As I predicted, I baked some of the ham I made last night for Easter dinner tonight, and I have to say, it was definitely the “hammiest” thing I’ve eaten in 20 years, so I’m getting very close!

I took three of the “cutlets” I boiled last night, scored them, brushed them with a mixture of about 2 tablespoons agave nectar and 2 tablespoons of the balsamic mustard I mentioned in this post (that I got from this post on Cupcake Punk), and studded them with cloves, then baked at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for about 45 minutes.

I deplore having nothing green with my dinner, but I’m pretty much out of veggies and I don’t think Wegmans was open today. So homemade sauerkraut and more frozen corn it was.

I’m a little hammed out having had it two nights in a row now (and there are still more leftovers!), but I think in a few weeks when I get the urge to make it again, I’ll have a perfected recipe for you!

I also tested the babka recipe for Peter Reinhart’s upcoming cookbook, appropriately enough as it’s Easter. I wasn’t expecting it to turn out that well because it calls for a lot of egg yolks. But I substituted an equal weight of silken tofu and it turned out AWESOME!

I did some more organizing in my kitchen this weekend. What’s interesting about that is I was just looking at my first seitan “ham” post and realized that I made that attempt the same weekend I completely reorganized my kitchen the first time. Weird. Anyway, in the course of cleaning out my cupboards, I found a few things that I’m simply never going to use and I’d like to offer them to any of you who could use them.

First, I bought this set of Calphalon Hard Anodized cookware a few years ago. I use the pots all the time, but I never use the skillets, because as you know, I am extremely attached to my cast iron skillet. These are really, really nice skillets, though. I may have used the larger two once or twice, although I’m not sure I ever used them at all. They are pretty much brand new. I have used the smaller skillet a bit more often, though only for toasting things like seeds, so I therefore never use oil on it and it’s completely clean. I thought about keeping the small skillet, but then I figured I’d keep the set together and get myself one of the small cast iron skillets I’m always eyeing up and talking myself out of because I have a small skillet. If you are interested, leave a comment and I’ll email you for your address so I can send you the set; shipping is on me anywhere in the US. Internationally, let me know your country and postcode and I’ll figure out what shipping will be and if it’s a lot, we can talk. Together the set weighs just under ten pounds.

Secondly, this Italian bread pan. I used it a few times after buying it and it’s great, but I then got a huge baking stone that I now bake directly on. Same deal as above: if you want it, leave a comment.

These are both really nice items that I simply haven’t given the attention they deserve. I also don’t have room for them in my kitchen. I’d love to see them go to someone who will use them. I bought these items specifically because I like the brand name: most of my non-cast iron cookware is Calphalon hard anodized, and most of my bakeware is Chicago Metallic. I just don’t use these particular items. If you want, I can post pictures of them.

I guess if more than one person is interested in one or both of the items, I’ll pick winners at random on Friday, April 17 at 8 p.m. (Eastern time). If no one responds by then, I’ll either give them to the first person to comment after that time, or I may find something else to do with them. I’d just like them to have a good home.

I foodically (what? it’s a perfectly cromulent word!) celebrated two holidays today! I made matzo ball soup for Passover lunch. I should have taken a photo, but I made it exactly as Isa directs in Vegan with a Vengeance. I’d never had it before, but it was good.

Then I was a day early, but I found myself in the mood to experiment with making seitan ham again, so I tried to make an Easter ham. It was a last-minute, throw-it-together sort of thing and I didn’t take photos, didn’t write it down, and didn’t think it would turn out well. However, it ended up being the closest I’ve gotten to a hammy taste, so I’m going to record approximately what I did. I’ll try to tighten the recipe up later and report back to you. Oddly, I think the breakthrough thing was an accident. When I went to add the liquid smoke to the pot, I thought for some reason it had the sort of cap on it that limits you to a few drops at a time and I rather rambunctiously dumped it in before realizing it had no such thing, and I added much more than I would ever have thought of using. I thought at first I had probably ruined the broth but I tasted it and it wasn’t bad, so I figured I’d try it. I think the smoky flavor is what made it taste more like ham to me. I have no idea how much I ended up pouring in there but I guessed two tablespoons below. It could well have been three or even four, though.

Seitan Ham

Simmering broth
7 cups water
1 cup soy sauce
2 Tbsp liquid smoke
1 large onion, chopped
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried sage
1/4 cup nutritional yeast

Seitan
1/3 cup soy flour
2 1/3 cups vital wheat gluten
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp white pepper
1 Tbsp smoked paprika (use sweet paprika or omit if you don’t have smoked)
1 1/4 cups water
1 cup ketchup

Bring all of the broth ingredients to a boil in a large Dutch oven or stock pot. In a large bowl, mix together the soy flour, vital wheat gluten, salt, pepper, and smoked paprika. In a large liquid measuring cup, whisk together the water and ketchup. Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry and knead with your hands until all of ingredients are thoroughly mixed. Cut the resulting seitan mass into 6 pieces; shape each into a ball then flatten with your palm and place in the simmering broth. Cover the pot, reduce heat to medium, and simmer for an hour. Remove with a slotted spoon and pan fry or bake. Leftovers can be stored in the refrigerator for a few days in some of the broth.

I did manage to get a picture of the ham floating in the broth:

I don’t know that ham is often pan fried. I think it is ordinarily baked. But I was anxious to get the meal on the table so I just browned it a bit in my cast iron skillet.

