Gluten-Free Cherry Almond Muffins

First of all, much thanks to my readers and fellow mofoers for taking the time to read my blog and offer your kind and encouraging comments.  I've had a lot of fun with Mofo this year and came up with some recipes I'm pretty proud of.  I've also loved reading my fellow vegan bloggers' posts over on the Vegan Mofo site and in my wonderfully overcrowded Google Reader.  The innovative recipes, gorgeous photos, and spirit of fun I see on other vegan blogs continues to inspire me.

Now that Mofo is ending I won't  be posting daily anymore, but you can expect to hear from me a couple times a week.  For now, my plan is to keep muffin Mondays and dessert Fridays going for awhile.  I also want to start trying out some of the many recipes from other bloggers that I've starred in my Google Reader this month.  And now on to the food:

These muffins were my first foray into gluten-free baking.  (I have no problem with gluten, but I'm all for variety.)  They turned out pretty good; a little crumblier than regular muffins, but nice and tall.  These aren't very sweet so if you have a sweet tooth you'll probably want to add a little more sugar.

The Ingredients:
2 1/2 c gluten free flour (I used Bob's Red Mill all purpose gf flour)
1/2 c sugar
1 T arrowroot or egg replacer
1 T baking powder
3/4 t xanthan gum
3/4 t salt
1 1/2 c almond milk
1/3 c oil
1 t vanilla
1 1/2 t almond extract
1 c dried cherries
1 c roasted unsalted almonds, roughly chopped

The Process:

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. Whisk together flour, sugar, arrowroot, baking powder, xanthan gum, and salt.
3. Stir in almond milk, oil, and extracts.
4. Fold in cherries and almonds.
5. Pour into lightly-oiled muffin tins and bake about 20 minutes.  

Pear Spice Cake

This is a basic agave-sweetened spice cake, with a layer of pears on the bottom, top, and sides.  It's simple but pretty.

The Ingredients:
1 1/2 c flour
1 t cinnamon
1 t baking powder
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
2/3 c almond milk
2/3 c agave nectar
1/3 c oil
2 t vanilla
2 pears, thinly sliced


The Process:

1. Preheat oven to 325.
2. Arrange 1/2 the pears on the bottom and sides of a lightly oiled 9" springform pan.
3. Whisk together wet and dry ingredients in separate bowls, then pour wet into dry and whisk until combined.
4. Pour cake batter over pears, and arrange remaining pears on top.
5. Bake until cooked through, about 45 minutes.

Update: you may want to put a cookie sheet or piece of foil on the rack beneath the cake while baking, as a small amount of juice from the pears may leak out during cooking.

Crispy Sweet & Sour Seitan

This has more steps than most stir-fries, but I think it's worth the extra effort on occasion.  I love the crispiness of the battered seitan, but if you want to save time or lower the fat content, you can skip that step and just toss the seitan in when you cook the peppers and onions.

The Ingredients:

2 red bell peppers, in thin strips
1/2 a medium yellow onion, sliced


Sauce:
1/2 c water
2 1/2 T rice vinegar
2 T + 1 t sugar
1 T soy sauce or liquid aminos
1 T ketchup
2 t molasses
3/4 t finely-grated ginger
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 scant T cornstarch, mixed with 2 T water
optional: 1/2 t chili paste or red pepper flakes

Crispy seitan:
1 lb seitan, cut in strips
1/2 c cornstarch
1/4 cup water
oil for frying

The Process:

1. To make the sauce, combine everything except the cornstarch/water mixture in a small saucepan over low heat, and cook until sugar melts.  Stir in cornstarch/water mixture, remove from heat, and set aside.
2. To make crispy seitan, whisk together cornstarch and water, and toss in seitan to coat.  Heat 1/2 inch of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat, and cook seitan (in batches if necessary to avoid crowding pan), stirring occasionally, until golden and very crispy, about 5 minutes.  Remove seitan from oil and set on paper towels or a flattened paper bag to drain.
3. In a wok or large skillet, stir-fry peppers and onions in about 1 T of oil over high heat until softened, about 4 minutes.  Add sauce, lower heat to medium, and continue cooking until thickened, about 2 minutes.  Toss in seitan.  Serve over soba or udon noodles.

Pesto Polenta Lasagna

I usually make my polenta from scratch, but sometimes those tubes of pre-made polenta come in handy for throwing together a last-minute dinner.  This recipe is a good one to play around with, changing the filling and sauce to suit your tastes or to use up whatever you happen to have in your fridge.

The Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups pesto
1 tube polenta, sliced into 1/4 inch thick rounds.
1 head cauliflower, divided
1/2 pound seitan, cut in 1/2 inch pieces
3 T nutritional yeast
2 T flour
1/2 c almond milk
a handful mozerella style soy cheese, shredded

The Process:

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. Prepare the cauliflower ricotta.  (This gives the dish some structure and keeps it from being runny.)  In a blender or food processor, pulse together 1/2 the cauliflower with the flour, nutritional yeast, and almond milk.  Don't try to get out all the chunks, but do aim for more creamy than chunky.  Chop the remaining cauliflower into half-inch pieces.
3. Assemble the lasagna in an oiled 8-inch square baking dish.  Layer half the polenta in the bottom of the dish.  Top with half the cauliflower and seitan pieces, then half the ricotta, then half the pesto.  Repeat the cauliflower/seitan, ricotta, and pesto layers, and top with the second half of the polenta.  Cover and bake 35 minutes.
4. Uncover, sprinkle with cheese, and bake 10 more minutes.  Let cool a few minutes before serving.

Tuesday Tips: Seitan Improv

I adore seitan, but can't stomach paying for it at the supermarket, so every couple months I spend a Saturday morning making up a big batch of it to stock my freezer.  While there is no dearth of seitan recipes on the internet, I don't really follow a recipe for it, instead following a basic wet-to-dry ingredient ratio and playing with the seasonings depending on what I have on hand.    Here's my rough guide to how to make your own improvised seitan.

Basic Ingredients:
1 1/4 c wheat gluten (sometimes I substitute garbanzo flour for 1/4 cup of the gluten)
1 c liquid (some combination of: broth, water, soy sauce, ketchup, teriyaki sauce)
2-3 T oil
2-3 T nutritional yeast
a couple T spices (broth powder, thyme, sage, red pepper, black pepper, salt, onion powder, minced onion, garlic, oregano, fennel, etc.)
optional: 1/3-1/2 c mashed beans

Making the Dough:
Mix together dry and wet ingredients separately. Add wet ingredients into dry and knead together until just combined.  (Knead it longer for a chewier texture, but keep in mint this will also make the dough more difficult to shape.)

Shaping:
The basic shapes I make are cutlet/patty, sausage links, and loaves.

For patties, form 2-3 T of dough into a ball and flatten.


For sausage links, spread 1/4 c of dough into a tube shape on a piece of aluminum foil and roll up tightly, twisting the ends of the foil closed.

seitan sausages in steamer basket

 For loaves, spread dough in a loaf shape on a piece of aluminum foil (if baking) or cheesecloth (if simmering), roll up tightly, and pinch or tie off the ends.

uncooked loaf

You can also make blob-shaped chunks by simply breaking off pieces of dough and not shaping them.  These are good in soups or stews.

Cooking:
Some people like to simmer seitan in broth or in seasoned or plain water.  This creates the most moist, spongy texture.  I almost never cook my seitan this way, but if you go this route, cook unshaped chunks 30-40 minutes or a cheesecloth-wrapped loaf for 60-70 minutes.

Baking is my preferred method for loaves.  Baking results in a firm texture good for slicing into sandwich "meat."  Bake the loaf (wrapped tightly in foil) at 325 for about 1 1/2 hour (more or less, depending on how fat the loaf is).  Let cool before unwrapping.

For patties and sausage links, I typically cook by steaming.  Place patties on squares of foil or waxed paper to prevent sticking, and wrap sausage links tightly in foil as described in the "shaping" section above.  Steam patties about 30 minutes, links about 40 minutes.  Let sausage links cool before unwrapping.

Storing & Using:
I freeze whole and half loaves in ziplock bags for up to a few months, and thaw on the counter.  The loaf can either be cooked again in a recipe, or sliced and used as "lunch meat" for sandwiches.

baked seitan loaf

For sausage links and patty shapes, freeze on a cookie sheet in one layer before putting in ziplock bags, so they don't stick together.  Both patties and links can be reheated in a skillet, in the oven, or on a grill.

sausage-style breakfast patties

sausage-style link

For chunks cooked in broth, either remove from broth and freeze portions in ziplocks, or freeze in the broth for use in soups and stews.

Have fun improvising!