It’s a blustery winter day here and my oven is begging to be used. It’s actually been in and out of functional use all week, but today it thankfully decided to cooperate. With Valentine’s day quickly approaching, it’s nice to be able to serve something a little more upscale for a nice candlelit meal. We have two kids now, so we won’t be having a candlelit meal, but the thought is nice I guess. We prefer to snuggle in bed and enjoy a pizza and movie together, with maybe a strong drink. We’ve been doing this for years now and it’s still something I look forward to.
This recipe requires a bit of preparation ahead of time, but it’s relatively intuitive. Chicken cordon bleu was never something I had prior to going vegan 8 years ago, but I feel like this is a pretty close replication. Please click through the links for my recommendations for alternatives and for prior recipes!
Summer has suddenly descended on the Midwest, which means I basically want to spend zero time in the kitchen with the oven on. My Instant Pot has become my best friend for any cooking I would normally do on my stove top and while I’m still a salad-hating vegan, I’m rediscovering an old fondness for sandwiches.
Conveniently, Lightlife Foods offered me the opportunity to try their tempeh bacon on the newly popular tempeh, tomato, lettuce and avocado sandwich. If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you might have noticed we spent the weekend in Indianapolis, where we stopped at Whole Foods for several meals, and some Fakin Bacon Tempeh Strips.
I live in a large town in Illinois, and we are lucky to have an abundance of local stores that sell chickpeas. Most of the time I wonder why I lived so much of my life without the joys of baked chickpeas and I spend an exorbitant amount of my free time planning what I’m going to do with my next batch of chickpeas, because I buy them in 5 pound bags and always am looking for new recipes.
I enjoy seitan making as much as I enjoy chickpeas. If you’ve followed my Instagram lately, you have seen how much seitan I’ve been experimenting with. This recipe was the result of running out of tofu and not being able to leave the house with two small children. The chickpeas add lysine (and lots of flavor) to the seitan and the method used to knead the seitan gives it a great shredded texture. I add a bit of apple cider vinegar to the recipe to cancel out the strong gluten flavor, but feel free to omit if you don’t have it.
This recipe is pretty dependent on an Instant Pot for similar results. If you have a conventional steamer, you may possibly be able to achieve a similar result if you are able to maintain the steam for 2 hours. If not, try making several smaller packets and steaming for an hour. Edit: since the writing of this recipe, many people have tested different cooking methods and steaming on the stove top or in a stove top pressure cooker works well!
Most food processors come with a dough hook, it’s just a plastic thingamabob that kneads instead of chops. If you don’t have one, or can’t find it, you should be able to get a similar texture with your metal blade. Just be sure to process long enough that it comes together and turns stringy and taffy like. You can also use a Kitchen Aid with a dough hook for 15 minutes or longer.
I prefer to weigh the ingredients in this recipe, as I think it yields the most consistent results, but I have included volume measurements for most of the ingredients if you don’t have a kitchen scale.
For those of you who prefer recipe videos, check out this one from Mary’s Test Kitchen!
If you make this recipe, please use the tag #chickwheat on Instagram or public Facebook posts! I’d love to see your creations!!
Thanksgiving is almost upon us, and traditionally we have a “post-thanksgiving thanksgiving.” This year I decided to cook early, since we won’t be picking up any discounted Tofurky’s after Thanksgiving.
I’ve seen the recipe for vegducken circulating around Facebook for a few weeks, but for me, Thanksgiving is mostly about the sides. I thought “screw Vegducken, I just want potatoes and stuffing!” And that’s how this dish was born.
If you met me four years ago, I would’ve told you about all the pizza places I’ve worked at-I’m up to 4 now. Making a giant batch of dough used to be a daily routine to me. You’d think by now I’d be sick of pizza-Ken would tell you otherwise. I could probably eat pizza for dinner every day for the rest of my life and be happy. As long as I had sushi for lunch. 🙂
There’s a million recipes for pizza dough online, so why would you care about this one? It’s not even a no-knead, 30 minutes and it’s ready dough. You actually have to give it time to proof and wait for the yeast to bubble. So I don’t know why you’d ever pick this specific dough recipe to pin, but I’ve been making it every Friday for years. It’s a pretty solid recipe, especially if you like thick crust.
I usually start making my dough a few hours before I make the pizza to give it plenty of time to rise, but you could probably start this an hour before and be fine. I used to make mine by hand; now I use a dough hook on my food processor. It’s much faster, but making it by hand is still the most basic and effective method.
Last week we celebrated my husband’s birthday. He’s a pretty neat guy, but one of his few flaws is his favorite foods-burgers. I have a particular dislike for most vegan burgers on the market these days. I’d take a black bean burger over a Boca Burger any day.
But, being the wonderful wife I am, I indulge his burger cravings occasionally, especially on his birthday. These homemade buns were perfect for burgers and actually made them palatable for me. We’ve been enjoying these buns for other sandwiches recently too!
Aquafaba works great as a binder in this recipe. Be sure to check out the Facebook page for more aquafaba recipes!
One of my favorite meal growing up was sweet and sour meatballs. My mom used a recipe from the original orange Betty Crocker (you know the one, your mom had it too.) I love adapting old recipes, so here’s my version.
I use seitan instead of meatballs, but you could easily substitute tofu. Feel free to add different veggies, but the pineapple is essential.
A while ago I challenged The Friendly Fig to face her fear of making risotto, and I would do the same. It’s been over a month now, and I finally figured it was time to attempt a recipe. I’m so glad I did!
This was delicious and creamy and wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be. I discovered the trick to making risotto is not leaving the stove for very long, but it didn’t require the constant stirring that I had been previously afraid of. I added a little almond milk and nutritional yeast to give it a flavor boost that dairy would normally give. I served this with a batch of chickpea cutlets, another Post Punk Kitchen recipe.
I just tried the recipe for seitan sausage from Post Punk Kitchen and I couldn’t wait to make something with it. The recipe for the sausages is linked below-I didn’t make any changes and they turned out perfect. I love the smell of fennel and these have the perfect amount of spice in them. If you can’t go through the effort of making them feel free to use pre made sausages.
One of my favorite side dishes to make is orzo with basil and nutritional yeast. It’s cooked slowly in broth which achieves a creamy texture, similar to risotto. Nutritional yeast gives it a cheesy taste and tang, like grown up mac and cheese. I’ve always liked small pastas like orzo and ditalini, they’re much more fun to eat to me.
The sausage and sage make this dish a fantastic fall meal, great for lunch or dinner. It’s hearty and rich enough to be an entrée but could easily be a side for a larger meal.
Avocados and Ales 