I served it with some broccoli and cheeze sauce, corn, and some yeasted bread, because for me, Passover was over.

Tomorrow I may bake the leftovers for my “real” Easter dinner. If I do, I’ll let you know the results.

Mark really liked the ham. Although I asked him if he thought it tasted at all hammy and he said it tasted more like horse. I asked him when he’d ever eaten horse meat and he said once when he was young he said he was hungry enough to eat a horse and a genie appeared and granted him his wish and a horse appeared so he cooked it and ate it. And I said I didn’t believe that story because he doesn’t know how to cook. And so he said he microwaved it. And I asked how did he have a microwave big enough to fit a horse and he said it was a tiny show pony. I still think he might be lying though.

And another thing. When Peter Reinhart’s new cookbook comes out, don’t be afraid to make the cheese bread! I can’t share the recipe, but I made it using a mixture Follow Your Heart nacho and Cheezly mozzarella and it was AWESOME!

Also, my mom reminded me to tell you how Brachtune got her name. I know you’re probably sitting up at nights wondering. I didn’t name her. When I was in college, I rescued her from some neighbors who had her for a while, and because they were irresponsible college boys, no longer wanted her and were going to take her to the pound. They informed me her name was “Brocktoon” and said that it had something to do with Mr Belvedere, which I never fully understood. Although it was not my initial plan – I already had two cats – I ended up keeping her and as I had never seen her nonsensical name in writing, I had to make up a spelling, so I made the spelling Brachtune, figuring it looked vaguely German. People would often ask me what it meant and I’d have to say vaguely, “uh, Mr Belvedere?” One night, however, I had a party which an old friend of mine from high school I hadn’t seen in a long time attended. He asked the name of my cat and when I told him, he laughed and said, “oh from the Saturday Night Live skit with Tom Hanks! That’s hilarious!” Not only did he know what Brachtune was, he had a video tape of the very episode! Two nights later I was at his house watching The Guy Who Plays Mr. Belvedere Fan Club! And it all suddenly made sense.

It’s on the Best of Tom Hanks SNL DVD, by the way, if you ever have a chance to watch it. It IS funny.

Also, since it is Easter, I will share with you a strange factor about my life. PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS MAKING ME DRESS UP LIKE A BUNNY. I DON’T KNOW WHY.

It started when I was very young. This is me and my godmother. I’m what, a month old?

Late-breaking addition from my mom:
I was then a bunny on what my mother said was my first Halloween, but as I was born on October 19, this was either technically my second Halloween or I was a very early walker:

I guess she meant my first Halloween dressing up. I guess I went as an infant for my first Halloween.

Then when I worked in the grocery store in high school, THEY made me dress up like the Easter bunny and walk around terrorizing small children. (There’s a sign for ham behind me, ugh!)

After a time, I just gave in. When a friend of mine asked me to be a bridesmaid, I insisted on hopping down the aisle wearing bunny ears. She vetoed that idea but I did get away with wearing them at the reception.

And this…I can’t even explain this. (Yes, that’s Fortinbras.)

Speaking of Fortinbras, wow, I had no idea you guys were going to want to start a Fort Fan Club! I shouldn’t be surprised as he is pretty awesome. He’s excited to make another post, possibly even next weekend, so keep your fingers crossed. We may have to nag him about it, though. You saw how long it took him to make his Christmas post. In the meantime, here’s one of my favorite pictures of us. We’re in New Orleans for Halloween:

I’m also fond of this one …

… though this one is a bit more typical:

Man, you want more pictures of Fortinbras? That’s a dangerous request. I have more pictures of him than I do of Tigger. I have more pictures of Fortinbras than I do all other subjects put together! But I think instead of digging up old photos, we should just implore ole Fort to make more guest appearances! He’s not vegan, but he’s always been extremely supportive of me, and in fact, he veganized ALL of the holiday foods he made to give away to friends and family just because he was baking them at my house.

And now I’m going to go celebrate my third holiday of the day: it’s Godless Saturday. I figure, since Jesus died yesterday and he’s not to be resurrected until tomorrow, we can all sin with impunity today! And with that, I’m going to go get another beer.

This morning I was thinking about what I could do with the extra can of jackfruit I had leftover from making jackfruit tacos, when it dawned on me that the texture of cooked jackfruit would cause it to stand in very well for crab, and I suddenly decided I wanted to make crab soup. I remembered I had two crab soup recipes from my mom’s recipe box, but when I looked them over, neither seemed particularly appealing. One of them included all sorts of things I can’t even identify like “ham hock” and weird parts of cow. (I think that recipe was really “Old Bay soup” and not “crab soup”, though it also had crab in it. I don’t think most Maryland crab soup has heaps of weird meat in it.) The other was more my speed but called for a lot of frozen vegetables, where I’d rather use fresh. So I simply set out on my own.

