserole, uncovered, in a preheated 350º oven for 15 minutes.

Thrifty Thursday: Chicken Patties

This is, by far, the most utilized and versatile recipe in my arsenal. It has also saved us the most money. This is a chicken seitan recipe I adapted from an Italian sausage recipe I found at Everyday Dish. It's super easy to make, no kneading required. The possibilities for this chicken is endless, but some of our favorite ways to use it are;

• Chicken patties for a quick burger and fries meal on days I spend the evening at soccer practice. 
• Breaded and fried for chicken parmesan or chicken fingers.
• Cut them into bite sized pieces and put them in casseroles. 
• Toss them in a food processor and get a ground hamburger consistency which works really well in chick'n salad or a filling for things like samosas. 
• Or add different spices to make a more savory flavor and use to replace all your ground hamburger in things like tacos, pizza, meat balls, and meatloaf.

Chicken Patties

15 sheets of foil, about 8in long

2 1/2 cups vital wheat gluten

1/2 cup nutritional yeast

1/4 cup chickpea flour (also called garbanzo bean flour)

2 TB chicken seasoning

2 1/4 cups cold water

2 TB oil

2 TB soy sauce

1/2 TB minced garlic

1 1/2 TB italian seasoning

• Mix all the dry ingredients together
• Mix all the wet ingredients together
• Mix the wet into the dry ingredients just until combined
• You can add another tablespoon of water if the mixture is too dry
• Scoop about 1/2 a cup of dough onto the middle of the foil and pat down to form a patty. Fold the sides of the foil in to form a little package.
• Steam for 30 minutes

You may not get 15 patties the first time you try this recipe, I think I only got 9 on my first try, but the more you do it the better formed your patties will be and you might see that you prefer less "meat" in your patties. We make a batch then reuse the foil for a second batch that we unwrap and throw in tupperware and freeze.

You can also follow the recipe but omit the garlic and italian seasoning for up to 5 tablespoons of your own spices to create a ton of different flavors.

Chicken patties, bacon, vegan mayo

DIY Vegan

The single most thing that has saved me more money than I can fathom, is making my own vegan staples. The first thing I realized I could make was seitan (for those of you who may be new to seitan, it's a meat substitute made from wheat gluten). You can find a seitan recipe almost anywhere online and practically every cookbook has their own version. I've included the first seitan recipe I used, and it's the one I still use today.

A few words on making your own seitan.
-Vital wheat gluten/wheat gluten/wheat gluten flour, it's one in the same. Wheat gluten flour is simply a wheat flour with lots of protein in it, that's what gives seitan it's meaty texture. It's one of the few things you absolutely can't substitute for something else.
-I try not to do too much shopping in health food stores as they are more expensive and I like to do all my shopping at one place, so I tend to go to the popular mega stores and places that offer great rewards and coupons, but sometimes you can't find vital wheat gluten there. I'm lucky enough that my local Fred Meyers has started carrying it in bulk (which is always the cheapest way to go) if they didn't carry it, I would have asked if I could make special orders for it which usually doesn't cost anything as long as you pick it up at the store.
-Whether your recipe calls for you to boil or steam your seitan, it will expand, and the more it expands the more porous and spong like it gets. If you first wrap your seitan in foil or cheesecloth, you'll get a denser "meat" but it will produce less volume. I choose to take the happy medium and very loosely wrap the seitan in foil, giving it room to expand, but not enough as to start getting too porous.

Bulk Seitan
From the cookbook Vegan With A Vengeance

1 cup vital wheat gluten flour
3 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes
1/2 cup cold vegetable broth
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, pressed or grated on a microplane grater

For the simmering broth: 
4 cups vegetable broth
4 cups water
1/4 cup soy sauce

Fill a stock pot with the water, broth and soy sauce, cover and bring to a boil.

In the mean time, in a large bowl mix together gluten and yeast.  In a smaller bowl mix together broth, soy sauce, lemon juice, olive oil and garlic. Pour the wet into the dry and combine with a wooden spoon until most of the moisture has absorbed and partially clumped up with the dry ingredients. Use your hands and knead for about 3 minutes, until it’s an elastic dough. Divide into 3 equal pieces with a knife and then knead those pieces in your hand just to stretch them out a bit. Let rest until the broth has come to a full boil.

Once boiling, lower the heat to a simmer. Add the gluten pieces and partially cover pot so that steam can escape. Let simmer for 45 minutes, turning occasionally. Turn the heat off and take the lid off, let sit for 15 minutes.

Remove from broth and place in a strainer until it is cool enough to handle. Slice and use as desired.

This recipe makes a ton of "meat" which I fry, bake, batter, and even toss in a food processor to make "ground beef". Once you're comfortable with making your own seitan, google more recipes. Each week my husband makes hamburgers, sausages, lunch meat, and generic meat for random recipes. Sometimes I wrap the seitan dough in foil before I boil it and it makes a denser (yet smaller) seitan if I need something like turkey slices.

Cheap: If you want to further flavor your seitan, you can buy mock chicken broth mixes and bouillon cubes.

Cheaper: Use different seasoning already in your cupboard like cumin, smoked paprika, or thyme.

Cheapest: I've found that Top Ramen oriental flavor is vegan. We use the noodles in other recipes but I save the packets and flavor seitan with it, it gives the seitan sort of a beefy flavor.