Vegan Sesame Orange Seitan

topphotoVegan Sesame Orange Seitan

Way better than takeout. Crispy, delicious and super yummy. Just make it all ready!

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Vegan Sesame Orange Seitan

For the sesame seitan strips:

  • 1/2  of this seitan recipe (3 cutlets) OR 1 package store bought seitan OR for GF peeps, 1/2 package soy curls prepared according to package directions, OR 1 block store bought tempeh, cut into thin strips
  • 1/3 C. non GMO cornstarch
  • 1/3 C. raw sesame seeds
  • 1/4 t. sea salt
  • 1/2 t. ground black pepper
  • 2 T. ground golden flax seed
  • 1 t. baking powder
  • 1/3 C. water
  • 1/4 C. expeller pressed safflower oil (gasp! This is the first recipe on my site where I fry something in oil!)

For the Orange Sauce:

  • juice of 2 oranges (about 1 cup)
  • zest of 1 orange
  • 2 T. bragg’s liquid aminos
  • 2 T. agave
  • 1 t. minced fresh ginger
  • 1 clove minced garlic
  • 1/4 t. ground black pepper
  • 1 t. non GMO cornstarch
  • sliced scallions for garnish

Method: In a large skillet, start heating the safflower oil over medium heat. Then, in a medium bowl, combine the cornstarch, sesame seeds, baking power, water, ground flax, salt and pepper. Put the seitan/tempeh strips into the batter and gently stir to coat. Working in batches, put strips of seitan in the hot oil and cook for 3-4 minutes on each side until golden, I needed to do three batches to cook all my seitan, once strips are cooked, place on a paper towel to absorb any excess oil. Set the cooked strips in the oven on warm while you make the orange sauce. To make the orange sauce, combine all ingredients in a small bowl, pour into the same skillet you used to cook the seitan and cook down for 3-4 minutes until the sauce is thick and syrupy. At this point you can add the seitan to the sauce to flavor it completely, or if you like your seitan extra crispy, you can drizzle the sauce over each individual plate. I served mine on white basmati rice, because I had ran out of brown… Don’t make the same mistake. Sprinkle chopped scallions over the seitan for extra yumminess.

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Virtual Vegan Potluck Happening Worldwide, May 11, 2013

Over 100 Bloggers from all over the world posting yummy deliciousness at the same time on the same day. Who’s in?

Individual Vegan Margherita Pizzas with Homemade Fresh Moxarella Cheese

Close up 2Vegan Margherita Pizza

If you don’t want to make a pizza from scratch, then use bottled pizza sauce, and a pre-bought crust, but whatever you do, Please make the fresh Moxarella Cheese. It’s nearly instant.

SlicedHomemade Vegan Moxarella, without any artificial anything. It browns and stretches.

Top ViewIndividual Pizzas Make Everyone Happy!

Vegan Margherita Pizzas 

This Recipe Makes 4 individual pizzas. Don’t forget to have fresh tomatoes and basil on hand. First, start the dough.

Pizza Dough:

This crust contains gluten, for several gluten free crust options, click here.

  • 2 C. organic all purpose flour
  • 1 C. organic whole wheat flour
  • 2 1/4 t. active dry yeast (1 packet)
  • 1 cup warm water
  • 2 t. sea salt
  • 1 t. agave

Method: Combine all ingredients and knead for 10 minutes. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 60 minutes until doubled. While the dough is rising, make the pizza sauce and the fresh moxarella cheese.

The Dough

The Pizza Sauce:

  • one 14 ounce can crushed tomatoes
  • 3 cloves minced garlic
  • 1/2 t. dried thyme
  • 1/2 t. dried oregano
  • 1/2 t. dried basil
  • 1 t. agave
  • sea salt and ground black pepper to taste

Method: saute the garlic in a little vegetable broth or the olive oil in a small saucepan for a minute or two on medium heat. Add all the other ingredients. Reduce heat to low and let simmer while you make the Moxarella Cheese.

Pizza Sauce

Fresh Moxarella Cheese:

I wanted to call this “Foxy Moxy,” but that name has been taken by some unsavory characters on the web….

