Jenn stuffed a ton of stuff into potatoes.

Megan and I are on the same wavelength apparently, she also did a stuffed seitan with gravy.

International Iron Chef!  Pamela brings us stuffed freeze-dried tofu, something I didn’t even know existed.

Dynah did double duty with manicotti and stuffed chocolate covered bananas.

Bex kept it real and made a ‘what i’ve got’ almond apple bread stuffing.

My favorite Megan made her favorite Andria’s favorite stuffing.

I actually forgot about doing the challenge until the middle of Sunday.  And I didn’t want to go to the store.  So I also decided to use what I had.  In two hours I made the seitan, stuffing, and gravy.  Very rarely do I say i’m proud of something I just made up, but I am really down with this meal.  I kind of made it up as I went along but here is what I did from memory:

Seitan with Apple Onion Cranberry Stuffing and Maple Gravy

Make your favorite seitan recipe, you can follow Joanna’s instructions for making cutlets, but a little thicker so you can slice them without worry of putting a hole in one side.

Stuffing:

2 T vegetable oil

1/2 large onion, diced

1 red apple, peeled and diced

1/4 cup dried cranberries

1/4 c dried bread crumbs (mine were seasoned so I didn’t add any extra)

salt and pepper to taste

a pinch of cinammon

~1/3 cup of the gravy

Heat the oil over medium low, add the onions and let them get mostly soft.  Add the apple and continue to cook for about ten minutes, stirring every now and then.  Add the cranberries, salt and pepper, and cinnamon and let it cook for about two more minutes.  Mix in the bread crumbs and remove from the heat.

Preheat your oven to 350 at this point.

Maple Gravy:

A couple of tablespoons of margarine

Flour

almond milk

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup maple syrup

I didn’t even close to measure this, but gravy is pretty easy.  Melt the margarine in a sauce pan, and add enough flour to make a roux.  I’m too impatient to wait for it to get dark, so just whisk it around for a minute, then start adding almond milk a little bit at a time, fully whisking the liquid into the roux before adding more.  The whole point of this is to avoid getting lumps.  After you get it to a gravy-like consistency, add the salt, pepper, and maple syrup.

Add enough gravy to the stuffing to act like a glue, you shouldn’t really be able to see it in there.

To assemble, slice the seitan almost all the way in half, like it’s a hot dog bun.  I put about 1/4 cup in four cutlets and ended up with leftover stuffing, so i’d say this serves six.  Or you could just eat the extra like I did.

Now, I pour the gravy on top before baking but it didn’t look very nice and didn’t seem to do anything for it so at this point i’d say spray a little cooking spray or rob a little oil on the tops of the seitan to keep it from getting dry and gross.

Bake for about 15 minutes, really we’re just warming stuff up.

Cover with gravy and eaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.

Here’s an okay shot before going into the oven.

And here is a really icky looking shot before going into my mouth.  I miss summer sunlight.

I know that MoFo is officially over on Friday, but check back for a very special Iron Chef challenge for next weekend!  We might keep this up on a monthly basis because people seem to enjoy the general idea.

 I finally got around to making a variation of Julie’s steamed seitan sausages (say that three times fast).  I went with cajun, and while trying to decide which spices to omit from the original recipe, I looked at my box of Old Bay seasoning and noticed that a lot of those spices are included in it.  So that was pretty easy.  I decided to include hot sauce and roasted red peppers, too.  I was worried that I would either add too much seasoning and sauce and they’d be really hot, or I wouldn’t add enough and they would be boring.  But I think I did a pretty good job of getting sort-of-spicy but not too spicy sausages.

I copied Julie’s directions and then just edited them to fit my changes, so credit for that still goes to her.

2 1/4 cups vital wheat gluten
1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes
1/4 cup chickpea flour
2 tbsp vegetarian chicken powder (mine is salty so I didn’t add extra salt)

1 tbs fennel
1 1/2 tbs Old Bay seasoning

1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp italian spices (or thyme if you’re not out like I was)

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
black pepper
2 c water
2 tbs soy sauce
3 tbs olive oil

~1/3 c minced roasted red peppers
1/2 – 1 tbs hot sauce (I used 1/2, but in case you want hotter)

Mix together all of the dry ingredients. Whisk together the water, olive oil, soy sauce, peppers, and hot sauce and using a fork, gently stir into the dry ingredients. Stir just until ingredients are mixed. If dough mixture is too dry, you can add another tablespoon of water or as needed.
2. Scoop 1/2 cup dough mixture at a time and shape into logs. Place logs on piece of aluminum foil and roll up, twisting ends. Place sausages in steamer and steam for 30 minutes. Once sausages have cooled, remove from foil and refrigerate until ready to eat. After cooling, the sausages may feel a bit dry on the outside. Don’t worry, as they will soften and firm up considerably after chilling.

