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

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vegan vegetarian meatless plant-based

chicken-free rice soup

Overview

Time: 30 minutes
Dishes: large pot, rice cooker

Hello, hello Dear Readers!

Tasty! I thought I would have leftovers of this meatless, vegetarian and vegan dish, but wound up needing to make a second batch. It's easy, too, so that wasn't a big deal.

This is really just a simple rice soup with a delicious broth. I used brown rice, so that always makes it take 15 minutes longer, using Instant Pot, so something to keep in mind.

The recipe calls for Easy Savory Broth Mix which you can find HERE or use any chicken-like broth mix, but don't skimp on it if the flavor is a bit bland. 

I used Gardein today, but I can see this with tofu, beans, zucchini or green beans or a plethora of other vegetables, so don't be afraid to try different ingredients. Keep the broth and rice and substitute your heart out.

Enjoy!

Speedy Cooking Tips:

• Start the rice first.
• Cook the scallopini using a lid. 
• Chop the vegetables while it cooks. Add the vegetables and then take out the scallopini to avoid using another dish.
• Use a lid to cook the vegetables and soup, too.

 

Chicken-Free Rice Soup

Makes 4 servings 

easy

1. Rice: Cook the rice as desired, in a rice cooker or Instant Pot.

1 cup rice, any kind

2. Protein: Spray the bottom of a large pot with oil. Add the scallopini and cook, covered, over medium heat, until golden on both sides, about 10 minutes. Remove to the cutting board and chop when cool.

oil spray

4 Gardein scallopini

3. Soup: Add the oil and vegetables to the now empty pot. Cover and cook over medium-high heat for 5 minutes, stir as needed:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, diced

2 carrots, diced

2 celery ribs, diced

1 teaspoon minced garlic

salt

4. Broth: Add the seasoning to the Soup and cook for 1 minutes. Add the water and cover. Cook over medium-high heat until the carrots are tender, about 10 minutes.

2 tablespoons Easy Savory Broth Mix**

8 cups water

5. Finish: Add the Rice, Protein and greens. Cook for another 5 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning. Serve

4 cups baby spinach or baby kale

 

 

 

** Substitute for Savory Broth Mix: 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes, 1 teaspoon thyme, 1 teaspoon sage and 1 teaspoon oregano. 

© 2020 Copyright Zsu Dever. All rights reserved.

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firecracker chickpeas and vegetables

Meal 2 of Week 4 Prep Ahead menu is Firecracker Chickpeas and Vegetables.  This delicious dish is full of vegetables and beans and is cooked in a spicy chili sauce.

This fiery dish is very versatile because you can adjust the heat level to suit your taste. You can use the called-for jalapeno or not. Or you can use 3 jalapenos. You can increase the garlic chili sauce or reduce it - the choice is yours.

This is a very easy and quick dish to make - made even faster as a Prep Ahead meal, but can still be ready in around 30 minutes, if you make the rice using my Fast and Easy Brown Rice recipe.

The dish is served with steamed broccoli but you can serve it with mustard greens, bok choy or even cauliflower.

Firecracker Chickpeas and Vegetables

Serves 4 to 6 

Firecracker sauce ingredients:

1/3 cup ketchup

1/2 cup vegetable broth

1 tablespoon garlic chili sauce

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon reduced-sodium tamari

1 teaspoon cornstarch

1 teaspoon sweetener

12 ounces broccoli, cut into florets

2 bell peppers, sliced

1 jalapeno, seeded and minced (use gloves if needed)

1/2 medium onion, sliced

1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas (2 cups cooked)

3 cups cooked rice

1. Combine the ketchup, vegetable broth, garlic chili sauce, garlic, tamari, cornstarch and sweetener in a small bowl. Stir very well and set aside. 

2. Steam the broccoli until tender. 

3. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the sliced peppers and onions. Stir-fry (cook, stirring constantly) until lightly charred. Add the chickpeas, cook to heat. Mix the sauce and add to the vegetables. Cook until thickened. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Serve the stir-fry with the broccoli and rice.

