chili's make over

This is Take Two for the Chili's Make Over. Take One is here.

I won't rehash the fabulous casual dining experience that Chili's offers, but head right into the heart of the blog. 

The steak.

I have been wanting to recreate 'steak' ever since, well,... we went vegan. It hasn't been easy and I am not saying this is the end-all to the endeavor, but, damn, it's good! Chili's offers a Cajun Ribeye on their menu which has Cajun seasoning, au jus, and Cajun butter. It is served with mashed potatoes and veggies. I chose this as the first steak to make because it has other components that take the focus off the meat. This would make it more probable that the steak would taste like a steak. Not the steak, mind you, but a steak-like product.

This is seitan in its simplest form - basically vital wheat gluten, tamari, oil, stock and steak sauce. Steak sauce is vegan, ironically. The real secret is not in the gluten itself, but how it is prepared. After the gluten flour is mixed with the liquid it needs to sit for around 24 hours  6 hours. It is then rolled very thin (possible after all that sitting) and cooked low and slow, for about 2 hours. 

Now that the gluten has become a SteaK, it is grilled in a grill pan with a good bit of oil. Although most of the oil drips off into the grates, the oil is important because our seitan has practically no fat, but the flesh it mimics does. 

 Our Cajun SteaK is then topped with au jus and the Cajun butter. 

O.M.G.

You WANT this. Really.

It is um-mazing. In fact, the family has informed me that we will be having this often. Even as I write, there is another batch sitting and waiting to be baked.

Onto the contest winner of Fresh From the Vegan Slow Cooker by Robin Robertson.

Random.org generated result is comment #17, in2insight. Email me with your mailing address at veganaide (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Congrats! And everyone, thanks for entering. It really is an amazing slow cooker cookbook. I have her first one and this supreme! It is worth the cost of $11.32.

Cost Breakdown

SteaK:

gluten, oil: $2

stock, sauce, tamari: $4

Total to make 8 thin SteaKs:

$6.00

CAJUN STEAK PRINTER-FRIENDLY RECIPE

SteaK Seitan Recipe

california pizza kitchen make over

Not to be outdone by New York and Chicago, California introduced the west coast's version of pizza in the 1980's. It takes New York style thin crust and serves it up with California cuisine which integrates different cooking styles and local ingredients.

California Pizza Kitchen made this style of pizza popular by serving it in a casual dining environment. Pizzas such as Original BBQ Chicken and Jamaican Jerk Chicken, are being served around the country and internationally.

I couldn't leave well enough alone, even though I said I'd only make one dish, so here are two pizzas, but totally unconventional, with nary a tomato in sight. These crispy, sweet, loaded pizzas are a surprising culinary adventure.

The Original BBQ Pizza has chicken, onion, cheese, BBQ sauce and cilantro. So what is absolutely vegan and BBQ-y? Beans. I used navy beans because I didn't want the pizza overwhelmed with the texture of beans and the navy bean is dense, firm and small. I baked them in the sauce before adding them to the pizza. It works! The onions gets almost caramelized and the sauce of choice of the chain is a sweet and spicy one. Really delicious.

The second pizza I made was the Jerk Pizza. This one originally comes with chicken, onion, bacon, roasted peppers and green onions with a sweet Caribbean sauce. I used marinated tofu as my chicken sub and used my Tofu Bacon. The tofu needs to be pressed really well (6 hours in Tofu Xpress), but only needs to marinate about 30 minutes. The marinade is a very strong chicken-style broth. This was delightful as well.

The dough needs to proof overnight and the oven needs to preheat at 500 for an hour, so plan on making this in the winter.

If you've been hankering for CPK or just curious about all the fuss, get baking. 
It's worth the experience.

How did I do?
The chain charges $12.75 for each pizza.

Original BBQ:

crust: $2
beans: $2
onions, cilantro, sauce: $1.50
vegan cheese: $4
Total for 2 pizzas:
$9.50

Their charge per Pizza: $12.75

Make-Over cost per Pizza: $4.75

Jerk:

crust: $2

tofu, pepper, tofu bacon: $3

onions, green onion, sauce: $1

vegan cheese: $4

Total for 2 pizzas:

$10.00

Their charge per Pizza: $12.75

Make-Over cost per Pizza: $5.00

Original BBQ Pizza

Jerk Pizza

JERK PIZZA PRINTER-FRIENDLY RECIPE

Original BBQ Pizza