maple-dijon seitan with rice pilaf

  

Overview

Time: 45 minutes
Dishes: large skillet, medium pot

Hello, hello Dear Readers!

When I was a youngster, I worked at Bakers Square, where I really loved the Honey Mustard Sauce. Of course, the sauce was over chicken, but I was veg by then and put the sauce over baked potatoes. Here I bring you the vegan version, complete with Easy Simple Seitan cutlets. I am sure they would be great with Gardein, as well.

The sauce has quickly browned onions before adding the yogurt, Dijon and maple. Your yogurt can be sweetened because the maple is sweet, so just adjust the amount of maple depending on the sweetness of the yogurt.

I used cashew milk yogurt by Forager, and I am certain that a coconut based yogurt will impart coconut flavor, for better or worse. 

I absolutely adore rice pilaf and this dish lends itself to a simple pilaf, so I incorporated that into the recipe. All told, the recipe took 40 minutes to prepare, from fridge to table, with delicious results. Serve with a green salad and you are set with a complete meal in very little time.

If you need inspiration for your weekly menu, check out ours HERE.

Enjoy!

Speedy Cooking Tips:

• Gather your ingredients.
• Make the rice first.
• Mince 1/4 of the onion while the medium pot heats. 
• Slice the rest of the onion while the seitan browns.
• Move the seitan to a plate or the cutting board once browned.

(Printer-friendly doesn't seem to be so friendly. Just select the text between the arrows (including the white space to add margin on the top), right-click, select Print, and now it's printer-friendly. Can also be saved as PDF:  choose Save as PDF in Destination drop-down, instead of a printer.)

Maple-Dijon Seitan with Rice Pilaf

www.ZsusVeganPantry.com

Makes 4 servings 

weekday

Serve with green salad or steamed broccoli.

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 cup long-grain white rice

1/2 cup orzo 

1/4 large onion, minced 

2 cups vegetable broth 

1 tablespoon olive oil

8 Easy Simple Seitan Cutlets

3/4 large onion, thinly sliced 

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 1/2 cups plain yogurt

3 tablespoons Dijon mustard

1-2 tablespoons maple syrup (depending on sweetness of yogurt)

1. Rice Pilaf: Add the oil to a medium pot over medium heat. Add the rice, orzo, onion, garlic. Stir well and cook until golden, about 4 minutes. Add the broth, cover and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook until the rice is tender, about 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. 

2. Seitan: Add the oil to a large skillet over medium heat. Add the seitan cutlets and brown both sides, about 2 minutes. Remove to a plate.        

3. Onions: Add the onions and garlic to the skillet. Season with salt. Cook, covered, until browned, about 8 minutes. Stir as needed. Add splashes of water as needed. 

4. Sauce: Remove the Onions from the heat. Add the yogurt, mustard, maple. Stir well. Taste and add salt and pepper. Add the Seitan cutlets to the sauce. Serve with the Rice.  

 

© 2021 Copyright Zsu Dever. All rights reserved.

This recipe has been included by Twinkl among their top 

picks for 7+ Healthy Lunch Box Ideas for Vegetarian October

Pint It!

vegan vegetarian meatless plant-based

cordon bleu

Chicken Cordon Bleu is a popular dish of ham and swiss cheese wrapped inside a chicken breast, which is then breaded and fried. We can do better than that, though, so here is an easier (and kinder) Cordon Bleu.

This sandwich is presented on a homemade bun with a slice of seitan that has been seared. The seitan is topped with smoky seitan that is thinly sliced and then is topped with vegan Swiss cheese. The final addition is a maple-mustard sauce that is as delicious as it is easy to make.

While this sandwich comes together in as little as 15 minutes, including the sauce, there is no denying that most of the work is done beforehand: seitan, bread and cheese, if making it homemade. However, once you have all the components, it is a snap.

This is one of those sandwiches whose total is so much better than the parts. In fact, as you are making your various kinds of seitan, keep this sandwich in mind to use up any leftovers.