This cheese stays in a “melted” type form until baked, and then it forms a nice crust, like dairy cheese does. It’s not intended to be eaten plain (like real dairy fresh mozzarella can). It’s also fairly salty to make it stand out in your recipes, if you prefer less salt, please feel free to reduce to 1/2 teaspoon, or less, but the flavor won’t be as pronounced.

Note: This recipe is one of the most popular recipes on my site and is therefore one of the most copied/imitated. If you make this cheese and like it enough to blog about it, please have the ethics to respect me, my creativity and the weeks that I spent developing this recipe by simply linking to this post rather than sharing the recipe on your own site. ❤️ -Somer

  • 1/4 cup raw cashews (soaked in water for several hours and then drained IF you don’t have a high powered blender)
  • 1 cup hot water
  • 2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon tapioca starch
  • 1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
  • 1 small garlic clove, minced
  • 3/4  teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

Method: Blend all ingredients together in a high speed blender until completely smooth, about 1 minute. Pour into a small saucepan and cook, stirring constantly over medium high heat. After a couple of minutes the mixture will start to look weird, like it’s curdling or separating. This is totally normal, reduce heat to medium and KEEP stirring so you don’t burn the cheese to the bottom of the pot. Keep cooking and stirring til really thick (about 2-3 more minutes) and the mixture becomes like a cohesive mass of melted dairy cheese and stretches like in the photo below. Remove from heat and let cool a bit while you assemble the pizzas. Moxarella stores well in a sealed container in the fridge for a few days and can be used to make excellent grilled cheese sandwiches, mac and cheese, etc….Moxarella

Assembly: Your dough should be nearly ready now, so when it hits 60 minutes or is doubled, punch it down and divide it into four pieces. Preheat the oven to 500°. Roll out the dough on a floured surface as thin or thick as you like. We opted for thicker pizzas this round. Spread each pizza with 1/4 of the pizza sauce. Top with fresh tomato slices, dollops of the fresh moxarella cheese and fresh basil leaves like shown in the photo below. Pre-BakeBake individual pizzas for 10-12 minutes on a baking sheet until cheese and the crusts are nicely browned. Note: there is a very fine line between nicely browned and burnt here, so please, watch your pizzas carefully. Sprinkle pizzas with a bit of additional chopped fresh basil once out of the oven if desired. BiteI won’t take any responsibility for anyone burning their mouth on hot cheese.Margherita Pizza

Healthy Vegan Cheez-It Crackers

Tower O Cheez itVegan Cheez-It Baby

All right, so this is really more like a Cheez-It/Wheat Thins Hybrid if you make the healthy version, but the indulgent version is a little closer to the original, without being scarily florescent. Our family was actually more partial to Goldfish Crackers, but the Cheez-It shape is a little easier to mimic then the snack that smiles back.

cashew butterThe superstars: Red Bell Pepper, Lemon Zest and Creamy Homemade Cashew Butter. Flavor Profile Inspired by Shira’s Incredible Red Pepper Cheese Sauce at In Pursuit of More.

Vegan Cheez-It Crackers

  • 1 C. Whole Wheat Pastry Flour (GF peeps can use an equal amount of GF flour + 1 T. ground flax to replace regular flour)
  • 1/4 C. cashew butter, OR 2 T. cashew butter + 2 T. grapeseed oil for a flakier cracker (I went with all cashew butter)
  • 1/2 of a red bell pepper, finely diced
  • 4 T. nutritional yeast
  • 1/2 -1 t. sea salt (saltier is more realistic)
  • 1/2  t. lemon zest
  • 1/2 t. garlic powder
  • 1/2 t. mustard powder
  • 1 t. onion powder
  • smidge cayenne
  • 1/4 t. liquid smoke
  • 1/4 t. paprika
  • plant milk of choice, as needed

