Jack’s Hemp Seitan Strips

This is a dish I am trying to create for quite some time, but always have problems. One of them is that I have to make seitan from scratch because I cant find vital gluten flour anywhere. Secondly seitan from scratch tends to be more spongy and needs a lot of attention when you cook it because you might end up with bread-y spongy seitan, which is not nice. But today it worked-though it is still slightly spongy. So I made seitan strips glazed with my favorite jack Daniel’s and sprinkled with hemp seeds instead of sesame seeds for a nice change.

uncooked seitan strips made from scratch

The name of this dish is inspired by a great person, artist, boyfriend, friend…that inspires me everyday with his music and his passion for it…Jack Basta

Nut Roast Cupcakes

I have been thinking to make a nut roast since last year, that I had one with my boyfriend in London. The one we had was a ready cashew nut roast that you just add water and bake. He loved it and has been asking ever since to make him one again, from scratch. But the thing is that nut roast is not very photogenic. Its like an ugly loaf! Of course if you have a big dinner and want to serve it as a main dish you make it like that so it looks [ well kind of ] like a roast that you cut off your piece. But I wanted something cute to take pictures of, so I made these in a muffin pan, then made a very thick onion gravy to top them and decorated with extra pine nuts. Feel free to make it however you want. If you do make it like me, then you can serve as a cool appetizer!

Perfect Roasted Vegetables

As simple as roasting vegetables might sound, I believe there is an art to it. The vegetables have to be charred but not burnt, crispy yet tender and not too oily neither dry. So, this goes for all the ’simple’ dishes that you just have to know the art behind it, and once you do suddenly these simple, everyday dishes start looking fancy![and you start looking-and cooking-like one fancy chef!]
Back to the roasted vegetables : I prefer not to use root vegetables such as potatoes,carrots and parsnips to this dish, because they dont get roasted the same way with the others, but feel free to experiment! The key about cooking these babies is patience. Yes, I know no one gets excited with this word, not even me. But, be patient!![here it comes again!sorry!]

You need :
-2 eggplants
-2 green bell peppers
-1 red bell pepper
-1 orange bell pepper
-4 zucchini
-3 onions
-a bit less than 1/2 cup olive oil
-salt&pepper

-3tsp olive oil
-3 garlic heads

-balsamic glaze/crema di balsamico [store-bought or homemade]

Chop vegetables, taking care not cut the eggplant pieces too fat because they cook slower than the others. In a big baking dish add half f the oil, then the vegetables and then pour over that the rest of the oil. Toss to oil everything, sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss again. Cover with baking sheet and place in preheated oven at 185C.
Now I have to say that this is a really good time to roast some garlic heads. For this dish you need about 3 but if you want for other uses roast more, since you are using the oven for quite some time. Chop the top of each garlic head to expose the cloves, and pour a teaspoon of olive oil on each head. Wrap in baking sheets individually and put in the oven as well.
After 40 minutes, take the baking dish out of the oven, uncover and place on the bottom of the oven to broil the veggies for a bit and give them some crisp. This will take around 20 minutes but check often and stir if needed. Once they are ready take the dish and garlic heads out of the oven. Unwrap garlic heads and leave to cool until you can handle them. With a spoon take out each garlic clove [it will be soft and mashed] and place in a small bowl. With a fork mash them up all together to form a paste. Drizzle balsamic glaze over vegetables and serve with lemon and the roasted garlic paste.
Serves 4 as a main dish!

Sour Cream Jacket Potato

This is a fantastic recipe, one that you cant tell its veganized! I did a research on jackets potatoes and collected all the tricks that makes them crispy on the outside and nicely soft evenly baked on the inside. If you are a fan of buttery flavor you can just eat the potato plain with some vegan margarine, but I have to admit that I never liked butter flavor. The perfect topping for a jacket potato in my opinion is something creamy but light.

Now I had tried cooking with real sour cream only once and I have to say that it tastes almost exactly like plain Greek yogurt but creamier-heavier. I checked the nutritional yeast cookbook that has 2 recipes for vegan sour cream, but both use tofu, and I dont understand why. I think soy yogurt is more appropriate so I tried it. The outcome? Amazing!! Everyone loves it and dont even understand its made with soy yogurt. I am not ashamed to say if one of my recipes is not that good. This one is perfect, so if you are looking for a sour cream dressing its right here!