The first thing I did was soak some dried lima beans. Now, I haven’t been entirely truthful with you. I’ve made it sound as if the only vegan food I don’t like is mushrooms. But the fact of the matter is, I also dislike baby lima beans. I’ve always hated them. At least, I think I still dislike them. I should probably try them again and make sure, but one just sort of rarely comes across lima beans in one’s daily travels, so I never even think of them. It’s kind of a pain to be vegan and hate mushrooms because people always want to feed mushrooms to vegetarians, often as a meat substitute. But no one cares if you hate lima beans because everyone else hates lima beans too. Or at least rarely eats them. The good news is, however, that I like LARGE lima beans, and I keep dried ones on hand for the infrequent times I realize I want them. So I measured 1 cup of dried large limas into a pot, covered with water, brought to a boil, boiled for two minutes, then turned off the heat and let them soak for an hour (actually, it was much longer, but do it for at least an hour.)

When the soaking water the lima beans are in is cool enough, pop each bean out of its “jacket”. Now, I hate hulling soybeans in this fashion and refuse to do it (I crack them while they are dry, then rinse the hulls off), but it’s actually kind of satisfying to hull large limas: they pop right out. It’s almost like popping bubble wrap. Return each hulled lima to the water to continue soaking.

Next I made the “crabmeat”:

Mock Crabmeat

1 large can young green jackfruit, packed in water (make sure it is “young green” jackfruit and that it’s not in syrup)
4 cups water
1 Tbsp salt
1 Tbsp dry mustard
2 Tbsp rice vinegar
all the seaweed you can find in your house, totaling about 1/4 – 1/2 cup depending on the type. I used kombu, dulse, hiziki, and arame.

Place the water in a pot and add the rest of the ingredients except the jackfruit. Bring to a boil.

Drain the jackfruit and rinse.

Add the jackfruit to the pot …

… reduce heat, cover, and simmer for a half an hour or until jackfruit is tender …

… then drain, allowing the seaweed to cling to the jackfruit.

Now you can assemble the soup. That is, if you have Old Bay on hand, you may assemble the soup. If you don’t, you’re going to have to get some. I’m sorry if that upsets you. Ordinarily I consider all of my recipes sort of suggestions or starting points and assume that if anyone makes them, they’ll make substitutions and changes as they see fit, because that’s how I approach all recipes that I read. In this case, however, I really must insist you use Old Bay. Maryland Crab Soup contains Old Bay: end of story. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, crabs ARE Old Bay. I don’t know that there are many traits that I have that mark me as a native Marylander, but if I have one, it’s that I know that crabs in any form require Old Bay. I think a lot of large grocery stores in the United States – even those that are not on the East Coast – carry Old Bay, but you can get it online. Heck, if you ask me to, I will MAIL you some Old Bay. I really will!

Maryland “Crab” Soup

1 recipe mock crabmeat (recipe above)
1 cup dried lima beans, soaked
1 large onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1/2 small head garlic (about 6 cloves), minced or pressed
1 red chili pepper, minced (can substitute hot sauce or dried chili flakes, or omit if you are a sissy)
4 carrots, chopped
2 medium potatoes, diced
2 cups green beans, trimmed and chopped or french-cut
1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
1 can diced tomatoes (I used fire-roasted)
1 small can tomato sauce
3 cups vegan “beef” stock
3-4 Tbsp Old Bay seasoning
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

You’ll want to cook the lima beans separately. If you have a pressure cooker, you can do this quickly: pressure cook for about 5-7 minutes, until they are soft, then drain. Otherwise, boil the limas in water for 2-4 hours or until soft. They won’t cook in the soup because the acidity of the tomatoes interferes.

Chop the onions, carrots, celery, and potatoes. Mince or press the garlic. Mince the hot pepper. Chop or french cut the green beans.

In a large soup pot or a Dutch Oven, heat some oil, then add the onions and fry over medium heat for 3 minutes.

Add the celery, garlic, and hot pepper; fry for 2 minutes.

Add the carrots and fry for 1-2 minutes.

Add the diced tomatoes and the tomato sauce.

Add the “beef” stock, potatoes, and any seaweed leftover from the jackfruit cooking.

Shred the jackfruit using your fingers. It should fall apart easily.

Add the green beans, jackfruit, corn, cooked limas, Old Bay, and Worcestershire sauce to the soup.

I chopped the carrot greens up and added them to the soup as well. You could also use parsley. Or you can skip it.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer for an hour.

Serve with saltines or a crusty bread. Goes well with beer.

Is it really spring?! I noticed this one random, lonely flower in the middle of our yard today.

Happy Spring!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, a day late! I made “corned beef” last night:

I was going to share the recipe with you, then decided it’s not quite there yet, but worth working on. At least it was edible. Whenever someone says to me, “everything you make is so good,” Mark is always quick to say, “not EVERYTHING”. When asked to elaborate, he never fails to bring up “the corned beef”. I tried to make “corned beef” seitan about five years ago – following a recipe from the internet, I don’t know which one – and it was so salty it was completely inedible, and it’s saying something when Mark finds something too salty to eat because he’s a saltasaurus. A complete disaster. So I went very easy on the salt in my invention last night, although I think real corned beef is fairly salty. (I’ve never actually had corned beef. I know, I led a very sheltered life before going vegetarian! What’s weird is I think reubens would have been my favorite food ever had I ever had one.)