Cordon Bleu Sandwich

Makes 4 sandwiches

Sauce:

2 tablespoons dijon mustard

2 tablespoons olive oil or vegan mayonnaise

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon maple syrup

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Sea salt and black pepper

1 tablespoon olive oil

12 thin slices vegan ham

4 vegan scallopini or seitan slices (about 1/2-inch thick)

4 slices vegan swiss cheese or other vegan cheese

4 kaiser rolls or burger buns, split and toasted 

1. Sauce: Combine the mustard, oil, vinegar, maple, lemon juice and salt and pepper, to taste, in a small bowl. Mix well and set aside.

2. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the ham slices and cook until golden brown. Set aside. Add the vegan scallopini and season with salt and pepper. Cook until golden brown and flip. Add the reserved slices of ham, three to a scallopini and a slice of cheese. Add a teaspoon of water to the pan and cover with a lid. Cook until the cheese melts. 

3. Spread some sauce on the bottom of the buns. Add a cordon bleu stack and top with more sauce. Add the top of the roll and serve immediately. 

© 2017 Copyright Zsu Dever. All rights reserved.

chili's bar and grill make over

Happy World Vegetarian Day and First Day of MoFo VI.

This is my third year MoFoing!

Because MoFo kicked my posterior last year, or my perfectionism got the best of me, I decided to make MoFo less stressful this year by reducing the make overs I do for each establishment. So, instead of recreating three or four dishes per post, it'll be only one.

Last year's Chili's Grill and Bar Make Over involved Chili's Enchilada Soup, Grilled Caribbean Salad and Fajitas. This casual dining establishment serves American food with a Tex-Mex influence. While Chili's has recently added a vegetarian menu as an offering, it is still wholly non-vegan, and therefore is in need of a make over.

With that in mind, my first menu item is Chili's  Honey-Chipotle Chicken Crispers. I love chipotle peppers and the word "crispers" got me. In my opinion, "crispers" is just a way to disguise the word "fried," but their PR department people know their job and the term sounds decidedly appealing.

In this offering, the honey in the sauce, the egg in the batter and the chicken itself need to be replaced. 

Substituting maple syrup for the honey is an obvious choice, but the honey is much thicker than maple syrup and even sweeter, so adding only maple would not cut it. The restaurant thins out the honey with water, so I've eliminated this extra liquid. Maple syrup is also more complex in flavor, so to cut the extra flavor, I used agave nectar in addition to the maple.

The egg in the batter acts as a binding agent and is replaced with flax meal, which is nutritious to boot. The crispiness of the batter results from a doubling up on the breading technique: there is a liquid batter followed by a dry breading. 

As for the chicken, the obvious, and best, choice is my Simple Chicken Seitan. After the seitan is made and cooled, it is important to squeeze out the extra moisture. When the seitan is fried the moisture is turned to steam and renders the crust soggy. Once the extra moisture is eliminated, the fried seitan retains the crispy crust, while still remaining properly moist on the inside. 

The chain serves this as a main dish with corn on the cob and fries. 

They charge over $10 for one order. 

VA Make Over:

Cost Breakdown:

seitan: $3

batter and breading: $2

sauce: $1

corn on the cob: $3 

fries: $4

oil (for frying): $2

Total to make 4 servings:

$15.00 

Their charge per Serving: $10.29

Make-Over cost per Serving: $3.75

Also, don't forget to check back on the 6th to see if you've won Fresh From the Vegan Slow Cooker Cookbook by Robin Robertson.

bennigan's (MoFo 24)

Before Norman Brinker took over Chili's, he was the founder of Bennigan's, an Irish-inspired restaurant and pub. They serve American food with an Irish twist. Some of the most popular end enduring menu items have been the Monte Cristo and Broccoli Bites.