Method: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a food processor or power blender, combine cashew butter, bell pepper and all the seasonings until the mixture is completely smooth. Add the flour and mix til just combined, you don’t want to overwork the dough. The dough should be slightly wet and sticky. If it seems too dry, add plant milk a teaspoon at a time until dough is moist. I didn’t need to add any the first time I made these, but I needed a bit the second time. Roll dough out between 2 pieces of parchment paper (otherwise it’ll stick to the rolling pin and you’ll have to add more flour, we don’t want that…) or two silpat silicone baking liners. The crackers should be VERY thin. Thin enough to cover the whole full sized silpat and fit on a large baking sheet. Score the crackers into little squares with a pizza wheel, knife or a cute crinkle cutter like mine if you have one. Poke a little dent in the center of each cracker with a chopstick (this is just for decoration, do it however you like). Sprinkle the crackers with additional sea salt. Bake crackers for around 10 minutes, watch them closely, because the edge pieces can burn easily. Remove crackers from the oven and then remove them from your parchment paper or silpat and put the crackers back on the baking tray without the parchment paper to crisp them up a bit. Cook for another 3-5 minutes, or until crackers are golden and firm. Watch them carefully! Let cool and enjoy!

Cheez-itTower O’ Cheez-It

PulseSecret Ingredients

CutTools of the trade: Crinkle Cutters and Chopsticks

Close upDid you miss cheese crackers when you went vegan?

Chow Down

key_art_chow_down

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from Film Director Julia Grayer asking me to review her movie, “Chow Down” on my blog. It’s not often I get an email from a film director (okay, so this was the first time). I was flattered and more than happy to take the time to share this review with you.

The Usual Suspects:

Usual SuspectsProminent Authorities from the plant-based community star in this film

Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Author of “Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease“. Also known as the Physician that turned former President, Bill Clinton, into a vegan. 

Dr. Joel Fuhrman, The Nutritarian Doctor. His book, “Eat to Live” may be the greatest weight loss book ever written.

Dr. T. Colin Campbell, Author of “The China Study“, the most comprehensive study of health and nutrition ever conducted in relation to diet, cancer and disease.

Dr. Neal Barnard, President and founder of the PCRM (Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine) and author of many health books.

The Story Line:

chow down families

Three very sick patients adopt a plant-based diet in order to overcome their serious health issues. I want you to watch the film, so I won’t give you the outcomes (you can guess it’s gonna be good, eh?) Let’s just say the evidence that diet can reverse disease is overwhelming to the affirmative.

The Discussion:

Here’s some obstacles to eating plant-based that are brought up by characters in the film. I don’t feel like these obstacles were adequately addressed or solved when the film finished, to the point that those who watch the film may not be willing to give a plant-based diet a try. I thought you might like to chime in with me regarding these ideas:

Chow DownDoesn’t taste good? Wrong!

1- Eating a Whole Foods Plant Based Diet is hard/doesn’t taste good/and is limiting.

I eat a greater variety of foods and prepare more flavorful meals then I have ever done in my life since adopting a plant-based diet. If it doesn’t taste good, you’re doing it wrong.

2- It costs too much.

Maybe. I admit I spend more on groceries now than I used to. However, the additional amount I’m spending costs me far less than the monthly medications I used to have to take. It also costs less than health care for cancer, heart disease or diabetes. 

3- I can’t do it because I don’t have a support system.

Bull. Even if you don’t personally know anyone else following a plant-based diet, you can get online and find support groups. Hey, I even belong to two on facebook. Dr. McDougall and Dr. Barnard also have fantastic plans for starting out.

4- My family won’t eat a plant-based diet with me.

Um, my family does. Yours can too. Start with plant-based reproductions of the meals you’re used to eating. Help to educate your family about the benefits of eating a whole foods plant-based diet.  My family begs me for green smoothies and even my youngest will eat most anything I prepare. We’re in it together and we love it. It may take some time, but your family can love it too.

Watch the Movie and Join the Conversation:

Chowdown Poster D

It’s available to watch free here on Hulu. Or you can watch it on Amazon Prime here without commercials for $2.99. It’s also available for purchase on Amazon here.

Featuring Frugal

Cake Side ViewHave you ever seen a cake that made your knickers get all in a bunch?