The other thing that I have made that was not good was the infamous “gasoline cake” that I baked for a friend’s birthday shortly after going vegan. However, that incident was entirely Fortinbras’ fault. It must have been a wacky cake because it had vinegar. Fortinbras showed up at my apartment to help decorate as I was mixing the batter, which I tasted and found to be “off”. I claimed I was going out to buy more flour and mix up a new cake because I’d ruined that one, but Fortinbras tasted the batter and said it was “fine”. I was still pretty new to cooking and baking and didn’t really feel like running up to the store, so with some misgivings, I listened to Fort and baked it up. I decorated it nicely and it looked quite lovely. After singing Happy Birthday, the cake was sliced and pieces were handed around. Suddenly people were making faces and politely putting their pieces down without finishing them. “What’s wrong?!” I shrieked. “It tastes like gasoline,” the birthday girl (never one to mince words) informed me. The only thing I can think of is I added too much vinegar. Only Fortinbras finished an entire slice, claiming it was “fine”, while I yelled at him because I’d TOLD him it there was something wrong with it and had wanted to make another.

A year or two later, though, I baked a cake for another friend who said it was the “most incredible cake” he’d ever tasted and who took the leftovers to his family who also said it was the most amazing cake they’d ever had. So I redeemed myself, just as I hope to redeem myself in regards to the corned beef incident.

I really like the texture I get from pressure cooking seitan, but I’ve been noticing that whenever I do, no matter how many flavorings I put in the seitan and in the broth, the finished product always tastes somewhat bland. I’m really quite baffled by it. Both the liquid for the seitan and the broth I made last night were very flavorful and I thought that seitan was going to be amazing, but it was just…seitan. Like all the flavor had cooked out of it. So I think I have the ingredients right, I need to work on the execution. I’ll try steaming this time. Has anyone else encountered this problem? Were you able to fix it?

My first mistake was informing Mark it is Robbie Burns Night. My second mistake was reminding him, as I do every year, what Robbie Burns Night is. My third and final, fatal, mistake was admitting that yes, I’m making vegan haggis.

Although I’ve been vegetarian for five times longer than Mark, and although I swear it does not resemble nor taste a thing like real haggis (which I assume is true although I have no idea what real haggis looks or tastes like), Mark absolutely refuses to so much as try a bite of anything I refer to as “haggis”. What I should have done is told him it was “meatloaf” (though we just had meatloaf on Friday, which was poor meal planning on my part), or anything but haggis. I made it once before, the first Burns Night after we were married. It seemed appropriate: we were married in Scotland, so the country holds a special place in my heart. Mark, however, ate nary a bite. So for subsequent Burns Nights, I’ve not bothered with the trouble of making a haggis no one is going to be eating but me. This year, however, I am the proud author of a food blog, so I felt somewhat obligated to celebrate. Even if haggis is really, really disgusting.

The first time I made vegan haggis, I used this recipe or something very like it (sans mushrooms, of course). I tried telling Mark – truthfully – that it tasted like stuffing, which he loves, but he wasn’t having it. This year I did my typical glance-at-a-few-different–recipes-then-make-something-up routine. This is what I did:

Vegan Haggis

2 Tbsp barley
2 Tbsp green lentils
1/4 cup steel cut oats (I used Irish oats, sue me)
1/2 cup vegan “beef” broth
1 Tbsp Marmite
1/2 large onion, minced
1 stalk celery, minced
1 parsnip, minced
3/4 package vegan “ground round”
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1/2 tsp rubbed sage
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Note: I used commercial “ground round” because I had a package that was set to expire. Next time I might try bulgur or something more natural.

In a small pot, cook the barley in 1/2 cup water for half an hour.

In another small pot, cook the lentils in 1/2 cup water for half an hour.

Toast the oatmeal briefly in a frying pan over medium heat.

Mix the broth and Marmite together, then add the oatmeal. Cover and set aside.

(I added the seasonings in this step, but I’ll instruct you to do it later because I realized it dumb to do it at this step.)

Mince the onion, celery, and parsnip. I used a chopper.

Heat a small amount of oil in a medium frying pan. Add the minced veggies and saute until soft.

Add the “ground round” and seasonings; saute for 3 minutes.

When the lentils are done …

… drain them …

and add to the “ground round” mixture. When the barley is done …

… drain it …

… and also add to the “ground round” mixture.

Drain the oatmeal, reserving the broth.

Add it also to the “ground round” mixture.

Dump the mixture into the center of a large piece of muslin or heavy cheesecloth.

Mold it into a lump with your hands.

Wrap it up as tightly as you can, securing with kitchen string.

Place the reserved broth and enough water to make 4 cups of liquid into a medium pot, then add the haggis.

Bring to a boil, cover, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 1 hour or longer. Remove from broth and allow to cool until you can touch it. Squeeze out as much liquid as you can without smashing the haggis. Unwrap.

(I boiled it because it seemed like what you do with haggis, however, I think next time I might bake it like a meatloaf.)

Serve with gravy.

Apparently you pretty much have to serve haggis with “neeps and tatties”, or mashed turnips and potatoes. I assume most of you know how to make mashed potatoes so I’ll skip that. I took a hint from Bryanna and roasted the neeps first. They got very small in the oven; six turnips barely made two servings.

Mashed Roasted “Neeps”

6 – 8 turnips
olive oil

Trim, peel, and chop the turnips into evenly sized pieces. Place on a baking sheet. Pour a small amount of olive oil into your palms, then rub the turnips with it.

Roast at 375 degrees for 40 minutes or until done. They will have shrunk!

Mash.

This year I tried something new and also made cock-a-leekie soup, the traditional Burns Night starter course. How could I resist making something with that name?! I’m not sure if barley is normal in this soup, but I saw it called for in this recipe and thought it sounded like a good idea.