The company was later abandoned by Brinker for greener pastures. Pillsbury, the original owners, passed the restaurant chain onto other conglomerations, among them a huge liquor distributor. Over the years, the company has degraded due in part to a lack of rolling with the times and following trends. Basically they remained stagnant in a fluid restaurant environment. The company declared bankruptcy in July 2008 and wound up closing hundreds of stores. Among the only remaining stores that stayed open were franchise-owned ones. In October 2008, the dregs of the parent company, Steak and Ale, was bought up and the new owners are now trying to turn the tides and revamp Bennigan's image, food and the establishments themselves.    

I was a server and bartender at Bennigan's for about a year in the early 2000's because hubby was laid off, but the mortgage company still insisted on their monthly payments. You could tell that things were forced and apathetic for the company, even though it was a new store I was hired for. 

As for the food, the Monte Cristo was the signature dish, if you don't count the double burger that had a knife sticking out of it in an effort to hold the monstrosity upright. The Monte Cristo is a three-layered sandwich of ham, cheese and turkey, coated in an egg batter and deep fried. Now I am not exactly sure who looked at a sandwich and thought it would be a good idea to deep fry it, but then I am often confounded at the ludicrous things people choose to deep fry, including a stick of butter. Why?

However, I am not here to ask 'why?' just here to make the food. As anyone knows who has tried to recreate deep fried egg batters, it is not an easy endeavor. And since I figure there might be someone who does NOT choose to deep-fry their sandwich, I have offered a grilled version of it. Not the same, but not bad either...and not as bad for you. The batter is made with tofu and once a light dusting of flour is on the battered sandwich, the batter does not dissolve in the hot oil.

Broccoli Bites is one of those appetizers that I served a lot of, but one that isn't even vegetarian, with the inclusion of bacon bits. I omitted the bacon bits completely, but if you'd like to add some vegan tvp bacon bits or crumbled Fakin Bakin or something like that, the option is there. The broccoli, once pulsed fine in a food processor, is mixed with finely grated vegan cheese and formed into balls. The balls are then frozen to help them stay together during frying. They are coated in milk-flour-bread crumbs and fried. Baking is an option also. The balls flatten a  bit with this process, but the broccoli cooks more and they are still crispy and golden.

Yup, more brewskie is recommended here and perhaps a strong stomach if you dare to try the Monte Cristo as it was originally intended to be eaten by the good folks at Bennigan's.

Monte Cristo

Monte Cristo - grilled

Broccoli Bites

BROCCOLI BITES PRINTER-FRIENDLY RECIPE

chili's (MoFo 23)

Chili's was started in Dallas in 1975 as basically a hamburger place. It was bought by Norman Brinker in 1983, by which time it had expanded to thirty stores. After Norman acquired the place, he added Fajitas to the menu, a finger food of southwestern-marinated and grilled meats served sizzling on a cast-iron skillet. The meat and vegetables are arranged in a soft flour tortilla or corn tortilla, with the addition of pico de gallo, sour cream, cheese or guacamole. Most people have by now heard of or have eaten fajitas, thanks in large part to Chili's who made it part of our culture. 

I have made my fajitas with tofu, seitan and portobellos, but, really, any combination of delicious vegetables will work wonderfully, including squash, other mushrooms, cauliflower, broccoli and carrots. Skip potatoes in this. It is too starchy.

Along with burgers, fajitas, soups and pastas, salads are a large part of Chili's - in this generation, any way. One of their best selling salad is the Caribbean Salad, a melange of greens, onion, pineapple, dried cherries and Honey-Lime Dressing, topped with marinated, grilled meat. It isn't difficult at all to substitute the honey with maple syrup in the dressing and use grilled tofu or grilled seitan for the chicken. 

Lastly, I replicated their Chicken Enchilada Soup, which uses masa harina as the thickener and has a few ounces short of a ton of cheese. Substituting the chicken is easy - I used chickpeas, but omitting it totally is great as well, or using tofu cubes or seitan. As for the cheese, you need something creamy and tangy - I used Better Than Cream Cheese and Better Than Sour Cream. Not too much, but just enough to take it into Chili's realm. This was a winner by a mile and I encourage you to try it - it is super easy and quick - on top of being delicious.

Enchilada Soup

Caribbean Salad

Enchilada Soup