This post started out a long time ago, with this cake, however it was a dare last week that made me pull it out of the draft archives. Nick at Frugal Feeding made a fantastic Mushroom Orzotto, and in his post, taunted me thus: “If you are food revellers of vegan ilk, it may prove a little tricky to create a genuinely satisfying orzotto – without the presence of starch or dairy fat thickening without altering the flavour entirely could prove tricky.“

Mushroom OrzottoMushroom Orzotto

Tricky? Um, I simply subbed 1/2 C. cashews blended with 1 C. water and 1 T. nutritional yeast (cashew cream) and used a “knob” of homemade vegan butter instead of the dairy variety. Oh and I used whole wheat Orzo. Pretty sure I wasn’t missing anything flavor-wise. In fact, these are the sort of dishes that makes my husband ask if we’ve gone off the vegan diet. Fantastic recipe Nick! Next time I’ll be doubling it.

Hasselback PotatoesNick’s Hasselback Potatoes.

The first time I ever saw Hasselback potatoes was on Frugal Feeding. Lets just say, I was more than impressed with the sexy rendition of my favorite root vegetable and have made these several times since.

Sweet Potato & Parsnip SoupRoasted Sweet Potato and Parsnip Soup

Then there was the time that I arm wrestled Frugal into participating in the Virtual Vegan Potluck. I don’t think he or his readers ended up disappointed, especially since Nick ended up taking home the prize for best soup with the lovely Roasted Sweet Potato and Parsnip Soup. I knew you had it in you my friend 🙂 Besides, how can you not win everyone over with all those lovely roasted veg? Even the PPK thought the Virtual Vegan Potluck was cool enough to put it at #28 on their top 100 list for 2012! I hope you’ll join us again in May.

Roasted VeggiesLovely Roasted Veg!

Now back to that cake. As I said before, this is exactly the type of cake that makes me swoon.

Cake Side & Top ViewFrugal’s Apple and Walnut Cake with Black Treacle (Molasses) Icing

I made a double layer 9 inch cake instead of using the 20cm cake tins. I didn’t have any batter leftover for cupcakes like Nick did in his recipe.

Demystifying Metric Measures & Vegan Substitutions: If you don’t have a kitchen scale, I’ve weighed the ingredients on my kitchen scale and then measured them to take the guesswork out of it for you. Normally I wouldn’t include a blogger’s full recipe, but the online measure substitution tools weren’t entirely accurate and caused me to make a mess out of my first cake. I don’t want the same to happen to you. (Don’t worry, I asked Nick for permission). Go to his recipe for the method, but do preheat your oven to 150° celcius (302° farenheit) before starting and give your 9 inch tins an extra five minutes in the oven.

Apple and Walnut Cake with Black Treacle (Molasses) Icing

Ingredients for the Cake:

  • 300 grams organic all purpose flour = 2 cups + scant 1/2 cup (I used whole wheat pastry flour)
  • 1 t. ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 t. baking soda
  • 140 grams dark brown sugar = scant 2/3 cup
  • 50 grams golden caster sugar (I used organic unrefined sugar) = scant 1/4 cup
  • 250 ml sunflower oil = 1 cup + 3 tablespoons (I used half the amount and subbed 1/2 C. applesauce for the rest, because, as my daughter said when I was measuring it out “mom, you don’t use that much oil in a whole year’s worth of cooking”)
  • To substitute for the 4 eggs in the recipe: use 1 cup silken tofu, 2 t. apple cider vinegar and 1 t. baking powder blended all together in a blender, (vinegar and baking powder mimics the rise that eggs give in baking)
  • 3 grated apples (leave skins on)
  • 100 grams chopped walnuts = 1 cup
  • 2 t. Mexican vanilla (addition) because I simply have to put it in everything I bake at the moment

Cake top view

Ingredients for the Icing:

  • 100 grams homemade vegan butter or earth balance = about 1/2 cup
  • 50 grams dark brown soft sugar = about 1/4 cup
  • 1 Tablespoon black treacle (molasses)
  • 1 t. Mexican vanilla
  • 200 grams vegan cream cheese = about one 8 ounce container of vegan cream cheese OR or 2/3 block extra firm tofu, pressed overnight to remove extra liquid. If you are using the pressed tofu (like I did) instead of store bought vegan cream cheese, add 1/4 teaspoon sea salt and 2 Tablespoons lemon juice to the recipe.