Cock-a-Leekie Soup

1/2 onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 parsnip, chopped
3 leeks, chopped (white and light green parts only)
4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
4-6 cups vegan “chicken” stock
1/3 cup barley
1 cup Soy Curls
2 large or 4 small potatoes, chopped
1/2 tsp thyme

Chop the leeks.

Chop the parnsip.

Chop the celery.

Heat some oil in a soup pot, then add the onions. Saute for 3 minutes.

Add the leeks. Saute for 5 minutes.

Add the celery, parsnips, and garlic. Saute another 3 minutes.

Add the broth.

Add the potatoes, Soy Curls, and barley.

Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 30-45 minutes or until barley is cooked.

Serve.

And here is the entire meal. I had leftover gravy from Friday’s meatloaf; you can make your favorite recipe.

I drank wine with mine instead of Scotch, firstly because I don’t generally drink hard liquor, especially on work nights, and secondly because all I have is Irish whiskey (from a Bloomsday celebration, which honestly I take a little more seriously). I might get away with using Irish oats, but surely I’d be in trouble for drinking Irish whiskey on Robbie Burns Night! I also failed to pipe the haggis to the serving table, mostly because I don’t have bagpipes nor know how to play them. To make up for that, though, here is a picture of Ian, the piper from our wedding. Yes, that’s Pig.

Here’s one reason I don’t play the bagpipes:

Nor did I recite any of Robbie’s poetry, for which I have absolutely no excuse other than my Scottish accent is awful.

I’d have made Mark wear the kilt he wore to our wedding, but it’s at his mother’s house (she made it for him!) and every time she tries to get him to take it home with us, he “forgets” it. Sigh. So maybe I failed being very Scottish today. But don’t get me wrong: I love Scotland.

I know I haven’t been posting much and the reason is I haven’t been feeling very creative. Between worrying about the declining health of my two aging cats, preparing for my trip to Australia next month (and the nerve-wracking coincidence of these situations), and various other issues, I’ve been resorting to time-honored recipes I’ve already featured here or working directly from cookbooks. When Wegmans had 2-pound bags of green beans on sale this week, I thought of the time I made Smoked Seitan Butt and Green Beans, which was surprisingly good but in which I had wished for more green beans. So tonight, in my newly reorganized kitchen, I decided it was time to revisit the making of ham- (or pork-) flavored seitan. I had originally tried a Simply Heavenly pork recipe when I made Barbecued UnPork Chops, which was good, but didn’t taste anything like I remember ham tasting like.

I based the recipe on Bryanna Clark Grogan’s soy and seitan ham recipe (which I’ve made before and which is good, but doesn’t taste much like ham to me) and the Christmas seitan-ham on Vegan Fitness, as well as getting the Szechuan peppercorn idea from this recipe. It didn’t turn out all that well, so I DON’T suggest you follow this recipe. Basically I’m putting it up because 1) I took all the pictures and wrote the recipe up anyway (before tasting it) and 2) to remind me what not to do next time!

Seitan “Ham”

2 cups vital wheat gluten
2/3 cup soy flour
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp Szechuan peppercorns, crushed
scant 1/4 cup soy sauce
2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 tsp liquid smoke
12 ounces firm tofu
11 ounces tomato juice
1 Tbsp beet powder

For the broth:
2 quarts water
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 tsp liquid smoke

Combine the dry ingredients, except the beet powder, in a large bowl …

… and whisk together. Combine the remaining ingredients in a blender.

Blend until smooth.

Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry.

Mix until they come together, then knead for a few minutes until fully combined.

Shape into a log and place on a large piece of cheesecloth.

Roll up and tie the ends of the cheesecloth off, like a Tootsie Roll.

Put the broth ingredients in a pressure cooker or Dutch oven and bring to a boil. Add the seitan log.

Cook under pressure for 45 minutes, or without pressure for two hours. Remove from the broth …

… and remove from the cheesecloth. This was the first indicator something had gone awry. The seitan was no longer pink! (The lighting is bad in this picture; it was a tan color; normal seitan color, actually.)

Although upon slicing, the center was slightly pinkish, which was a sort of gross likeness to meat that I could do without. You can’t really see that here either, but trust me, it was weird.

I tasted a bit of it and was very surprised to find that it had absolutely no taste! I can’t figure it out! With all of those ingredients, you’d think it would taste like something! Possibly something bad, but I expected a flavor! I decided to fry slices up in hopes that would add some flavor. (You can sort of see the pink middles here if you look.)

This did help somewhat, although not enough that I’d recommend using this recipe. I’ll work on improving it. Now it feels like a quest. The quest for vegan ham.

I made the broth for the smoked seitan butt extra smoky to make up for the fact that I couldn’t taste ANY smoke in the seitan. (Note to self: add liquid smoke to grocery list.) Remember I said I had wished for more green beans last time? I think I overdid it! (The seitan, potatoes, onions, and broth are under there somewhere!

In the end it turned out well, though. (This is before it was finished cooking.)

I also mentioned above that my kitchen is reorganized. I gave myself the task this weekend of procuring a bookshelf that would fit in my kitchen, moving my cookbooks in there, moving some other stuff around, and then using the freed-up space in my library bookshelves to shift and fix the order of my other books, which have been piling up and getting out of order.

