Curried Seitan Strips [Vegan Mofo]

Vegan Month of Food continues, and I need to pick up the pace!

This was from last week, another experiment with vital wheat gluten to see if I could make edible treats easily. Most recipes for seitan take an hour or more, but I like these quick and easy ways of frying them or baking them. I used the same techniques as my last seitan experiment 2 posts ago, but changed up the ingredients. I made a miso-soy sauce to add into the vital wheat gluten, a bunch of curry powder, some hoisin sauce, some soy sauce. Next time I think I will go for more miso because I couldn't really taste it, but these were still delicious.

I wound up baking these off as larger strips, like chicken fingers almost, and then cooling them and slicing into strips. I put them into a dish that I served with bean thread noodles, okra, & broccoli with a sauce of hoisin, soy, miso. It was really good. These reminded me of the steak/chik'n strips I buy once in a while, but WAY cheaper and kind of fun to make.

Here's a shot of the strips before going into the larger noodle dish:

Vegetable Stir Fry: Mock Duck and Bean Thread Noodles with Broccoli

Another fairly simple stir fry. I love bean thread noodles as an alternative to rice noodles. They have a much more chewy texture, at least to me or the way I make them. The best part is that just like rice noodles, they are about a dollar for a pretty big bag.

I drained two cans of Mock Duck and pan-fried them with a lot of garlic, ginger paste, garlic chili sauce, and soy sauce. I also cooked up some frozen stir fry veggies: broccoli, snap peas, carrots, mushrooms, onions. Mixed together and promptly enjoyed.

Green Stir Fry: Bok Choy, Broccoli, and Mushrooms with Noodles

I had a bunch of bok choy which needed to be processed soon, so I decided to do it today. A simple, veggie-tastic stir fry of sorts.

What You Need:



330g bok choy, cleaned and rough chop to bite size pieces
65g onion
1.5c frozen broccoli (not pictured)
1-2 cloves garlic
100g mushrooms
1-2t ginger paste or finely minced ginger root
cooked bean thread noodles

little to no oil for pan

1. slice up the onion, sauté until just browning (I like the carmelized flavor, you can cook until transluscent if desired) 3 mins
2. add mushrooms, garlic & ginger 2 more mins
3. add broccoli. I just add it frozen and cook until no longer frozen, 5 mins.
4. add chopped bok choy. I like some snap in the bok choy so I don't cook it that long, just enough to get barely tender.
5. I had precooked noodles in the fridge, so I just put some in a bowl and piled the veggies on top of it and added soy sauce/hot sauce as needed.

This could serve 2. I only used a tiny amount of noodles, about 100 calories worth or 1oz dry. I wound up eating everything myself. Here is a Nutritional profile. Note: Nutrition info is whole recipe for one person. Nutrition info DOES NOT include noodles or oil used as those items are optional and/or could vary by type of noodles you want to use or how much oil/what type of oil.

Another look, showing off the noodles:

Second Post: Coconut Curry Noodles

Only the second post and I'm already getting serious. I just made up this recipe tonight with what I had in my cupboards and fridge. It's coconut curry bean thread noodles with Morningstar mock beef strips, bok choy, green bell pepper, onion, garlic. Simple, tasty and filling. Serves two, maybe 3-4 with smaller portions.

Behold, the finished plated dinner:



Not necessarily the best looking dish in the world, but darn tasty. Next time, I might just sauce the noodles, plate them first and then lay everything else on top for a better picture. My camera isn't the best, either.

So, you wanna make this dish? Let's go:


Software:
60g onion, sliced in half moon strips
5-10g garlic (one big clove) minced
50g bok choy, roughly chopped
100g green bell pepper, cut in squares/rough chop
2oz bean thread noodlesHere's what 2oz looks like (rice noodles would work ok, too)
1T Green Curry Paste
1 small can (5.5oz) coconut milk
1 package Morningstar Meal Starters Steak Strips

Hardware:
one 5-6c pot to boil water for noodles
one 12-14 inch wide, 2 inch deep pan
one heat resistant silicone spatula (or whatever device you use. I have a big one in orange and a small one in green. And a spoonula in green.)
one pasta spoon
one strainer of some sort

What to do:
1. Prep! Or, as chefs say, mise en place. This helps everything go smoothly. (Don't worry, I don't always do this, but I should!) What do you need to prep or set your mise? Chop the veggies, open the coconut milk and curry paste, get the noodles out and ready to pop in the water, open the mock beef strips.
2. Fill the pot with water, cover, and set on burner to boil.
3. On medium heat, use about one Tablespoon or less of oil (just enough to coat bottom of pan. Cooking spray is even better, but I'm out.)
4. Once pan is heated, add onions and cook until they start to brown.
5. Once the onions are starting to brown, add the whole package of Morningstar Beef Strips. Cook these for 10-15 minutes until quite brown, like this:


6. Sometime while the strips are cooking with the onions, the water should be boiling and ready for noodle action.
7. Once strips are brown enough for you, add bok choy, green peppers and garlic.
8. Stir these ingredients and cook for 2-3 minutes.
9. Drain and rinse the bean threads, add to rest of ingredients in pan.
10. Now add in the coconut milk. Note: I went for more of a thick flavoring rather than an actual liquidy curry. Feel free to add more coconut milk if you wish. Lite coconut milk works well, too.
11. Stir in the 1T of curry paste, more or less to taste. once dissolved, you're done!!!

Click Here for Full Nutrition Information. This Info is for one serving where the whole recipe equals 2 servings. So, if you made this into four recipes, make sure you cut the nutrition info in half. Make sense? Good.

So that was dinner tonight. I am not sure if I will have more photos, less photos, or lots and lots of links. We'll see how this goes. Hope you enjoyed.