Combine all in food processor until silky smooth. To the tofu haters: if you make the icing in advance and let it sit for a few hours in the fridge before icing the cake, the tofu flavor in the icing becomes completely indistinguishable as it absorbs the flavors of the other ingredients. I swear it tastes just like I used real cream cheese.

Cake Slice

Do you follow Frugal?

Pepita Maple Butter Salad Dressing with Carrot Ribbon Salad

Carrot Ribbon SaladCarrot Ribbon Salad with Pepita Maple Butter Salad Dressing


My mom brought me nearly a gallon of roasted salted pepitas (pumpkin seeds) last time she came to visit. I’ve been using them in everything, but this post is all about the best salad dressing EVER. You’ll pretty much want to drink it from the jar once you’ve made it. You can serve it over any type of salad. Last night we had it over baby greens, artichoke hearts and white beans. However the carrot ribbons are cute and whimsical, plus this dish reminds me of an unusual (but tasty) salad my mom used to make when I was little: shredded carrot, mayo, sugar, raisins, salt and pepper. I like to think of this as my grown up version. Thanks mom for all the lovely pepitas!

Pepita ButterPepita Butter

Salad Dressing

Pepita Maple Butter Salad Dressing

  • 1/4 C. pepita butter (I made the pepita butter in my blendtec: 3 C. roasted salted pepitas, processed and scraped down, over and over until smooth, this took just a couple minutes) OR you could use 1/2 C. pepitas
  • 1/4 C. pure maple syrup (if desired, halve this amount for a more savory dressing)
  • 2 T. bragg’s liquid aminos
  • 3 T. plant milk of choice, I used soy
  • 2 T. white wine vinegar
  • 1 T. nutritional yeast (optional)
  • 1 clove minced garlic

Method: In a power blender, blend all ingredients until completely smooth. Dressing will be a bit thin, but thickens nicely in the fridge. If you don’t have a power blender, or a food processor to make the pepita butter, soak the pepitas for a few hours before blending the dressing.

Carrot Ribbons

For the Carrot Ribbon Salad:

  • 2-3 Carrots per person, shaved into ribbons with a vegetable peeler
  • Roasted and Salted Pepitas for sprinkling over salad
  • Cranberries or Raisins for sprinkling over salad
  • A few tablespoons of the above dressing, per person

Carrot Ribbon Salad 2

This recipe is featured on the Virtual Vegan Linky Potluck

 

Vegan Stock Powder

Vegan Stock Powder

I’m not the type of girl that has enough freezer space (or the inclination) to store all my vegetable odds and ends and then remembers to boil them down into a broth and then re-store that broth in the freezer. Enter: awesome stock powder that almost tastes like chicken stock (gasp!) I first read about stock powder in a vegan cookbook (can’t even remember which one). I didn’t think much of it at the time. Then Holly at My Plant Based Family did a post on it and I ran to my kitchen and made changes with some Vedged Out flair. Here’s my rendition. Made hearty by the addition of dried shitake mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes, more dried herbs and stuff like that.

Mushrooms and Dried Tomatoes

Vegan Stock Powder

  • 1 ounce dried shitake mushrooms
  • 10 sun dried tomato halves (not the kind packed in oil) snipped into quarters
  • 3 T. onion powder
  • 1 T. garlic powder
  • 2 T.  sea salt
  • 1 T. raw sugar
  • 1/2 t. ground black pepper
  • dash cayenne
  • 1 t. dried thyme
  • 1 t. dried oregano
  • 1 t. paprika
  • 1/2 t. turmeric
  • 1 T. dried parsley
  • 1 t. mustard powder
  • 1/2 t. celery seeds
  • 1 C. nutritional yeast

Method: In a food processor, process the shitake mushrooms and sun dried tomatoes until they are very fine. Add all other ingredients. Process for a few minutes more. Just made this in my Blendtec instead of the food processor after reading Annie’s comment below. I highly recommend using a high powered blender instead of the food processor if you own one. Just dumped everything in the Blendtec and ran it through a couple of cycles on a 10. The result was a powder as fine as cornstarch with none of the graininess that I had experienced with the food processor. The powder stuck to the jar like crazy, so I emptied it out as best as I could, then added a quart of water and whizzed it all up to clean the jar. Viola. A quart of stock in my fridge for dinner tonight.