© 2017 Copyright Zsu Dever. All rights reserved.

curried chickpea soup

The final meal of Prep Ahead Week 3 menu plan is Curried Chickpea Soup with Seasoned Pita. This soup is packed with nutrition and flavor, but it doesn't require a ton of exotic ingredients. A curry powder (preferably homemade), a cinnamon stick, fresh ginger and garlic supply all the interesting flavors needed.

The heft of the soup is made up of brown rice, chickpeas, spinach and carrots. Because the rice is cooked in the soup, it takes a shorter time to cook than regular brown rice is typically cooked. (See my Fast and Easy Brown Rice for cooking brown rice as an accompaniment.)

The pita bread is simply brushed with vegetable broth, seasoned with salt and pepper and toasted or broiled until crisp. The soup is perfect for a cold night and is ready fast.

Curried Chickpea Soup
Serves 4 to 6 

2 celery ribs, cut thin
1 medium onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1-inch knob ginger, finely grated
1 jalapeno pepper, minced
2 teaspoons curry powder, Zsu's Curry Powder or store-bought
1 cinnamon stick
1 cup brown rice
1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas (2 cups cooked), rinsed and drained
8 cups water

1 bunch spinach, chopped

4 pita breads
1 tablespoon vegetable broth

1. Heat a large pot over medium heat. Add  the celery, onions and carrots. Cover the pot and cook until golden. Stir often and add a splash of water, if needed. Add the garlic, ginger, jalapeno, curry powder, cinnamon stick and the rice. Toast, stirring, until the rice is aromatic.
2. Add the chickpeas and water. Cover, bring to boil and reduce to a strong simmer. Cook uncovered until the rice is tender, about 25 minutes. Add the spinach. Cook until wilted, about 1 minute. Remove the cinnamon stick. Taste and add salt and pepper.
3. Brush the pita with vegetable broth and season with salt and pepper.  Toast until crisp. Serve the pita with the soup.


© 2017 Copyright Zsu Dever. All rights reserved.

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pantry + brazilian black bean casserole

Baked casserole dishes are a fantastic way to have dinner on the table in a descent amount of time with a lot of hands off work. This recipe has about 10 minutes on the stove before it is assembled completely and placed in the oven to finish cooking. 

This dish is Pantry + and it is whole foods, using brown rice, beans and cabbage as the base of the meal. The cabbage serves as a delicious cooling accompaniment accented with roasted corn. 

This casserole is very flavorful thanks to the Latin all-purpose seasoning called, adobo, but here we will make our own. It really is a simple matter of combining a few spices to create a different flavor dimension. 

The casserole is rich and delicious and the salad is tangy and sweet, thanks to the roasted corn. All in all, it has all the flavor components of a great tasting meal: sour, sweet, salty, and spicy.

Brazilian Black Bean Casserole:

Equipment:

large oven-safe pot

blender

mandolin

oven

Pantry Ingredients:

Red pepper flakes

Jarred tomato

Black beans

White wine vinegar

Adobo

Fresh Ingredients:

Brown rice

Onion

Ginger

Thyme

Cabbage

Bell pepper

Frozen corn

First things first, let's make the adobo seasoning:

Either just mix together, or better, yet, blend the ingredients in a small blender to break up the oregano. If you have Mexican oregano, use that, but otherwise regular will work just as well. 

Using a large Dutch oven or just an oven safe pot with a lid (or use foil to seal the pot), cook the onions in a dry pan (use a lid to cover the pot to retain the moisture) until golden. Add the adobo and the tomatoes and mix well. Use an immersion blender or transfer the mixture to a standard blender and process until broken up. 

Add the rice, thyme, beans, spice and liquid, mix well, and cook in the oven tightly sealed until the rice is tender, about 1 hour. 

In the meantime, use a mandolin to finely shred the cabbage and mix it with roasted corn (roast the corn in the oven during the last 25 minutes of cooking), bell pepper and vinegar and set aside to meld flavors. 

This is scrumptious and very healthy since there is no oil used and it is made with whole foods.
This makes about 6 to 8 servings, so leftovers are terrific.

Brazilian Black Bean Casserole (a Pantry+ recipe)
Makes 6 to 8 servings
Pantry list is HERE.

