Almost All-Canadian Seitan Pot Pie

 Another Veganomicon recipe test out... turns out seitan pot pie is delicious and a lot of work.  My husband tried this one out.  First he made the seitan which is basically boiled wheat gluten.  The seitan has a great texture and is amazingly tasty for the simple ingredient list.  This is what really took a lot of time - has to be simmered for around an hour.  Overall it took him more than 3 hours of prepping and cooking... this was a yummy recipe but not one we'd do frequently since it's so time consuming.

Seitan Pot Pie - 4.5/5 stars for taste!

If you want to try it yourself: 

Check out this site for the Pot Pie recipe Seitan Pot Pie recipe (& Blog). 

To make your own seitan here's a site with the recipe Seitan Recipe (& Blog).

Seitan Ingredients:

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

Broth:
8 cups water plus 3 vegetable bouillon cubes, or 4 cups broth plus 4 cups water
1/4 cup soy sauce 

Instructions:
 Mix together the gluten flour and yeast in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, mix together the veggie broth, soy sauce, olive oil, and garlic.  Pour the wet into the dry and stir with a wooden spoon until most of the moisture has been absorbed and the wet ingredients are partially clumped up with dry ingredients.  Use your hands to knead the mixture for about 3 minutes, until the dough is elastic.  Divide with a knife into three equal pieces and then knead those pieces in your hand just to stretch them out a bit.

Prepare the broth
Fill a stockpot with the water, bouillon cubes, and soy sauce and add the what gluten pieces.  Cover and bring to a boil but watch carefully; you don’t want it to boil for very long or on the outside of the seitan will be spongy.  Try to catch it as soon as it boils and then lower the heat as low as it will go so that it’s at a low simmer.

Partially cover the pot so that the steam can escape and let simmer for an hour, turning the seitan occasionally.  Turn off the heat and take the lid off; let it sit for 15 minutes.  Remove from the broth and place in a strainer until it is cool enough to handle.  It is now ready to be sliced up and used.  If you have extra seitan, store in  the cooking liquid in a tightly covered container.

Coconut Milk Curry: Kale, Sugar Peas & Almonds

I made this stir fry with almonds, onions, kale and sugar snap peas.  The kale and peas really gave a fantastic texture. Almonds in stir fry?  They worked but weren't as crispy as I wanted.  Next time I'll try and toast them and add to the stir fry at the end.

1. Chop up veggies into bite sized pieces (Kale, Sugar Snap Peas, Onion)
2. Add some grape seed oil (does great with high temperatures) to a fry pan
3. Start with frying the onion for around 4 minutes, then add the peas for another 3 minutes, move the peas & onions to one side of the pan and then add a little bit of veggie broth (or water) to the pan & toss the kale on top, cover the kale side with a lid for about 2 minutes
4. Toss everything together another minute and then add 1/2 can of coconut milk
5. To that add 1-2 tbsp of soy sauce (the good sushi kind), a spoonful of green curry paste, a splash of lime juice and 1-2 tsp of brown sugar
6. Add the almonds (1 handful, try roasting them first) and let all of this simmer for around 5 minutes.
7. Serve over rice.