I used to have a bunch of things on the floor between the kitchen island and the wall: the ice cream maker, yogurt maker, a cake stand, a basket for root vegetables, a stock pot, a tray, and a large container of soybeans. It was a mess. Additionally, I’d been storing one of my woks on one of the two stools that go with the island. I was always hitting my head on the island when leaning down to retrieve something and basically, as I crave order, the whole thing was driving me crazy. So I went to some thrift stores yesterday in search of a bookshelf. I finally came across one that I thought was ugly at first, but found that the color grew on me as I thought about it. (Mark finds it hideous, but I figured I could always paint it.) I moved all of the aforementioned stuff out of the area they were in and placed the shelf in their stead. Then I put all of my cookbooks on it. (I can’t actually acquire any more cookbooks as they fit perfectly!) The stock pot and the wok went on top. Here it is:

I moved the appliances out into a hutch in dining room, where they are much easier to get to and will stay dust-free. Next, I don’t know if you’ve seen it in any of the hundreds of photos I post, but I had about 20 bottles of various oils, vinegars, wines, and other cooking liquids sitting out on one of my counters. In one of our closets I found an unused wire rack on wheels. I loaded it up with all the bottles and wheeled it into the small space between the island and the wall, declaring myself an organizational genius:

Although they are out of sight when not in use, it’s actually now much easier to find what I want. I also had room there for the jars of dried beans that I’d been piling on my baker’s rack. So now the baker’s rack is cleaner too!

But wait, there’s more! I moved the mixie, which had been behind my chopping block and which was therefore a pain in the butt to use (because the chopping block had to be free of any ingredients and then the mixie lifted up onto it) to the empty space created by the moved bottles. I also moved the George Foreman grill, which had been in a very awkward corner. I installed a 6-outlet adapter and now I have a nice, neat “appliance” counter, where everything is easy to use! (The yogurt maker is currently out incubating tempeh, but ordinarily is stored away.)

This made room on my “chopping” counter for my ulu and a “bread station”.

I was damn proud of myself at the end of all of this! The kitchen is MUCH more inviting and easy to use. The only thing left over without a home is the container of soybeans:

Mark suggested some sort of hanging dispenser for them, but I’m still working it out. Considering how small my kitchen is and the enormous number of things I own, I’m shocked that the soybeans are the only thing left over!

I won’t bore you with the details of my library makeover, but suffice it to say that went swimmingly as well.

As I warned, it’s SPAM week here at I Eat Food. Tonight’s recipe is another direct from the SPAM® website, and like the Spam Musubi, completely vegan other than the SPAM. It’s the exotic-sounding Polynesian Bake!

Polynesian Bake

1/2 – 2/3 recipe vegan Spam
1 can sliced pineapple
1/4 cup freshly-squeezed lemon juice
1/4 cup apricot preserves
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
freshly ground pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Slice up your vegan Spam. I cut seven slices, because that’s what fit into my baking dish, but it happens to be how many the original recipe calls for so it’s even more authentic.

The original recipe calls for a fresh pineapple, which you cut lengthwise and then bake the “loaf” right in the rind. Although I was really tempted to do this for the cute factor, and although I love pineapple and rarely use canned anything when I could use fresh, canned pineapple is much easier and actually the perfect size for the vegan Spam. For a baking dish, I used a 1 1/2 pint Pyrex refrigerator dish. Alternating slices of Spam and pineapple, assemble a “loaf” in a suitably-sized baking dish.

Juice your lemon. One medium lemon should provide you just about exactly the 1/4 cup juice you need.

Combine the lemon juice, apricot preserves, mustard, and black pepper in a small bowl.

Whisk together.

Pour the sauce over the “loaf”.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, basting half-way through.

Remove from oven and serve.

I accompanied the Polynesian Bake with green beans. I googled “Polynesian green bean recipe” wondering if I’d find anything good to go with the Spam and found this recipe alleging to be from Disney. I didn’t photograph the whole process because I wasn’t intending to post it, but they went so well with the Spam dish, I figure I might as well.

Polynesian Green Beans

1 lb green beans, trimmed
1/2 red onion or 3 shallots, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
2 Tbsp dark soy sauce (or 2 Tbsp regular soy sauce + 2 Tbsp sugar) (I don’t quite get why the original recipe calls for low-sodium soy sauce AND additional salt…)
freshly-ground black pepper to taste
2 Tbsp vegan “bacon” bits

Blanch the green beans in boiling water for 1 minute, then drain. Heat a wok or large frying pan over medium-high heat, add a bit of oil and bring to temperature, then add onion or shallots and stir-fry for 2 minutes. Add the garlic and fry for another minute. Add the green beans and fry for 10 minutes. I deglazed the wok with a bit of pineapple juice instead of water or wine because I’m crazy like that. Also, the juice from my pineapple was sitting nearby and was handy.

Add the soy sauce and pepper and stir-fry for two minutes, allowing it to glaze the green beans. Add the “bacon” bits and stir-fry for one minute.

Serve!

