These are The Great Chickpea Cutlets from, you guessed it, Veganomicon!

You have bought your copy by now, haven’t you??

These are a staple in my diet.  They are perfect smothered with vegan gravy,* slathered with buffalo wing-style sauce, or sandwiched with toasted bread.

They are also delicious cold out of the refrigerator.

Not that I’d know.

They are a great way to eat all that protein that every omnivore is sure you’re not eating enough of.  (Don’t get me started on that one…)  And they are a pretty painless way to introduce yourself or someone you love to seitan.

They are a brilliant mixture of mashed chickpeas (from a can-easy!), vital wheat gluten (the stuff that makes seitan, you can find it in the flour/baking section of nearly any grocery store), breadcrumbs, and seasonings.

For VeganMoFo, Isa, the author of Veganomicon posted the recipe for a double batch of chickpea cutlets on her blog.  The recipe as written in the book makes 4 smallish cutlets, which I can fly though in a day or two, so I’ve always doubled the recipe.  The leftovers are great, and they freeze well either before or after cooking them.

To go along with the cutlets, I made mashed potatoes and gravy.  MMMMM.  Mashed potatoes are my favorite food, and if I had to pick my favorite food group I’d have to go with gravy.

I found organic fresh rosemary at the grocery store on clearance for $0.25 so I had to have it.  It paired perfectly with the thyme in the cutlets.  The combination of flavors reminded me a lot of thanksgiving, and I bet you couldn’t lose serving the cutlets with gravy for your thanksgiving feast.

I made a really basic vegan gravy.  I started by mincing that gigantic garlic clove you see above, and sauteing it with a bit of olive oil.  Then I made a roux by adding more olive oil and some flour, and cooked it just until it started to brown a bit.  Then I whisked in mushroom broth and whisked like crazy until it looked like gravy.  I added tons of black pepper and a chopped sprig of rosemary.

Don’t let the photo fool you, I doused those mashed ‘taters with plenty of gravy after I snapped this picture.

Oh, and we had salad too.  It wasn’t anything special.  I ate it first to get it out of the way so that I could focus on the good stuff.

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* FYI- Tofu Mom, a blog that I LOVE, is writing all about vegan gravy for VeganMoFo.  You should check out her gravy recipes.  I definitely want to make the vegan hollandaise!

As I mentioned in this post on Tofu and Seitan Kabobs, you need to own the Veganomicon cookbook if you’re into vegan cooking, if only for the basic seitan recipe.

With the leftover seitan from the kabobs, I made a super simple, but super delicious Thanksgiving-inspired sandwich.

The cranberry mayo is really the star of the sandwich.  All you do is combine:

• 1 teaspoon of cranberry butter, with
• 1 teaspoon on vegan mayo (I prefer Vegenaise brand. Nasoya tastes weird to me.)

I toasted two slices of whole wheat bread and spread the mayo on in a thin layer.  Then I added some thin slices of seitan and romaine lettuce.

The apple slices on the plate eventually made their way into the sandwich itself for a bit of crunch.  This was a really satisfying lunch.

Don’t let the crazy pink color of the mayo put you off- the combination is delicious!

Something with bbq sauce was on the list of meals to make this week.  I didn’t know exactly what I was going to make, but I knew I wanted tangy, sweet, and spicy bbq sauce.

We didn’t have any store-bought bbq sauce in the house and I had never made it myself, but I figured I would give it a shot since I had all the necessary ingredients.

It was much easier to make than I expected!  I cobbled together a bunch of recipes from the internet, but the combination I used was: organic ketchup, molasses, vinegar, brown sugar, honey, hot sauce, black pepper, cayenne, garlic, and oregano.  It just needed to simmer for 20 minutes and it was thick and sticky.  It was exactly what I was going for.

With the sauce done, I needed something to put it on.  Since Mex and I are going to San Francisco for the weekend for Foodbuzz Fest (sooo excited!), we wanted to use up some of the perishables in the fridge.  I had tofu leftover from making the Basic Scrambled Tofu the other morning, some homemade seitan (from the vegan cookbook bible, Veganomicon, which I love and which you should own), and 1/2 a sweet onion.  Sounds like vegan kabobs to me!

I cut the tofu into cubes and marinated it in bottled italian dressing for about 30 minutes.  I cubed the seitan and chopped the onion into large pieces.

I threaded all of the ingredients onto wooden skewers, (which I soaked in water for about 1 hour so they wouldn’t burn) alternating between the tofu and seitan with sliced onion in between.  I basted them with the bbq sauce and then Mex grilled them until there were char marks, or about 5 min on each side.