Finished Product

This stock powder stores perfectly in a pint jar in the pantry. Use 1 T. stock powder per cup of liquid in your recipes. If you don’t have the dried mushrooms and tomatoes on hand, this recipe is still good without, it just won’t have as much depth. If you can’t be bothered to make this than at least buy this delicious veggie stock base and stop wasting un-recycleable tetra-paks.

Thanks to all of you for all the love this last week and for helping me get my blogging mojo back.

Blogging and Friendship

Peanut Butter CupDark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup, using Annie’s base then adding in the middle: 1/2 cup each: vegan graham cracker crumbs, melted peanut butter and vegan powdered sugar stirred together.

Blogging is a funny thing. At first you start posting your recipes, hoping to garner some sort of recognition, then you start reading other people’s blogs, then joyfully and inevitably some lovely friendships form. Sometimes, you get lucky enough to actually meet and get to know these friends. Pure love. So, I’m apologizing now to all my blogging friends whom I haven’t been by your sites to read or comment on your posts lately. In the last month I’ve sustained two different injuries that have left me mostly couch bound, reading the classics, and drinking lots of tea and trying not to feel sorry for my sad self. My cooking skills have gone down the proverbial toilet (as evidenced by THREE batches of failed cupcakes for a Valentines party yesterday). You may have noticed I haven’t been around, I’m not feeling inspired and I’m sorry to say that the last thing I’m interested in right now is reading about food. I’m sure when I recover I’ll be back with a vengeance, but in the meantime I hope you’ll forgive my absence. It’s not you, it’s me.

PancakesAnnie’s Whole Wheat Nectarine Pancakes (except I used apples) and a blob of her Cocoa Coconut Butter. The best invention ever.

It hasn’t helped my mojo that one of my best blogging buddies jumped ship and moved back to her home in Oklahoma after being here in Utah for the better part of 2012. I’m feeling forlorn and I miss her like I miss my right arm. I thought you might enjoy a post about her food since I’m not creating anything wonderful. At least you can get some inspiration from Annie at An Unrefined Vegan.

Chocolate AssemblyAssembling the chocolates.

Flavors to try: coconut, chopped crystalized ginger, roasted almond and raisin, orange (using a couple drops essential oil), mayan (cinnamon and chili), peppermint (using a couple drops essential oil), pecan, and of course peanut butter cup.

Miso SoupAnnie’s Miso Ginger Soup with mushrooms added in. Nearly as comforting as a hug from the girl herself.

I’ll miss our lunch dates my friend.

DSC_0004The big funny: Emergency pit stop with Annie at the always fabulous Cafe Rio Mexican Grill after a lunch date at another restaurant we were reviewing left us famished and disappointed (minuscule portions, average food).

Pepita Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Bars

I met Susmitha through a Vegan Facebook Group, the Vegan Temptivists. There’s some crazy good food going down in that group and it’s really fun to see what everyone comes up with and “brings to the facebook table” from all around the world. The best part of belonging to that group though, has been getting to know Susmitha, she lives in India, she’s a sweet little firecracker with a fun and vivacious personality. I’m sure if we ever get to meet in real life, there would be no awkwardness, we’d simply hit it off, like we’ve always been friends.

Pepita Oatmeal Raisin Cookie BarsSweets for the Sweet

When she asked me to do a guest post in the month of February, of course I was delighted and immediately thought of something to share with my Valentine and with you. Head on over to visit Susmitha at Veganosaurus and to nab this very special recipe by clicking on the link below:

Pepita Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Bars

In the Pan

p.s. If your sweet prefers dark chocolate chips and chopped pecans, go ahead and sub em’ out for the raisins and pepitas for a bar that beats the pants off my other most famous bar on this blog.. I promise it won’t hurt my feelings.

xoxo & Happy Valentines,

Love, Somer