Verdict? I much preferred the texture of the vegan Spam when it was fried. Baked it was a little bit like a sort of Spammy polenta, if you can imagine that. It wasn’t bad and it grew on me as the meal progressed, but I think next time I’ll lightly fry the Spam slices, then top with the pineapple and sauce and broil for a couple of minutes. Ooh, or maybe grill it. I would like to revisit this recipe because the sauce was good and I have always loved pineapple and hammy things. I’m not sure of Mark’s opinion because he is downstairs obsessively watching Hell Boy 2, but when I went down there to collect Brachtune from his lap in order to pill and feed her, I noticed his plate had been cleaned, so he must have liked it to some degree!

I suddenly found myself making vegan SPAM on Sunday. Trust me, I was as surprised as anyone. But then I had to figure out what to do with it. The only dish I have ever heard of that uses Spam is Spam musubi, that bizarre Japanese/Hawaiian hybrid of weirdness. So I did what any normal person would do: I visited the Spam website (Warning! Clicking on that link with your speakers on is…interesting.) There I found many, many Spam recipes, including one for, yes, Spam musubi. So, that, my friends, is exactly how I used up the first of what turned out to be more vegan Spam than I can handle. I was going to come up with my own recipe, but then I decided it would be funny to use the official SPAM recipe, which other than the SPAM itself, is vegan.

Vegan Spam Musubi

3 cups prepared sushi rice
1/3 – 1/2 recipe vegan Spam
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
olive oil for frying
1 -2 sheets sushi nori

Get the sushi rice cooking. (If you are not familiar with cooking sushi rice, see Maki’s tutorial on the excellent Just Hungry.)

Mix the soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, and ginger together in a small, shallow pan.

Cut four slices of vegan Spam (for a total of eight pieces of musubi). I found a serrated knife worked best.

Cut each slice in half, then cut off outermost part of the arc of each (save the small arc-shaped piece for another use):

Place the eight pieces of vegan Spam into the marinade and marinate for half an hour, turning over after 15 minutes.

Meanwhile cut the nori into 8 strips 1/2 to 1″ wide. My nori is perforated for 1″ strips.

When the rice is done, let it cool enough to handle.

Heat a frying pan over medium heat, add some olive oil and bring up to temperature. The Spam seemed to want to stick to my cast iron pot, which is well-seasoned and usually very stick-resistant, so I had to use a bit more oil than usual. (I still didn’t use the 2 tablespoons the SPAM website called for.) Brown the vegan Spam on both sides.

When the rice has cooled a bit, wet both of your hands and grab a handful, smooshing it into a log-ish shape about the length and width of your Spam pieces. (Don’t try to do this with dry hands.)

Place a piece of fried vegan Spam atop each rice log.

Wrap a strip of nori around each Spam/rice pile, moistening the nori slightly at the end to seal it.

Repeat for each piece of vegan Spam.

I steamed some broccoli and carrots, then tossed them in some of the leftover marinade. The SPAM site also suggests dipping the Spam musubi in the leftover marinade. I prepared some wasabi and soy sauce for dipping because Mark loves wasabi.

When the vegan Spam was frying, Mark announced it smelled like real SPAM. “I have no idea what SPAM smells like,” I responded, “but I’m guessing it does not smell good.” Then he picked a piece out of the frying pan and said it tasted like real Spam, to which I responded, “I have no idea what SPAM tastes like, but I’m guessing it’s not good either.”

Despite – or maybe due to – the fact that I doubt very much vegan Spam tastes (or smells) like real SPAM, this turned out well! Mark really liked it, and despite the fact that he’s a complete rice fiend, when I couldn’t eat my fourth musubi and asked him if he wanted it, he only wanted the Spam from it. He also said he may make a Spam sandwich for lunch tomorrow. This was definitely a fun experiment!

And I have so much more Spam left to work with! Prepare yourselves for a very spammy week.

Why, it’s Mr Cluckers! What is he doing?!

He seems to be at the theatre. How droll! What might Mr Cluckers be seeing this evening?

It’s Spamalot! Mr Cluckers, Smark, and I took it in on the West End last year and until today it was the closest I ever got to anything related to SPAM™ in any way. As I mentioned other day, I was inspired by the dried bean section of Simply Heavenly! to start incorporating more dried beans into my diet, and to that end, I bookmarked several of the recipes in that book. I can imagine the result of most recipes I read very well, so well that I usually trust myself to make adjustments to it the first time around instead of abiding by the rule of “make it exactly as written the first time, experiment the next”, however, I found myself flummoxed by the recipe for “Soyteena”. Ground-up dry soybeans, tomato juice, peanut butter, cornmeal…what? But adventure is my middle name, so I decided I was going to try it out. Halfway through the steaming process it dawned on me: I was making vegan SPAM! And now by following these easy instructions, you can too!

Soyteena (Vegan SPAM)

1 cup dried soybeans
2 cups water
1 cup tomato juice
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 tsp sea salt
1/3 cup finely chopped celery
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/3 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 cup cornmeal

Chop the celery …

… and onion.

Place the soybean in a blender and pulse several times until they are pulverized to a powder. Add all other ingredients except the cornmeal.

Blend until smooth.

Place in a bowl and stir in cornmeal until completely mixed.

Oil two cans (the size 14.5 ounces of tomatoes come in; normal can size). Put half of the mixture into each.

Cover each can with foil and secure with a rubber band.

Place the cans into a Dutch oven or large pot and fill with water so they are 1/3 of the way submerged.