1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 (15-ounce) can of diced tomatoes
2 tablespoons adobo seasoning (recipe for homemade HERE)
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes or 1 dried red chili
2 (15-ounce) cans black beans, liquid drained and reserved
Water, as needed
2 cups long grain brown rice
Sea salt

Salad:
1/2 small head cabbage, finely shredded
1 small green or red bell pepper, diced
1 cup roasted corn***
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon adobo seasoning

1. Preheat the oven to 350-degrees F. Heat a large dutch oven or large oven-safe pot over medium heat. Add the onion, cover and cook until golden brown, stirring occasionally. Add a tablespoon of water if the onion begins to stick. Add the tomato and the adobo seasoning.  Blend using an immersion blender or transfer to a standard blender. 
2. Add the drained bean water to a 4-cup measuring cup. Add enough water to reach 3 3/4 cups. Add the water mixture to the pot. Add the rice, red pepper flakes, beans and salt. Bring to boil and cover tightly with a lid or foil. Bake in the preheated oven until the rice is tender, about 1 hour. 
3. Salad: Combine the cabbage, bell pepper, corn, vinegar and adobo in a medium bowl. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and black pepper or adobo. Set aside until needed.
4. Serve the casserole with the salad. Leftovers reheat well.  

*** Transfer the corn to a small baking sheet. Bake in the oven during the last 25 minutes of cooking of the casserole. 



© 2016 Copyright Zsu Dever. All rights reserved.

bulgogi spring rolls

Although I have a more authentic (and still easy-to-make) recipe for Korean Bulgogi - which is barbecue that is served in lettuce leaves - in my cookbook Vegan Bowls [Amazon, B&N], I wanted to make a more portable version of this dish, so putting it into rice roll wrappers seemed to be the answer.

This version is simpler and less traditional, but still very delicious in its own right. I used my SteaK Setian recipe for this (found HERE), but you can also use portobello mushrooms or even tofu, if you like. The seitan is quite delicious, though, and isn't difficult to make at all.

The seitan is grilled to perfection after marinating in the sweet and salty mixture for a little while (or overnight) and is then chopped into strips.

The seitan is then rolled into rice spring roll wrappers along with rice noodles (I used udon noodles here), carrots, lettuce leaves, scallions and the ssamjang sauce, which is a spicy paste (here turned into a sauce) that usually accompanies Korean barbecue.

Although the recipe calls for doenjang (a fermented soybean paste) and gochujang (a spicy chili pepper paste), you can use dark miso (not white - it is too sweet) and sriracha as substitutes.

It is very important that you don't soak the rice paper for a long time; soak it only until it is pliable. It will soften up further as it sits with the moist ingredients rolled into it. A mistake folks often make is soaking it too long (please, ignore the package directions to soak for up to a minute) and then having the paper fall apart on them before they have a chance to roll it up. Remember: only until it is pliable.

Now, go forth and create your own masterpiece.

Bulgogi Spring Rolls 

Serves 4

Marinade:

2 tablespoons vegetable broth

1 1/2 tablespoons reduced-sodium tamari

1 tablespoon date paste*** or sugar

1/2 medium apple, cored and chopped

2 medium garlic cloves

1/2 order Seitan SteaK or 4 portobello mushrooms, stems removed and gills scraped out

Sauce:

2 tablespoons hot water

1 tablespoons doenjang or dark miso

1 tablespoon date paste*** or sugar

1 to 2 teaspoons gochujang or sriracha

1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds 

Rolls:

8 (9-inch) spring roll wrappers

8 small lettuce leaves

1 large carrot, julienned

3 scallions, minced

4 ounces dry rice noodles or udon, cooked and cooled under running water, reserve the hot water for the spring roll wrappers

1. Combine the broth, tamari, sweetener, apple and garlic in a small blender. Blend until smooth. Transfer to a shallow pan and add the seitan. Coat well and set aside to marinade, from 10 to 60 minutes. 

2. Heat a grill pan over medium heat for 4 minutes. Spray with oil and add the seitan. Cook, about 4 minutes per side, basting as needed. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool. When cool, cut into strips.