Note:  I actually used 2 and 1/8 cup of water, but my dough was reeeeeally wet so I just went ahead and reduced it to save you the trouble of adding more flour to your dough.

Action shots!  I bought a steamer insert for six bucks so I could go ahead and make a full batch.

Steaming.  Look at how roomy.

And with peppers and onions and rice, the way it was meant to be.  The cucumbers in the background are there because I wanted a fresh vegetable and didn’t feel like a salad.

I apologize if there are any typos, i’m pretty tired.

I forgot to MoFo yesterday. So i’m going to do two today. And the first one is going to distract you from the fact that I forgot to do it yesterday. Later I will blog about whatever I eat for dinner, which will basically be the first real meal i’ve eaten in days. It’s amazing what passes for an acceptable dinner when you’re knee-high in papers and envelopes. Anyway.

So, I love Thanksgiving. A lot. It’s a sick and twisted cycle and pretty much every year I end the day wanted to shoot everyone in the face, but by the time September of the next year rolls around, i’m excited and planning the menu again. Occasionally I come across a recipe and bookmark it into my ‘thanksgiving’ folder in case I decide to make it. Sometime earlier this year, I came across a recipe from Cooking Light for pumpkin cinnamon rolls. As you all know, I ended up veganizing it for the zine. But I also added some spices, completely re-wrote the directions because I found the original ones to be confusing as hell, and the testers helped me determine that it needed more pumpkin. So I think we made it a better recipe overall.
Now, this recipe is long and involved so it might seem scary. But it’s not! You just have to let the dough rise several times. So while it technically takes hours from start to finish, the actual work you put into isn’t that much. I had never made my own cinnamon rolls before and even I found it to be pretty easy, in the end. Save it for a lazy Sunday, read a book or clean your house in between risings. Either way, you should make these because everyone deserves homemade cinnamon rolls at least once. No, the ones out of a can don’t count!

I’m stealing Isa’s picture because it’s better than mine.

Dough:
1 package dry yeast (about 2 1/4 teaspoons)
1/4 cup warm water
3/4cup Pumpkin Puree
1/4 cup soy milk
1/4 cup margarine, melted
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 t ground ginger
3/4 c all-purpose flour
1 T vegetable oil

Filling:
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons chilled margarine, cut into small pieces

Glaze:
3/4 cup sifted powdered sugar
1 tablespoon hot water
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a large bowl, combine the warm water with the yeast and whisk together with a fork, let stand for 5 minutes. Add the pumpkin, milk, melted margarine, and sugar in with the yeast, and lightly mix. Sift in the first two and a half cups of flour, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger, and beat with a mixer at medium speed until smooth.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Take the remaining 3/4 cup of flour and use it to flour the top of the dough and your surface a tablespoon at a time, as needed to keep the dough from getting sticky as you knead it. Knead the dough for about ten minutes, the dough will be elastic but soft and still a little sticky to the touch without being floured.

Place the dough in a large bowl coated with oil, turning to coat the top. Cover and let rise in a warm place (85°), free from drafts, for 45 minutes or until doubled in size.

Punch the dough down; cover and let rest for 5 minutes.

Combine the sugar, brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Cut in margarine with a fork until mixture resembles coarse meal.

Roll the dough into a 12 x 10-inch rectangle on a floured surface. Sprinkle with brown sugar mixture. Roll up the rectangle tightly, from the long side, pinch seam and ends to seal. Cut roll into 12 (1-inch) slices. Place the slices in a 9-inch square or round baking pan coated with cooking spray. Cover and let rise 25 minutes or until doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 375°.

Bake the rolls for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool for 15 minutes in pan on a wire rack.

Sift the powdered sugar into a small bowl. Add the water and vanilla, and whisk until smooth. It should be thick, but easy to drizzle. If it’s too thick, add another 1/2 teaspoon of water.