Bring the water to a boil, then cover, reduce heat, and simmer, steaming the SPAM for two hours (or longer). Remove cans from pot and allow to cool, then remove SPAM from cans. If you have an IQ as high as mine, it may take you only half an hour to realize that the easiest way to do this is to remove the bottom of the can and push the SPAM through.

Behold your can-shaped, slightly frightening vegan SPAM.

Tune in later for the first in my series What the Heck One Can Do With Vegan Spam!

My mom sent me a package of fun via my aunt by way of my grandmother’s house this weekend. Most of the fun was for the cats unless you consider mustard pots fun, which I do. My aunt’s cat Stormy donated some of her extra toys to my cats (which makes my cats sound like unfortunate needy cats, which I’m sure you can tell is definitely the case), and my mom made them some catnip toys. Brachtune was playing with one while I was making dinner. Brachtune is extraordinarily cute when she plays, but I can never catch her on camera because whenever she sees me so much as look in her direction, she drops everything she’s doing and literally RUNS to me. So this is the best I could get; trust me, she had JUST been batting that blue thing around like crazy:

Of course, once I start taking pictures, Tigger becomes alerted to the fact that Bracthtune is playing, so he has to put an end to that.

It’s hard to get action shots of my cats playing, but it proved strangely easy to get them of my grandmother’s cat on Saturday! Here’s Muffin:

Hello? Have you missed me? Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted. First it was my birthday, then Mark’s birthday, a visit to Mark’s family in Charleston…I’ve been very busy! And next up is our wedding anniversary! October is full of wonderful events, but they’ve all been keeping me out of the kitchen. Tonight I finally got to cook something decent.

I had purchased soy chorizo at Trader Joe’s before we went to Charleston and I decided that would be the basis of tonight’s meal. Basing meals around fake meat confounds me, though. Because I was vegetarian before I learned how to cook, I never had a repertoire of meat dishes I used to make or even that I miss, so when I, as I do every year or so, buy a bunch of fake meat from May Wah, for example, I’m at an absolute loss for what the heck to do with it. I found myself in a similar situation when confronted with the soy chorizo; in fact, it was exacerbated by the fact that I’ve never had real chorizo. I bought it because it seemed like something that would be right up Mark’s alley and would probably be the center of a pretty easy meal. But I have no idea what one does with chorizo. In the end I decided that you can’t go wrong adding it to beans and rice. And you certainly can’t go wrong wrapping the whole thing in a tortilla. So that’s what I did. Is it authentic? Who knows. Probably not. Is it good? Yes. So here you go:

Soy Chorizo, Beans, and Rice

1/2 large onion, diced
1/2 large green bell pepper, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 anaheim chile, diced
1 dried pasilla oaxaca chile, rehydrated and chopped
2 links soy chorizo (remove casing if necessary)
1/2 can black beans, rinsed
1/2 can pinto beans, rinsed
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1/2 cup water
1 small can salsa verde
hot sauce to taste
4 cups cooked rice

First get the rice cooking (unless you are using leftover rice). I used to be able to make perfect rice back when I had a glorious gas stove, but when we moved into our current, otherwise wonderful, house, I was forced to use an electric stove and suddenly lost the ability to make rice. Enter my new best friend:

While the rice is cooking, prepare the veggies, etc. Rehydrate the pasilla oaxaca in boiling water. I had to stick a tiny saucer on top of the chile to keep it from floating.

If you don’t have a pasilla oaxacaca, substitute another smoky chile, such as chipoltes in adobo sauce, or maybe some smoked paprika. Or just omit entirely. If using, chop it up when it’s soft:

Dice the onions, …

… the green pepper, …

and the anaheim chile.

Mince or press the garlic.

Soy chorizo (as, I suppose, real chorizo) usually comes in an inedible casing:

Remove it from this casing:

Rinse the beans. Instead of using half a can of each kind, you can use an entire can of one or the other. I couldn’t decide which I wanted, but now I’m stuck having to find another use for the leftovers!

You can start cooking about 10 minutes before the rice is ready; my rice cooker starts counting down at 10 minutes. Add some olive oil to a large, hot cast iron pan and add the onions when the oil is hot:

Saute for 3 minutes, then add the green peppers, garlic, and pasilla oxacaca:

Saute for another 3 minutes, then add the chorizo:

Saute for another 3 minutes, then add the tomatoes, tomato paste, and water:

Cook for a couple of minutes, then add the beans, salsa verde, and hot sauce:

Allow to simmer for about 5 minutes, then add the rice and heat through.

While the chorizo, beans, and rice mixture is cooking, whip up some optional guacamole. Since I was planning to shove it into a burrito, I didn’t make anything fancy: basically I just wanted to smush up the avocado. In a molcajete, I smashed about a tablespoon of minced onions and a clove of garlic:

Then I added the avocado:

Finally I added the juice of half a lime and some cilantro.

You can eat the soy chorizo, beans, and rice as is, but I’m a fan of carbalicious tortillas, so I decided to serve it in burrito form. I placed about 1/2 cup of the chorizo mixture in a neat line on a tortilla and topped it with some guac:

Then I rolled them up …

… which makes for an anti-climatic photo, but which was pretty darn tasty.

Brachtune watched me eat from her station on Mark’s laptop bag …

… until Tigger decided he wanted to sit there.

So then Brachtune went into her “Victorian lady” pose. I think it looks like she has a big bustle when she sits like this:

Then Tigger got in my face.

And I finished my burritos. The end.