For the sour cream dressing you need :

-3/4 cup natural unsweetened soy yogurt

-1 tsp garlic powder

-1 tsp nutritional yeast

-1 tsp salt

-2 to 3 tsp lemon juice

-1 tsp apple cider vinegar

-1/4 tsp light agave syrup

-2 tbsp fresh finely chopped dill

-1 tsp olive oil

Mix in all the ingredients well and chill in the fridge.

For the jacket potato you need:

-3 good sized potatoes

-2 tsp olive oil

-2 tsp salt

Preheat oven at 200C. Wash potatoes with a sponge and water to take off all the dirt ( since you are going to eat the skin. Trust me, you will eat it.!)Now with a towel dry the potatoes completely. With a fork prick them in several places, so that they bake to perfection. Now brush them with olive oil and rub salt on them ( this makes the tastiest, crispiest potato skin I have ever taste). Place in the oven without a baking dish on the rack in the middle of your oven. Now depending on you oven bake from 1hour20min to 1hour45min. Check on one potato if its all they way baked. Serve STRAIGHT out of the oven cutting the potato on the top from side to side to place 2 tablespoons of the sour cream ( or more!) on top. You can also top this with grilled vegan/vegetarian bacon if you have any lying around! I know it takes a lot of time for the potatoes to bake, but its worth it. Just make sure to serve immediately out of the oven because the potato skin will get soggy. Enjoy!

[serving suggestion]

Puff Pastry Mushroom Carrot ‘pie’

Hello everyone!I just tried to make my first homemade puff pastry…I thought it wasnt that difficult but guess what?It was…The magic of puff pastry is basically layers of fat and dough, but in order to do that you need a hard margarine, not the tube style one thats soft.Oh well…of course I tried to make it lower in fat and the margarine I used came only in a tube, but I insisted on using it since it was only 35% fat and from olive oil!!But thats because I like to make easy things hard.(and hard things impossible) Anyway, the filling is amazing so if you want to make this and you dont want to go through what I did you can just buy a vegan store-bought puff pastry.

For the filling you need :

500 gr button mushrooms

4 carrots

2 onions

3 cloves of garlic

1 vegetable stock cube

2 tbsp nutritional yeast

2 tbsp ketchup

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 1/2 cup water

2 tsp cornflour

4 serving size oven proof pots

Chop mushrooms in quarters and carrots in stir-fry style strips. Chop onion in circles-or however you want it-and crush garlic. In a big saucepan saute onions and garlic. When they become a bit soft add mushrooms, ketchup, soy sauce and nutritional yeast. Stir and saute for 2 minutes. Now add everything else besides cornflour and bring to boil. Simmer for 15 minutes and add cornflour to thicken the sauce. Once veggies are tender leave aside.

Preheat oven at 200c.Place filling inside oven proof serving size pots and cover with puff pastry dough. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until top is goden brown.

READ THE FOLLOWING ONLY IF YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE YOUR OWN PUFF PASTRY

Well now if you are going to make homemade puff pastry this Puff Pastry tutorial is a good source to see how its done, with pictures and everything. There are also many videos where you can see the procedure on youtube.

In general for the dough you need water and a strong white flour. You form the dough in a bread like consistency- its called detrempe.Then you need a big chunk of hard margarine. After you chill both separately for about an hour, or overnight if you can be bothered,you roll out the dough in a cross like shape, enclosing the margarine inside(the dough works as an envelope). Then you start rolling and folding, all that without letting ANY margarine getting out of the dough!!!Thats why its so hard…All that also need to be done while the dough and fat are cold, so every two foldings you need to chill it in the fridge a bit. You do 6 foldings in total, but if you are going to make this check the link I give you because its a very specific way of folding and rolling.

After reading this though I dont think you are going to make it, when its so much easier to just buy it. But if you are the baker type, you should try it. Its actually kind of fun!( I’m such a geek in the kitchen) Just you guys, don’t do the same mistake with me! Buy a HARD margarine and I bet this will be much easier to make!(if you see the videos on youtube you are like, ‘oh my god, its a piece of cake!’)

Tips:
Because my margarine was soft many times the dough opened, making holes and you could see the marg coming out. THAT IS NOT GOOD. But I invented a trick!! Dip a soft brush in water and brush the area that has holes, now sprinkle with a generous amount of flour and tap and rub lightly!! Your hole is completely covered! Now if you are using soft margarine, you should also place your puff pastry dough in the fridge to chill after every folding (usually its after every two) Also you should not use a margarine low in fat, because mine turned out a bit on the hard side!Anyway I will stop now because I feel you are losing your patience, but I hope my tips helped!Good luck!