I served the kabobs with brown rice and some Vegan Broccoli-Cranberry Salad.  This is my rip off of a picnic classic, broccoli-raisin salad.  Your mom or grandma probably makes it.  It’s broccoli florets mixed with a combination of mayo, vinegar, sugar, and raisins.  The traditional recipe is terribly bad for you- 1 cup of sugar stirred into 1 cup of mayo?  Ew?

So my vegan version used just a few teaspoons of Veganaise, a splash of white vinegar, and a pinch of brown sugar.  I seasoned it with some black pepper and garlic powder and let it chill for a few hours in the fridge.  The vinegar in the dressing helps the broccoli soften a bit.  I added dried cranberries at the last minute.

Slices of buttery avocado rounded out the meal and added a bit of texture. The best bites were a bit of seitan, onion, and cool avocado with extra bbq sauce on top.

Drool.

These might be my new favorite way to have vegan bbq.  I’ll definitely make them again.

I kinda wish we had leftovers, actually.

Breakfast sandwiches are easily one of my favorite foods.   Maybe it’s because my parents would always make my sister and I egg sandwiches on italian bread when dinner that night was a bit too grown-up for our tastes.  Maybe it’s because I can’t get enough bread in my life.  Whatever the case may be, I love breakfast sandwiches and have them at least once a week.

In an effort to eat a mostly plant based diet, I have had little difficulty skipping meat, milk and cheese, but I love eggs.  I’m no where near perfect in my food choices, but I do my best.  I try to limit myself to organic, local, cage free and hormone free eggs.  Vegans, don’t leave!  I often make this sandwich completely animal free with slices of baked tofu (ala this post on vegweb) sprinkled with black salt (which gives the tofu an eggy taste) in place of the egg.  It’s still really delicious that way.

My breakfast sandwiches are usually quite basic and not worthy of a photo, let along a blog post, but my sandwich this morning was too good not to photograph.

First, heat a non-stick or better yet cast iron skillet with a bit of extra virgin olive oil.  Once it’s hot, place a thick slice of tomato in the skillet and let it sear on both sides.  It will just take a couple of minutes per side.  At the same time, put a few slices of faux bacon, soy sausage, or in this case some homemade seitan (don’t be scared, it’s really tasty) in the pan to get crispy.

Next, toast a bagel or english muffin (note: I am not a fan of regular bread for breakfast sandwiches- it gets too soggy!).  Smear it with some  hummus.  Yes, hummus on a breakfast sandwich.  It’s delicious!

Then fry up your egg or reheat some baked tofu.  I like my eggs mostly set but still a bit liquid in the center (nommmmm).  Place everything on the bagel, along with some salad greens and a thick slice of red onion, which gives your sandwich great color.  Voila!  A really simple breakfast that tastes like a million bucks.  Add a homemade soy peppermint mocha and call it Sunday morning   Enjoy!

I’ve made these chicken-style seitan nuggets a few times now, and I’m a big fan.  The recipe comes together in minutes, they bake quickly, and the texture of the finished product is perfect.  Seitan can sometimes be really rubbery and tough, but these are just right.

Last night, I made a batch of the dough and made half into nuggets, and then experimented with the other half.  I was oddly craving Italian Wedding Soup (I have no idea why, I’m pretty sure I’ve never had it before, but I saw a can of it in the store and it looked really good) so I wanted to see if these could work as tiny “meat” balls.  Well, it worked perfectly!

I pinched off tiny pieces of the dough, rolled it between my palms, and placed them in a cast iron skillet over medium heat.  I skipped the breading step in the recipe.  They cooked pretty quickly, just a couple of minutes per side and they were done.  The texture was great!  I’d love to try baking these next, to cut down on the oil a bit, but honestly these were so awesome.

I looked up what Italian Wedding Soup is made of, and while the recipes varied quite a bit, it seemed like a broth based soup with meatballs and greens.

I started with olive oil, onions, garlic, and celery.  Next I added some crushed red pepper flakes, oregano, and dried basil.  When the vegetables were soft, I added some red wine, then added water, vegetable bullion, kidney beans, and the meatballs.  I let that simmer away for 30 minutes or so, then added a few handfuls of torn spinach.  I let that wilt in for a bit, then dished out a bowl.

It was great!  Just what I wanted on this cloudy day.  I think next time I’ll hold off on putting the meatballs in so early, as they got a bit spongy, but the flavor was still great.  The soup also came together very quickly and could be made to feed a ton of people for not very much money.  It’s also pretty versatile.  Like most soups, this “recipe” is one that can be easily modified to use what vegetables and canned beans you might have on hand.  My dad makes a soup similar to this with kale or swiss chard as the greens.  Cannelini beans would also be great here.  Really, soup is a great way to experiment with flavors.