3. Make the sauce by combining the hot water, doenjang, sweetener, gochujang and sesame seeds in a small bowl. Mix well until everything is dissolved. 

4. Dip a spring roll wrapper into the hot water reserved from the pasta and soak for 5 to 10 seconds, depending on how hot the water is. Soak only until the wrapper is pliable. It will soften once you add the other moist ingredients. Add a lettuce leaf and spread with the sauce. Add some seitan, carrots, scallions, and noodles. Roll up like a burrito, from the back roll to halfway and then fold in the sides. Finally roll it all the way up.  Serve or store, covered, for later enjoyment. 

*** Date Paste: Pit 10 medjool dates. Add to a mason jar and fill with enough water to cover, about 1 cup. Soften overnight in the fridge. Blend until very smooth, including the soaking liquid.  

© 2016 Copyright Zsu Dever. All rights reserved.

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avgolemono soup + "cook the pantry" winner

The Greek soup, Avgolemono, has been on my mind for the past year or so, ever since I saw it being prepared on a cooking show. This classic soup is often made with rice and chicken, but it is always flavored with lemon and thickened with egg yolks, giving it its characteristic pale yellow color.

I redid this soup, not so much with authenticity in mind, unlike most other recipes I create, where that is a central theme of mine: authenticity but with better, kinder, vegan ingredients. Instead, this time I just wanted to play with the fall produce that is currently available. Lemon, kale and dill.

I simply love kale and using it to replace the chicken is such a great switch, especially since kale and lemon are a natural flavor-match. Add some dill, which is a flavor-match with lemon, and you have a bright, sunny summer-y dish in the middle of autumn.

In addition to flavor profiles, I also wanted this recipe to be very quick and very easy. This recipe needs only 9 ingredients, including water, salt and black pepper (not pictured below.)

It is a very basic soup recipe that starts with great quality vegetable broth. Most store-bought vegetable broths these days are golden in color and taste great, so if that is what you have on hand, this is a very speedy soup dish. If your broth is not dark golden color, omit the 2 cups of water from the soup and increase the broth to 5 cups. Easy fix.

While your rice is cooking in the broth....

Heat your pot of water for the kale. Cooking the kale separately in a good quantity of water will help draw out most of its bitterness. This same "bitter" remedy is perfect for collard greens as well, just make sure to cook collards for around 15 to 20 minutes, instead of 5 minutes, as collards are much tougher.

Don't forget to save your cooking water, cool it and water your plants with it.

After the rice is cooked, add the cooked kale, fresh dill and lemon juice mixed with the starch. Instead of eggs (which actually bring no flavor to the soup at all, since the lemon is such a dominant flavor), this version is thickened with arrowroot (or cornstarch). It leaves the soup silky and smooth, as does its egg counterpart. Add lemon juice to taste as some people find it very assertive.

That's it! It's done! It is a delicious, tangy first course or light supper when you don't want something too heavy to weigh you down overnight. You can also use short grain brown rice instead of the Arborio, but cook it longer, around 20 minutes.

Now for the anticipated winner of Cook the Pantry (Amazon, B&N)  by Robin Robertson...

The winner is Janel Gradowski. Congratulations! Please contact me so I can get the book to you!

Avgolemono Soup with Kale and Rice
Prep and cook in 30 minutes
Serves 4 

4 ounces kale, tough stems removed and cut into ribbons
3 cups good quality vegetable broth
2 cups water
1/2 cups arborio rice
1 tablespoon minced dill
1 to 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon arrowroot or cornstarch
Sea salt and black pepper

1. Heat a large pot half-full with water to boiling. Add the kale and cook until the kale is tender, about 5 minutes. Drain and set aside.
2. Combine the broth, 2 cups fresh water and rice in a medium pot. Bring to boil, reduce to simmer and cook until the rice is almost tender, about 8 to 10 minutes. Add the kale and dill. Season with salt and black pepper. Simmer until hot.
3. Combine the lemon juice (smaller amount) with the starch and mix well. Add to the simmering soup and heat the soup just until it thickens. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt, black pepper and more lemon juice.


 © 2015 Copyright Zsu Dever. All rights reserved.