Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Lunchboxes, gas and keilbasa

This weekend I made some seitan that I thought my readers would enjoy seeing. I was impressed with the fact that this was cooked in my crockpot.

The original recipe came from Bryanna Clark Grogan, it is kielbasa style heavy on the garlic and pepper. All seitans recipes she has are good, but this one is simply my favorite. Since she is coming out with an e-book on seitan making soon I will encourage anyone to give it a try. Comparably I have been a Bryanna seitan fan from the beginning and have been satisfied with no desire to stray. My perspective is that nothing compares. She also has so many wonderful seitans using a variety of flavors and ingredients, I have never been bored or lacked trying new recipes either.

Picture #1: Seitan rolled out on the counter into logs. This dough uses tofu as a wet ingredient. The texture is my families favorite. They do not like seitan without tofu - I like them either way, but there is a very big difference when regular firm tofu is used.

Picture #2: Logs placed into the warmed and intensely flavored cooking broth. This broth was cooking while I made my guten dough. I use a BOSCH kitchenaid dough hook to mix it... I let it knead for 10 minutes so the gluten is very well developed.

Picture #3: The cooked logs (overnight on low in my 6 quart oval pot). The smell permeates the house.

Picture #4: The logs removed from the crockpot and placed on a plate. I sometimes quarter a log and use on hotdog buns or set as a protein portion on a plate with a main grain dish and salad.

LUNCHBOXES . . .

I have a few pictures of recent lunchboxes too, although they are not the expected "using the harvest" post I have promised but not yet completed it dies use up some of my home canned goods. The red beans were home canned using the wonderful and flavorful recipe in Bryanna's Almost No Fat Cookbook for Red Beans and Rice.... the first red bean recipe I have ever tried, good enough that I keep coming back to it. When pressure canning legumes the required time to process is 1 hour 25 minutes under 1o pounds of pressure. Since the temperature is so high and long I soak the legumes and bring them to a boil, cook five minutes and then proceed with the recipe. I do not cook any of the veggies, just combine all, divide evenly between the pint jars. They are perfect once all is processed. I ate on one pint jar two days in a row for lunch... one day with orange and red sides and the next with a big scrumptious salad. The rice was prepared in my rice maker.
Then I made a meal of eggless rolls, salad and tropical fruit mix. The sauce is my own homecanned plum sauce which I got the recipe from an Andrea Chesman book (see my side links). It is a little hard to see in the picture.... actually it was a little hard to see in my kitchen too because it was eaten so fast that if you didn't make a quick grab you didn't get any.

SAY NO TO GAS
I have read many times that "healthy" food causes some to have painful gas or other negative side effects. As a vegan and whole foods promoter I must admit that when I first started changing my diet I had problems and occasionally still do with some foods. I was reading book by Dr McDougal (one of my first vegan reads) he mentioned that a client of his health resort mentioned that his diet should be called the Mc Bugle for obvious reasons. I was saddened that this must be a consequence and ate small amounts of food, but the food was healthy and fit the requirements I had however did not have enough calories. I became weak with low blood pressure (dizzy spells) and anemic. I was not ready to give up and I knew I needed to eat more despite the consequences... at the time I learned about fennel tea, ginger, and other digestive remedies. Finally I started finding information about food allergies and the the symptoms of such. I know that it is an overload of various foods that causes me digestive upset, not just "healthy" food or "soy", although I never figured out the science of eating w/o ever having complications I have reigned to carrying this little jar of pills with me and use it when I have a day in which I eat a hodge podge of food or that some food may disagree with me... cabbage, corn, amaranth, quinoa and millet have all given me problems at different times (yet unpredictable), however not when I take this. To me it's worth it to have the confidence that I can eat what I desire.... whole foods, healthy foods, soy foods, vegan foods, etc.

That being said I can continue to post whole food, bean filled, vegetable abundant meals that are healthy for me and considerate of others.

11 comments:

bazu said...

Yes, I think the benefits of beans and other whole foods outweigh the possible downfalls. I have also found that crystallized (or candied) ginger is a great digestive aid. I always make sure to keep a stash in the house! Oh, and cooking beans with some kombu seaweed helps to break it down and make it a little less gassy too.

KleoPatra said...

The kielbasa looks fantastic. WOW! Whoever would think a vegan could eat this? It looks like "the real thing," which i've never had, but it looks like stuff i've seen (and gagged at, knowing what's in 'em!!) in stores over the years...

Dori, i laughed at the "McBugle" remark but that was a very interesting read about Dr. McDougal and the beans, whole foods, etc. There are times when my stomach has a difficult time handling certain foods and certain combinations (more like BOMBinations sometimes!) of foodstuffs...

Besides physical and chemical ramifications w/in the body, i also believe that it is so important emotionally/mentally that we know in our heart and soul that what we are eating is right for us... so that we don't sit and perseverate, kinda just waitin' for what is sometimes "the inevitable" to happen...

Enlightening post. Thank you...

Anonymous said...

One great benefit of having a dog now is being able to blame him! Poor Noble. After becoming vegan, I tried Bean-O but never found it to be that helpful. Then one day I read the ingredients and learned it actually wasn't vegan. Wow - I was sure surprised. I'm going to order some of this stuff and give it a try. Thanks for the link.

Emmy said...

The seitan kielbasa looks wonderful! How cool you made it in your crockpot :)

erica said...

Being a german girl myself, I love Kielbasa. I had a store bought kind a while back and it was kind of dry, but making it would be really fun.

You know, with all my stomach troubles I never know if the gassiness is the vegan food or not :P

Twisted Cinderella said...

That looks wonderful! I have been wanting to try to make seitan but not really having had a recipe or anything, I have been a little nervous. This looks wonderful.

Anonymous said...

Kudos to your daughter - great job!

Your kielbasa looks great. I haven't had much luck making seitan myself. Your eggless rolls look nice and crispy.

Sheree' said...

Fantastic seitan! I made Bryanna's "chicken" cutlets. I froze most of them and kept out a few to experiment with. Yours look so good. Mine, not so good. DD said they smell like dog food. ahhhhhhhhhhhh I told her I have to put them in a dish and we will see. FINGERS CROSSED!. I can't wait to have Bryanna's ebook out. Thanks for your seitan links, which in turn turned me on to Bryanna's recipes.

Anonymous said...

i think i will try that pills, we need some relieve around here! LOL

FH said...

I am curious about this recipe. Is it specifically one of Bryanna's recipes or did you tweak it by adding tofu? Do you only use tofu as the wet ingredient, or do you add broth as well?

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